Does your home contain contaminated Chinese Drywall? This testing advice from the New York Times can help a homeowner determine if he or she is one of the thousands in over 30 states with the poisonous plasterboard.
Some ways to tell if you have Chinese Drywall in your home:
- Sulfuric smell. (Also a sign that you have descended into the less-favorable Afterworld. It's best to inspect for fire, brimstone and the tortured souls of the eternally damned to eliminate this possibility)
- Blackened metal on bathroom fixtures and copper wires, coils and pipes. (Excessive blackening may also be the work of an enthusiastic cook in the home with a penchant for Cajun recipes.)
- Appliance failure due to corroded wiring. (Could also be failed payments on electric bill, or a burglar at the electrical panel having trouble finding the main circuit breaker).
On a serious note, there are some legitimate health concerns surrounding the contaminated product, and some of the signs that your home has Chinese Drywall include headaches and difficulty breathing.
Take the test, just to be safe.
If you do have it, you can choose to rip and rebuild, or there's a new treatment option that involves decontaminating the home with chlorine dioxide. The jury is out on that process, though.
It might be too late to spare China's embarrassment over the contaminated drywall mess, but apparently it isn't too late to right their wrong.
That's what Sabre Technical Services is doing, with their chlorine dioxide decontamination process which -- once injected into the tainted drywall -- renders the problematic reduced sulfur compounds inert.
The company claims that the process requires homeowners to vacate their home for less than a week and costs less than the "rip and rebuild" alternative, which doesn't sound like much fun at all.
What would you do: Hope this is a great fix or start from scratch with new drywall?
The case of the Chinese drywall keeps getting bigger and bigger. While the Sun Sentinel estimated it cost Miami home builder, Lennar Corp., $99,500 per house to fix the tainted drywall, a Florida politician estimated that 100,000 Florida homes may be facing similar problems. The USPSC has received more than 550 complaints about the drywall, which include a rotten egg smell and wiring corrosion. It is unclear where the manufacturing went wrong, but investigators are pursuing the matter.
The eco-friendly version of gypsum drywall appears to have arrived: it is EcoRock from Serious Materials. Made of 80% recycled materials and using 80% less energy to manufacture than conventional drywall, it is also highly resistant to mold, is mercury free and can be disposed in a landfill. The company recently received formal validation of its environmental claims from third party UL Environmental, so expect to hear more about this product in the future. Has anyone used it yet? If so, fill us in on the results!
Lawsuits are now being filed in the case of the toxic imported drywall I wrote about in January. According to lawyers, tens of thousands of homes in Florida could be affected by the Chinese-made drywall that emits sulfuric gases. These gases are being blamed for corroding copper fittings and wrecking havoc with air conditioner and refrigerator coils, microwaves, computer wiring, faucets and copper tubing. So far, lawsuits have been filed in Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.
While this isn't a home improvement job per se, I did admire the boarding and painting job these guys did over their co-worker's office door as an April Fool's Day joke. The paint matches and they even installed a working electrical outlet (not recommended for non-electricians). Best April Fool's prank I've seen so far today.
Look out, mold! You don't stand a chance now that Syngenta's SPORGARD mold protection is being incorporated into National Gypsum’s XP® mold resistant gypsum board. Long a big player in agribusiness, SPORGARD marks Syngenta's move into mold protection in building materials. They have plans to incorporate their mold control chemicals into paints, coatings, insulation and engineered woods. XP with SPORGARD will make its debut at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas this week.
