Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

[charliebrown]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

OK, I got the whole scoop.

Just as I said, plumbing, electrical, sometimes appliances and hvac will have to be replaced. My Brother-in-law will generally estimate at $30 sq/ft.

Yes the house may smell like rotten eggs. You can get used to it, you only really notice it if you have been out for awhile. other signs are nickel jewelry corroding. Bare copper will turn black. Sometimes a switch plate is removed and the exposed wire is checked.

Remediation takes 2 months, the family must be re-located.

Seems like only a few companies were producing the drywall. Most came in through a port in florida. It is mainly homes in the s.e. that are effected. estimates are 2 million linear feet were imported. That is enough for roughly 20,000 homes. The source is thought to be the use of industrial fly ash that was mixed into the gypsum.

[Jam]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

I believe it is outgassing H2S. Which is not all that harmful. I think H2S is soluable in water, therefore disposing of the board in a land "wet" landfill would be OK, except I guess would leach sulfurous acid. This could probably be fixed by mixing with lime ??

Actually, H2S is rather nasty. According to Wikipedia

Hydrogen sulfide is a highly toxic and flammable gas. [...]
[It] is considered a broad-spectrum poison, meaning that it can poison several different systems in the body, although the nervous system is most affected. The toxicity of H₂S is comparable with that of hydrogen cyanide.

What is interesting, though, is that it has a strong smell of rotting eggs--0.0047 ppm (parts per million) is considered the recognition level, which is way below the harmful concentration. So, I would think that people would have smelled it inside the house if it were out-gassing.

[santafe2]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

OK, I got the whole scoop.

Just as I said, plumbing, electrical, sometimes appliances and hvac will have to be replaced. My Brother-in-law will generally estimate at $30 sq/ft.

Yes the house may smell like rotten eggs. You can get used to it, you only really notice it if you have been out for awhile. other signs are nickel jewelry corroding. Bare copper will turn black. Sometimes a switch plate is removed and the exposed wire is checked.

Remediation takes 2 months, the family must be re-located.

Seems like only a few companies were producing the drywall. Most came in through a port in florida. It is mainly homes in the s.e. that are effected. estimates are 2 million linear feet were imported. That is enough for roughly 20,000 homes. The source is thought to be the use of industrial fly ash that was mixed into the gypsum.

Good customer of mine in the South Eastern US is also a home builder. He still talks about how thankful he is that he stayed with US manufactured goods when several of his competitors were using cheap drywall. The lawyers have only begun to make money on this issue.

[touchring]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

my brother-in-law has a construction business in florida. After the RE bust this is his only line of dependable work, replacing chinese drywall.

He has been doing this for about 2 years now. The thing is why is this a story now? ammunition in a brewing trade war?

I guess this is how China boosts the American economy. Since most Chinese products must be replaced after 1 or 2 years, there's a constant stream of 'jobs.'

[don]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

Get ready to hear a lot more about the C-MDPL2, aka the Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation.

US lawsuits may flood China drywalls
By Peter J Brown

United States federal judge Eldon Fallon dropped a bombshell on the Chinese drywall sector in a ruling that could require intervention of the Chinese and United States governments as the repair bill for homes damaged by the presence of the building material may reach billions of dollars.

In a 108-page ruling issued on April 8 on behalf of seven homeowners in Virginia, Judge Fallon awarded more than US$481,000 to one family alone. The judge has been presiding in New Orleans over a consolidated class action lawsuit known as the "Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation" which combines several lawsuits from different US states.

The ruling could lead to a flood of lawsuits in US state courts around the country involving builders and suppliers after all sorts of problems surfaced in thousands of homes where drywall - gypsum plaster panels used to construct interior walls and ceilings - made in China was installed early in the past decade.

"There are cases set for trial in June in Florida against builders; and, in September, there are seven cases set to go against the homeowners' builders, installers and distributors of the Chinese drywall," said Julie Quinn, a state senator from Louisiana, where many of the damaged homes are located.

The judge's decision focused on drywall made by one company, Shandong Taihe Dongxin, which on September 10, 2007, changed its name to Taishan Gypsum. Yet, it is another Chinese drywall company, state-owned Beijing New Building Material PLC (BNBM), that stands out because of its ties via the China National Building Material Company, Limited (CNBM Co., Ltd) and China National Building Material Group Corporation (AS CNBM Group) on up to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (SASAC). BNBM holds a controlling interest in Shandong Taihe Dongxin.

Judge Fallon's ruling clearly defines the role of the SASAC, which is directly controlled by the State Council, the central government's cabinet. A long passage in the ruling (edited and abbreviated in the notes) explains how the companies are connected to the SASAC.

In his ruling the judge made it clear that, "by any recognized standard, high levels of corrosive gases are present in the representative homes. This condition is clearly irritating and harmful to residents and destructive to property. It has to be remediated. The challenge for the Court is to determine the scope of this remediation."

He then proceeded to order that all drywall, all electrical wires, all copper pipes, and all a/c units in the damaged homes "be replaced". Also on his list are selective electrical devices and appliances, flooring - in certain instances - carpets, cabinets, trim, and bathroom fixtures, among other things.

"Accordingly, all Chinese drywall must be removed from the Plaintiff-intervenors' homes. There seems to be little or no dispute on this issue. There is dispute, however, over the scope of remediation where the home contains both Chinese drywall and non-Chinese drywall. The issue is whether all drywall should be removed or only the problematic drywall in this case. The overwhelming evidence reveals that in such mixed structures it is necessary to remove all the drywall, both Chinese and other," Judge Fallon said.

