Talk:Chinese drywall

Cause?

I've seen a lot of information on the symptoms of the defective drywall, but none yet on the actual cause - what is actually in the stuff that is degrading/reducing the calcium sulfate into H2S, CSO, CS2, etc? I've also heard there is an ammonia odor... is there melamine foam in this stuff as a binding agent, or what?

Suggest move to "Defective drywall controversy of 2009", and substituting "Defective drywall" for "Chinese Drywall" in article.

I have no great love for the PRC, but this article title strikes me as kind of implicitly biased.

By using the term "Chinese Drywall" as the name of the article, and the term "Chinese Drywall" in the article, this seems to imply that "Chinese Drywall" is the problem, not defective drywall. Merely because drywall was mfgd in China does not make the drywall defective. We might want to consider moving the article to "Defective drywall controversy of 2009", and substituting the term "Defective drywall" (and, where appropriate, "Defective drywall manufactured in China") for "Chinese Drywall".

Give me a break - Chinese has become synonymous with defective in the United States for a reason, you know! Also, WTF with including "Allegedly" in the title? The crap turns wires black and smells worse than the like rotten eggs! *ONLY* in a place like China could an item of such disgusting quality be considered to be not defective. Who are you anyways, a lawyer for the defense?!?!? Zaphraud (talk) 23:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Guess what, It amazes me that drywall is being made in China but I believe that it's not even being used over there. Virtually all homes in Asian countries are made with solid reinforced concrete to withstand Typhoons and earthquakes. So what if your concrete home got flooded during a Typhoon, just simply rinse the walls and voila! I just wish that we Americans would consider building our homes to withstand Hurricanes and Tornadoes instead of making them "disposable housing". I wasn't even one bit worried when I went back to my other home in Taiwan just before Typhoon Jangmi (2008) made landfall (the lights barely even flickered in Taipei since most utilities are buried underground) but had to evacuate from Greater New Orleans during Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav. Night Tracks (talk) 22:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Now why the hell would I, as a resident of Arizona, ever want that added to the cost of a house?!? Seriously man, think about what you write before you write it. Solid reinforced concrete might be a great idea for Florida but around here we don't even need siding, stucco is plenty protection enough for a natural-disaster-free area that doesn't have significant below-freezing weather. ... Now, as for your other claim, how about all those children that were squished flat last year in that Chinese earthquake? The building was basically supported by nothing but drywall - one resident characterized the building as being "made of tofu". Regarding "disposable homes", that the life of drywall is finite isn't such a problem because you can see it fail. Also, the boards supporting it won't last forever either. As for reinforced concrete, several structural failures show that there have been many mistakes in engineering in the past that led to the failure of concrete due to the corrosion of the rebar supporting it, so its apparently not as durable as a lot of people think at first (concrete is really only "forever" when used under compression, under tension its quite weak when the reinforcing elements fail). Zaphraud (talk) 20:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It's shoddy construction by unscrupulous contractors that some reinforced concrete homes failed during an earthquake. My 5 story house in Taipei withstood the 1999 Jiji earthquake because we supervised the construction to make sure that the contractor didn't try to cut corners. Also with concrete homes you can avoid having to deal with Formosan termites. Even the power poles are made with concrete if not buried underground in the rural areas of Taiwan. People in Taiwan always expect their power to return within a few hours after a Typhoon passes. Night Tracks (talk) 10:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, way to prove my point for me! First of all, you apparently felt the need to personally supervise construction. Second, if you haven't yet figured out that maybe not everyone can be a structural engineer - or even a partial resemblance of one, you aren't very in touch with the rest of the population. Most people can't even qualify for the title "handyman", let alone have any idea what to look for if they decided they needed to personally oversee the construction of their own home ... that's a job Government ought to perform. Unfortunately, that ain't the case in China - they do an even worse of job of oversight than we do here in the USA Zaphraud (talk) 04:11, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You really don't believe in building stronger with reinforced concrete? There is a new house built with reinfored concrete in tornado ravaged Greensburg, Kansas. They dropped a car on the roof to demonstrate and the house barely had a scratch.