China is contacting American authorities for information about its drywall exported to the United States in reaction to complaints that certain products are believed to be problematic, the country’s top quality supervisor said here Saturday.

The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) said it was very concerned about these reports and would investigate the case to find out the cause as soon as possible. No further details were provided.

It looks as if this problem has finally reached critical media mass, requiring an official response. Where this will go from here is anyone’s guess, though the lawsuits are piling up along the US Gulf Coast where hurricane damage and subsequent building booms caught US drywall manufacturers with much more demand than they had supply, which opened the import gates to Chinese drywall from 2005-2007. The US Senate and EPA are now involved in the investigations which have, no doubt, been the impetus for the Chinese official response. Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., Ltd. is the major company at the center of the storm. At the end of February 2009 Knauf Tianjin claimed that they didn’t have insurance to address the rapidly spreading problem and lawsuits in the US, though Knauf’s parent company, a large German multinational, is, no doubt, feeling the heat. It looks as if this will be getting a lot more public here in China now that CRI has covered the story. What this will mean for problem drywall within China is anyone’s guess, though I imagine that damage control and public relations campaigns are gearing up to full throttle on this one. Look for more Chinese domestic fallout on this one.
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Update:
The timing of the “going public” with this story is curious. Or not. Is it coincidental that it became domestically newsworthy a few hours after the conclusion of the 2009 G-20 London summit? No, that couldn’t have had anything to do with it.
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Update, Sunday afternoon 3:30 PM:
The China Daily is now running the story since late this morning, here.

Our colleague Tim Padgett in Miami has a piece today on what appears to be another problematic export from China. Some U.S. residents are discovering their houses were built using tainted drywall.

Maybe this might mean I will no longer have to write about it. We’ll see.

On the legal side of things, there is some bad news. Builders learned that Chinese drywall manufacturer Knauf does not have insurance.

“I have a letter back from that one company – and there are other manufacturers – that says they didn’t have insurance. That doesn’t mean we won’t find somebody else responsible that did,” said Geoff Gentile of the Boyle and Gentile Law Firm.

Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin is part of Knauf, a German multinational supplier of building materials with a worldwide presence in 58 countries. No insurance? Right. And I’m posting this blog entry from Mars where I’m sitting with Manny Ramirez passing one back and forth, wondering where we’re gonna find some water and a better contract than the LA Dodgers waved in his face.

One of these days this is going to become a real story on this side of the Pacific. No insurance. That ought to do it. Nahhh. Still no dead pets or small kids with kidney stones.

Though there will, no doubt, be many questions asked concerning the US drywall, currently the speculation is that these companies may have bought Chinese drywall and relabeled it as their own. Both USG and National Gypsum deny that this happened. According to the article in the NLJ

George Brincku got confirmation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that drywall was causing the problems in his home. He sent a drywall sample, a corroded brass corner from a jewelry box, a penny which had been placed in a wall for several days and other objects to Thomas W. Eagar, an MIT metallurgy professor.

The conclusion wasn’t pretty. Eagar found evidence that gases created an acidic condition. The analysis of the Brinckus’ wallboard indicated a composition of half gypsum and half cellulose. An exemplar wallboard should be 100 percent gypsum.

Curiously, back in early January when I started blogging on this story, Adam Minter from Shanghai Scrap left the following comment:

I’m aware that in some parts of south China the environmental authorities have signed off on the use of plastic e-waste as a constituent in drywall. Now, there’s no reason to believe – prima facie – that there’s anything hazardous about plastic e-waste (basically, fiberglass), but one wonders about how the waste is transformed in the drywall manufacturing process. In any event, I’m guessing that the drywall plant isn’t ISO 9000.

It continues …
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For the trail on this story, go here.

Drywall produced by Knauf Tianjin Plasterboard Co. Ltd. — one of the problematic manufacturers identified so far — made it to the inland town of Sebring, about 90 miles east of Sarasota in Highlands County, the Herald-Tribune has confirmed. Meanwhile, a national consumer advocacy group is claiming that the scope is much broader. The Washington, D.C.-based America’s Watchdog, which is partnering with high-powered attorneys across the country, says that its own investigation has found defective Chinese drywall in Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

“We think this could literally turn out to be the worst case of sick houses in U.S. history,” said Thomas Martin, the organization’s president.

The Herald-Tribune reported on Feb. 1 that shipping records show at least 550 million pounds of Chinese drywall has been offloaded at U.S. ports since 2006 — enough to build 60,000 average-size homes.

On another sour note, the Palm Beach Post is reporting that two federal agencies are being asked to look into the problem: Senator seeks Chinese drywall probe

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is asking the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to investigate whether Chinese-manufactured drywall is toxic.

The wheels on this bus just keep going round-er and round-er. Bigger and faster too. The estimates of the volume of imported Chinese drywall is also on the increase too, up from estimated 36,000 homes, as I posted 11 days ago, to 60,000 homes.

There are now 20 builders who have been fingered for using it, at least one of whom has already filed Chapter 11:

WCI believes that drywall manufactured in China may have been installed in certain portions of some homes that were built and sold prior to our Chapter 11 filing,” said Connie Boyd, WCI’s customer communication director. “We are aware of and have reviewed reports alleging that some of these drywall products may emit an odor and are associated with certain other issues.

How much possible defective drywall are we talking about? Actually, enough to build 36,000 homes:

The Florida health department’s list of complaints has grown to 75 homes, spread across 12 counties. Manatee topped the list with 23. Sarasota has nine; Charlotte one. The list could grow considerably. A Herald-Tribune analysis of shipping records found that the Chinese-made drywall imported into Florida since 2006 was enough to build 36,000 homes.

