Posted on 05/31/2009 5:10:46 AM PDT by IbJensen
There's something rotten in Homestead.
It's the odor in Jason and Melissa Harrell's house, which was built with defective, Chinese-made drywall redolent of strong paint or rotten eggs. The smell got so bad that the Harrells felt forced to move. They now pay rent on top of their mortgage.
''What it boiled down to is, I had to choose between my financial health and my children's physical health,'' Melissa Harrell said.
When the sulfurous stink in Gary and Andrea Suhajcik's Boynton Beach home wouldn't go away, the builder offered to rip out the walls, wiring, plumbing and molding in hopes of making it livable.
Builders and homeowners have feuded over construction defects, real and imagined, since the first slab was poured in the first house in the first subdivision somewhere in suburbia. But South Florida has never seen anything quite like the curse of the Chinese drywall. Tens of thousands of homes were built with the material, which was brought in by boat from the Far East when the demand for drywall exploded during the building boom.
Aside from the odor, scientific studies by the Florida Department of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency found that drywall made by Chinese manufacturers distinctly differs from North American-made product and emits high levels of three volatile sulfur compounds, which can corrode copper piping -- like the kind in appliances -- and blacken copper wiring in electrical outlets and light switches.
No scientific study to date has linked the drywall to any specific health problems.
And yet, Michael McGeehin, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's environmental health division, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance: ``There's no doubt that corrosive material is causing health problems.''
COUNTING THE COST
Buyers are suing. Occupants are fleeing. And builders are, in some cases, tearing out walls and rebuilding at a staggering cost.
Although the problem is most prevalent in Florida, the defective drywall was used in at least 18 states between 2004 and 2008. Some estimate the cost of addressing the problem could rise to $1 trillion.
Dajan Green and her mother bought a four-bedroom townhome in the Silver Palms community in Homestead, built by Lennar in 2006. By buying something new, she hoped to spare herself the problems that plague older homes, like corroded galvanized pipe.
''You know: Everything is new. You don't have any issues,'' said Green, 28.
Wrong.
The air conditioner's copper coils turned black. Jewelry, including a bracelet her brother gave her to celebrate her sweet sixteen, turned black too.
And, more disturbingly, her 7-year-old son became lethargic, a condition she blames on the home -- although there is no proof.
They would leave, Green said, but they can't pay the mortgage and rent somewhere else.
''What are we going to do? We're stuck,'' she said.
Lennar, which says it isn't commenting at this time, has litigation pending against the drywall manufacturer. At the time the suit was filed, it issued a news release declaring: ``Lennar is acting promptly to correct the problem in the homes we delivered.''
The first concerns about a possible problem arose at least five years ago. A Fort Myers environmental health firm investigated complaints but didn't link them to foreign-made drywall for about two years.
Then came the first lawsuit -- the first of many, both class action and individual. The target of the suit, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin hired its own lab, which found that the drywall emitted sulfur-containing compounds at unnaturally high concentrations but said it should not be considered a public health problem.
What is an FB unit ? Is that the scrubber system to reduce CO2 or whatever gasses from coal fired electric generation ?
At the end of this article which dwells on the consumers woes and ills dwelling on the stuff comming from China.