The lawsuit could mushroom into an urgent matter for the governments of China and the US to resolve because billions of dollars may be needed to repair all the damaged homes.

"As publicity has become more frequent, more homeowners have had the opportunity to question whether their home may have been affected,'' said Quinn in Louisiana. ''It is believed, based upon the invoices we have from suppliers and distributors, as well as from the manufacturers themselves, that there are thousands more homeowners across the US who have Chinese drywall in their homes and are unaware of it. We know for a fact that tonnes of drywall has been installed in far more homes than are participants in the litigation.''

Some builders, "are estimating that a minimum remediation effort will cost at least $75,000 per home with an approximate square footage of 2,000. The cost will go up from there based on square footage and the adequacy of the remediation being suggested." [5]

In his ruling, Judge Fallon awarded a total of US$2.6 million to the seven Virginia families. The lowest amount awarded to one homeowner was just under US$89,000 and the highest amount awarded was over US$481,000. The others were between US$ 350,000 to US$ 450,00 per household.

Average cost per household: $86 per foot.

There are a few throat-clearing caveats....

Reimbursing families for the expenses they incur to vacate their homes during the estimated four to six months for the repair work to be completed is another matter entirely.

And then there are the health issues.

"The health perspective has not been litigated yet. However, there has been a finding by the CPSC of common health complaints," said Quinn.

Despite all the publicity and the flood of lawsuits, American homeowners remain vulnerable to foreclosure. Those in Virginia, for example, have little to no financial protection from being foreclosed upon by their lenders when living in their homes is no longer an option.

"They have little to no protection from their homeowner insurance carriers who are consistently denying all the claims - again, leaving the homeowner without any financial means to remediate a home," said Quinn. "And they have little to no relief in some states against builders who are insulated from liability due to home builder warranty acts - which essentially shield builders from any liability in installing a product that renders a home unliveable."

There is also a very good chance that no matter what any US court may decide, the owners of these damaged homes will not see a single dollar coming their way.

Gee, I wonder who would :rolleyes:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_.../LD10Dj01.html

[don]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

Latest reading of the drywall mold prints....no, not Jesus. More fundamentally American- lawsuits. Who will, and won't, most likely roll over on this one.

Expensive lessons in drywall debacle

The search for culprits in the drywall disaster appears likely to be blinkered by the Chinese government, forcing affected American homeowners to pursue damages from U.S. companies that used the defective wallboard instead of the companies that actually made it.

The money at stake will be significant, although its arrival is probably years away.

Forbes magazine reported last week that at $200,000 each, the cost of repairing homes with the defective wallboard may come to $5.4 billion, making it one of the largest product-safety cases in history.

(In construction defect litigation, suing the manufacturer is rare. Much cheaper and quicker- relative terms- to sue the contractors. The issues have to be big ones to warrant the manufacturers course of action.)

The price tag for some homes is already coming in substantially higher. A federal judge in New Orleans last week awarded $2.6 million in damages to seven Hampton Roads homeowners, according to reporting by The Pilot's Josh Brown.

The judge, Eldon Fallon, ruled that all drywall had to be ripped out of the houses, along with anything corroded by the sulfur gas - including wiring, plumbing, appliances, carpet, cabinets. In some cases, the houses will have to be rebuilt from studwork.

The $2.6 million judgment against Taishan Gypsum Co. is sadly likely to be futile. The company didn't respond to the suit in the first place, didn't defend itself and hasn't commented. According to Forbes, it appears to be protected behind a wall of Chinese government entanglements.

Forbes speculated that the Chinese companies are likely to pursue a defense - if they bother to do so - claiming some form of sovereign immunity from U.S. damages.

So that leaves American home-owners to pursue wallboard distributors like Norfolk-based Venture Supply, which imported 150,000 sheets of drywall from Tai-shan, or the builders that used it, which includes some of America's largest.

"We thought this should start appropriately with the Chinese, because they got the ball rolling by manufacturing it," said Norfolk lawyer Richard Serpe, who represents the homeowners. "But there's plenty of blame to go around. We're going to proceed against everyone simultaneously until these homeowners are made whole. "

If homeowners are made whole - and some have already been forced into bankruptcy - the recompense is unlikely to come from Tai-shan, a fact that should be instructive.

Assuming the best about their suppliers, builders chose Chinese drywall because it was available and cheaper at a time supplies from American manufacturers were depleted by the housing boom. Now, it appears that Chinese wallboard will end up costing a great deal more than anyone at the time could have envisioned.

In the case of some American builders, it may well end up carrying costs they simply will not be able to repay.

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/04/expe...rywall-debacle

[roxtar]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

Love to hear the details. The MSM coverage quoted a $100,000 cost- bet that's not what your brother-in-law is seeing. ;)

Yeah, from my time in construction, $100K just rip all the drywall out of a house seems a little steep. :rolleyes:

[Ghent12]

Re: Coming: Drywall Stimulus?

Assuming the best about their suppliers, builders chose Chinese drywall because it was available and cheaper at a time supplies from American manufacturers were depleted by the housing boom. Now, it appears that Chinese wallboard will end up costing a great deal more than anyone at the time could have envisioned.

In the case of some American builders, it may well end up carrying costs they simply will not be able to repay.

Chinese Environmentalism: export the toxins and poisons to dollar-chasing Americans.

Global Balance of Trade: America outsources 'surplus' jobs and manufacturing; China outsources 'surplus' toxic waste.