I get the feeling that if this were more melamine and dead pets, we’d be hearing a lot more about it than we are.
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Other Links:
Is Chinese Drywall the New Mold?

Residents inhabiting a dozen Southwest Florida homes are being relocated so the builder, Lennar Homes, can rip out Chinese drywall that corrodes interior fixtures and may cause long-term health hazards.

Lennar is paying all costs of relocation for the residents, including lodging, and some have already moved, according to a statement from Darin McMurray, Lennar division president.

In addition, Lennar Homes has identified 80 of its homes in Southwest Florida that appear to contain the suspect drywall and is investigating 40 more, McMurray said.

Large residential construction companies wouldn’t be taking these steps if the problems weren’t real.  This story continues to develop.

From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

MANATEE COUNTY – As the investigation into toxic Chinese drywall continues, a single street in Manatee County appears to be ground zero for the largest cluster of problem homes.

Within the Lighthouse Cove subdivision of Lennar’s Heritage Harbour development, sits a quaint street of two-story homes called Montauk Point Crossing. Today, it is a virtual ghost town.
At least six families have already moved out of their homes, either at Lennar’s expense or their own. At least two more are planning their exits as soon as possible.

The residents, many with small children, are experiencing an outbreak of the same chronic symptoms — respiratory problems, painful sore throats, headaches and nosebleeds — which they attribute directly to the drywall chemicals filling their homes.

More links:
Concern about drywall grows
Drywall problems could lead to new laws

The company is conducting a thorough investigation and cooperating with builders that have contacted it. Studies and testing by nationally recognized experts are ongoing.  The testing has confirmed that copper has blackened and may be caused by low levels of naturally occurring sulfur gases. The low levels of gases do not present a health risk to persons within the residences.

Knauf Tianjin is assessing remedial options to correct conditions that are identified with respect to its plasterboard, with the least intrusion for homeowners.  The company remains committed to the health and safety of the ultimate consumers of its products in the construction industry.

From today’s (January 15, 2009) the News-Press, Fort Myers, FL, Cape Coral drywall comes up clean:

Knauf claims the Tianjin product is made from natural, not synthetic gypsum and the drywall that causes corrosion is unmarked and comes from another, unknown Chinese manufacturer.

The Tianjin drywall is safe, the company said.

However, health standards are only for eight hour-exposure in the workplace, not residential or chronic exposure, health officials say.

There seems to be some confusion here concerning health standards, and now there is an “unknown Chinese manufacturer” in the mix.
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Regarding the concern over drywall in three schools and two public facilities in Cape Coral, here, all were checked for tainted Chinese drywall and were found to have used drywall from North America.

The reason I am banging on this one so hard is not only because the drywall exported to Florida in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma was made in China, but rather I am asking the bigger question of how much of this very same drywall may have been distributed throughout China in the middle of the frenzied building boom. In Florida some have been forced to move out of their homes, and one company has already started replacing drywall in homes they built.

Knauf, founded in 1932, is a large multi-national producer of building materials headquartered in Iphofen, Germany with a worldwide presence in 58 countries and five locations in China. The Australian Chamber of Commerce page reveals that the plant in Tianjin is mainly involved with the production of a variety of wallboards (drywall), as well as drywall finishing materials: joint compound, tape, angle beads, etc. According to the WSJ article

Knauf Tianjin hired experts in 2006 to investigate complaints about an odor and found “no health concerns related to the odor or any emissions in the residences.”
…
Knauf Tianjin said the drywall is made of naturally mined gypsum. After investigating drywall odors, the company said it switched mines and installed a monitoring device to detect gases.

If there were “no health concerns related to the odor” then was switching mines done solely on marketing concerns? Hard to sell board that smells like rotting eggs or, more accurately, hydrogen sulfide. Though another question that needs to be asked is if the smell alone is indicative of a health concern: hydrogen sulfide is a toxic, flammable gas considered to be a broad spectrum poison, meaning that it can effect “several different systems in the body, although the nervous system is most affected. The toxicity of H2S is comparable with that of hydrogen cyanide.”

While the troubles in Florida are, indeed, of great concern, what about here in China? Did Knauf eat the loss and not distribute the toxic board locally, or was it distributed and installed after experts had ruled that there were “ho health concerns?” These are questions that someone should be asking. I am not exaggerating when I say that there are hundreds of thousands of new housing units in Tianjin alone over the last five years. What about Beijing?

There is another aspect to this story that will probably go unreported because it’s impossible to quantify: how much damage was done to workers who handled and installed this damaged board? I know from experience that when drywall contracting crews are handling/installing board, dust masks are often ignored, especially in hot weather, even while the dust is being produced by cutting the sheets to fit. But this falls into the great zone of unknowing. I also imagine that many of the crews who handled this product during installation in the States were minorities and, possibly, undocumented workers, the worldwide ‘expendables.’ We live with this sort of thing here in China, where the unprecedented building boom with very little regulation (when was the last time you saw an inspector on a remodeling project) has destroyed many migrant workers’ lives.

When there are boatloads of money to be made there’s no reason to rock the boat, at least from the profit seekers’ POV. And so we learn to swallow euphemisms like ‘collateral damage,’ which makes victimization appear morally acceptable. But it won’t be addressed here until there is enough uproar raised elsewhere, until someone will be forced to deal with it in China. Are there complaints coming in from homeowners now? Good question.

While Knauf is under the gun in Florida, what are they under here locally or nationally? So, to all those journalists in Beijing who are looking for a story to chase, allow me to give you a nudge: “Just follow the links.”