But not on the sources which would have been helfull,
The article concluds after umpteen paragraphs with finnally mentioning Knauf Plasterboard (a German plasterboard manufacturer) of Tiayin China as the source of the questionable gypsum. But were they the co-owners of the plant making the stuff or a was this a subcontracted deal with the plant which manufactured the stuff under their label. In either case Knauf is responsible for the products quality but it got off lightly in this report...must have been a big Obama contributer (sarc)
Indeed. The Safety Data sheet for a U.S. made board where flyash is used, says the stuff is stable under normal conditions. However, if met with a source of ignition, HEAT or HUMIDITY, hazardous effects are produced. I wonder why no one questioned what would happen if this stuff was used in hot and humid climates, or even, in rooms where hot steam is created like bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms. Hydrogen sulfide gas was decteted in many of the homes on my street with it and the families, living for years exposed to chronic low levels have been suffering chronic health problems related to higher exposure levels. The immune system will loose tolerance to low levels and then worse symtpoms can manifest at low levels. It’s nasty stuff. Worse, it is going to take more then gutting the place down to block and studs. My house has been gutted to that level for 7 weeks now, airing out, and reeks really bad. You can choke on the gases coming out of open windows. Everything, including all of our porous furnishings, have been cross contaminated. We had to get rid of the furniture after we moved out. It was contaminated to the core and still able to cause the exposure symptoms. These homes all need to be torn down and rebuilt. BTW, it wasn’t just used in new construction homes. A local fast food chain here, used it when they remodeled 9 of there stores about 8 months ago. This problem has devasted hard working families who were playing by the rules, and trusted in our regulations, and consumer product saftey checks. Realtors in Florida are forcing people to disclose the problem, repaired or not. These homes are worthless. Banks smartly, won’t give loans on them. The check is, blackening to black copper wiring and repeated AC evaporater coil failures. After about two years time, the backs of bathroom mirrors begin corroding along with chrome in the bathrooms showing signs of blackening and pitting. One woman in NC who had chronic pnueomonia, living in a CDW house, went in for surgery to remove chronically infected tonsils. The Doctor said he never saw anything like them. Her tonsils had black holes in them too. Gross.
Not paranoia. All clothing (not just Chinese made) has stuff sprayed on them to keep them from wrinkling in shipment and on display. Some people are more sensitive than others. I too have to wash new clothing before I can wear it, or I get a rash.
Ma'am, we're from the government, we need to do a DNA analysis on your dry wall.
Evaporator coils drip constantly from surface condensation as the cycle extracts moirure from objects in the conditioned space; sulphur fumes in the presence of this ‘sweating’ converts to sulphuric acid, I guess.
True. However, this takes place at 150 to 250 ppm, or 150,000 to 250,000 ppb, not the <500 ppb that has been detected to date in affected homes.
Dosage does matter.
The two types of materials exit the power plant as two separate waste streams. Somebody could have mixed fly ash back into the synthetic gypsum at some point, but analysis of Chinese drywall has to date found no fly ash, which is quite easy to detect.
I believe our problem chiefly is the odor caused in enclosed areas like linen and clothes closets.
Your statement is based on rather short-term tests, I think. I suspect that lower levels of exposure could dull the sense of smell over time. People can lose perception of all kinds of low-level sensory inputs (e.g. their own body odor) with chronic exposure. Incidentally, really high levels of hydrogen sulfide apparently kill the olfactory sense for H2S permanently.
My response was based on the assumption that you were saying H2S has a specific effect at low levels of dulling the sense of smell. This is inaccurate. It has such an effect, one that occurs quite rapidly, but it is at relatively high levels not far below those immediately dangerous to life and health.
The issue you describe is called olfactory fatigue and is common to all odors, not specific to H2S. Anyone around a given odor for long periods of time will eventually decrease in his ability to detect it.
I’ve worked with clients who were positive their 14 cats didn’t create an odor problem in the home. Meanwhile I’m standing there with tears running down my cheeks from the ammonia levels.
No, The body loosing tolerance to low levels, then becoming able to experience the symptoms of higher level exposure at low levels, is based on OSHA/NIOSH longer term tests. Granted, all OSHA/NIOSH tests are generally done on healthy adult men, in the work place. OSHA/NIOSH has no research for CHRONIC (24/7 year after year) exposure to hydrogen sulfide, for infants, children, the elderly, sensitives and pets. In short, these families are the lab rats for such research. This chemical cocktail of sulfur compound gases has no business being found in peoples homes, which is why there have been no case specific studies to reference.
This is not new and didn’t start in China. Underwear made in NC IIRC was just as toxic back in the ‘70s. All you have to do is wash it before you wear it. Common sense is not very common thanks to the quality of our teachers.
Pretty hard to label a pine nut, I would think. Lug nuts would be a little easier.
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