JUPITER — What do environmental laboratories, building contractors, chemical manufacturers and air quality technicians all have in common?

All these businesses are hoping to be the ones to come up with a million-dollar answer that will solve the tainted Chinese drywall problem and to secure a share of the potentially lucrative remediation of thousands of homes across the country.

To be sure, the legal community has recognized the potential revenue from a bounty of lawsuits already filed in multiple states. But this month, a Chinese drywall litigation conference drew not only attorneys, but also home builders, insurance company investigators, environmental testing laboratories and construction consultants.

All are looking to cash in on what could be the biggest – and most lucrative – issue to come out of the housing boom since the mortgage crisis.

Questions and theories abound about what’s going on with the defective wallboard. That uncertainty has created a cottage industry for local entrepreneurs that want to find and implement solutions or simply offer testing of homes.
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The problems with Darryl Ledet’s new house in Prairieville started just a few months after he moved in. The bathroom mirrors grew foggy, and it became hard to make out a reflection. Not long afterward, he says, the central air unit’s evaporator coils failed.

Then, according to Ledet, his wife and 4-year-old daughter began having upper respiratory problems and unexplained nosebleeds.

His builder, Sunrise Homes, replaced the mirrors and repaired the air conditioner, but the problems soon reappeared.

Eventually the builder figured out that the house was built with “Chinese drywall,” Ledet said.

Sunrise Homes notified Ledet of the findings in April. In June, the company sent a letter saying it was not responsible for further repairs because, under Louisiana law, product defects are covered under a one-year warranty. Ledet’s warranty had expired.

Meanwhile, a contractor told Ledet it would cost about $150,000 to fix all of the problems, including pulling out the drywall and replacing the corroded electrical wiring.

The new home was supposed to solve Ledet’s housing problems — he and his family fled Terrytown in Jefferson Parish after Hurricane Katrina badly damaged their home in 2005. Now he’s displaced again.
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Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Gill S. Freeman has ordered a Sept. 14 hearing to determine if a class action can be certified for homeowners with Chinese drywall in the Keys Gate subdivision in Homestead.

The plaintiffs’ homes were constructed with what they allege was defective Chinese drywall. South Kendall Construction Corp., built the homes.

The judge also set a possible trial date for September 2010. Lawyers working on the case say it may be the first Chinese drywall case set for trial nationwide.
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Major signs that a house has a Chinese drywall problem are a sulfurlike odor and a sooty coating on uninsulated copper pipes leading to the air-conditioning’s air-handling unit, according to the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

Another early indication is the failure of the copper evaporator coils in the central air unit.

Claudette Reichel, professor of housing at the LSU AgCenter, said it appears some Chinese-produced gypsum — one of the materials used in drywall — contained more organic material and sulfur-based chemicals than the drywall made in the U.S. The sulfur compounds that cause the corrosion are produced in a chemical reaction with moisture, she said.
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If a whole building can fall due to Chinese sub-standard materials just imagine what they sell to the rest of the world!  Chinese drywall is going to be the least of our worries.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A 13-story residential building under construction in Shanghai collapsed on Saturday, killing one worker and highlighting the dangers of shoddy building in fast-urbanising China.

The building, in the outskirts of the city, collapsed at around 6 a.m. (2200 GMT), with one construction worker killed, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The block of high-rise residential flats was shown toppled onto its side in a muddy construction site, in footage from Hong Kong’s Cable Television. Exposed pilings stood in the remains of the building’s foundations.

It appeared to be almost complete with fitted windows and a finished, tiled facade. Other similar-looking blocks in the same property development were still standing nearby.

Shoddy construction and the use of sub-standard materials is a concern in China’s construction sector as the country scrambles to build out cities and finish massive infrastructure projects to keep pace with fast economic growth.

Construction-related accidents last year included the collapse of a steel arch on a new railway bridge, which killed at least seven and a crane which fell on a kindergarten killing five.

The collapse of dozens of schools during last year’s Sichuan earthquake, sometimes when buildings around them withstood the tremor, also led to a wave of public outrage about corrupt officials and construction firms.

Source

Chinese regulators have sent representatives to the United States to investigate the growing problem of the tainted Chinese drywall that is wreaking havoc in homes in Florida and other states.

Two experts with China’s General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine — known as AQSIQ — arrived in the U.S. the week of June 15, a spokesman with the Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed.

The Chinese experts met with CPSC officials in Washington for a series of “technical discussions,” and in addition traveled with CPSC investigative teams to at least two states to personally observe conditions in homes affected by the tainted drywall.
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Chinese regulators have sent representatives to the United States to investigate the growing problem of the tainted Chinese drywall that is wreaking havoc in homes in Florida and other states.

Two experts with China’s General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine — known as AQSIQ — arrived in the U.S. the week of June 15, a spokesman with the Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed.
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As builders continue to gut Chinese drywall in some of the estimated 35,000 Florida homes that contain the tainted material, state environmental officials have come up with interim guidelines on how to dispose of it.

Following them, however, may be a challenge for landfill operators, said Lindsey Sampson, Lee County solid waste director.

Garbage is disposed of according to specific categories and Chinese drywall doesn’t clearly fall into any of them. The defective drywall can come to a landfill mixed in a load of several tons of other garbage and will be impossible to separate out, Sampson said.
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Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Gill S. Freeman has ordered a Sept. 14 hearing to determine if a class action can be certified for homeowners with Chinese drywall in the Keys Gate subdivision in Homestead.

The plaintiffs’ homes were constructed with what they allege was defective Chinese drywall. South Kendall Construction Corp., built the homes.

The judge also set a possible trial date for September 2010. Lawyers working on the case say it may be the first Chinese drywall case set for trial nationwide.

High-sulfur Chinese drywall is believed responsible for strong odors, metal corrosion and health complaints in thousands of homes in Florida and the Southeast.

Federal class action suits were combined recently in New Orleans.
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In December 2008 the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) received its first complaints about problems associated with drywall imported from China between 2004 and 2007. New homeowners began complaining about a foul, sulfur-like rotten-egg smell permeating their homes, a list of health problems, corroded wiring and air ducts, and electrical systems and appliances switching off and on erratically. By February 2009 the CPSC issued a document outlining the nature of the complaints, the problems people experienced and its plan of action to investigate the complaint along with answers to several FAQs.

Not just in Florida
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