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.
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.