[1] I am basically just so sick and tired of seeing in the news of all the mobile homes and stick built houses that are flattened every time a tornado and/or hurricane strikes, the heartaches and then just rebuild basically the same way over and over again. I've had relatives in Taiwan ask me why we in the States build with wood and not think about building for the long term. Granted, earthquakes are different and can destroy concrete buildings if not built properly. I was only a child in the 1976 when our 5 story house in Taipei was under construction. My father just made sure that the contractors didn't try to bury empty cooking oil cans into the foundation and kept the poured concrete moist. [2] [3] [4] Believe me, I am no fan of almost everything Made in China, its inferior quality and that they themselves don't consume (drywall, Crawfish, Mardi Gras beads, etc). All that money going to the People's Republic of China is just making those dictators more powerful each day and building up their forces to possibly one day invade their neighbor Taiwan to force Chinese reunification under PRC's terms. Night Tracks (talk) 06:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I never said that. I said that there just doesn't exist a need for all the internal walls of a structure built in central Arizona to be made of reinforced concrete. I could definitely appreciate the benefits of building the floors of this material, even here, because it certainly makes the process of installing tile floors on the second, third, etc story of a building a hell of a lot easier while preventing cracking, and I definitely appreciate the acoustic benefits of building the floors with a good, solid material, but honestly, in a region of the world that simply doesn't have the types of natural disasters you are describing ever, nor the earthquakes that plague the pacific rim, there's essentially no advantage to using reinforced concrete in the walls of a home-sized building instead of a material that doesn't require any artistic refinishing of the surface, such as load-bearing bricks walls (I'm not sure if bricks are cheaper at first, but unlike the coatings applied to concrete that I've seen chip off, bricks don't require anything but being hosed off to maintain the same appearance over several years of time).
Also, its not like reinforced concrete is forever, either. Rebar rusts, and you can't see it as its happening most of the time. A saline environment certainly accelerates this damage in unsealed concrete, and its easy to imagine a storm surge could do this. Or road salt runoff, for that matter, if it sufficiently saturate the soil (I guess one would know if they had a lawn that died, but who has a lawn in snow season?)
Really all I am saying is that flat-out mandating reinforced concrete everywhere might not be appropriate for all parts of the world, and that its entirely reasonable to make the case that some structures may even benefit from being properly engineered to use un-internally-reinforced concrete - which is quite strong when only compressive forces are applied to it, because it has essentially zero corrosion risk.Zaphraud (talk) 04:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I know we've really strayed badly in making this into a discussion board so let me close this out and say that only areas prone to Hurricanes and tornado alley should be required (or given a tax incentive) to build with concrete. I can see your point that Arizona doesn't get hurricanes or tornadoes and building like this would just be overkill. Night Tracks (talk) 09:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Now that CBS has exposed that American made Drywall has the same problem, who are you going to sue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.203.24.172 (talk) 13:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Class action lawyers

We might also want to consider moving or eliminating inline links to class action lawyers' websites, which seem to border on advertising.

Now *that* is a good suggestion. Zaphraud (talk) 23:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

What do others think? Katana0182 (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I was WP:BOLD and moved the article.Katana0182 (talk) 20:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Strongly against this move, strongly for moving it back to what the rest of the world is calling it "CHINESE DRYWALL". Zaphraud (talk) 23:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, or even related to any lawyers, drywall manufacturers, importers, construction industry people, Chinese, American, or otherwise. The stuff stinks, obviously, but this is an encyclopedia, and not enough time has passed for me, at least, to feel comfortable to start moving towards absolute and definitive conclusions before seeing all the evidence. In particular, it remains to be seen how the drywall was contaminated - and what kind of incompetence or malfeasance caused this to happen.

I'm editing from an abundance of caution and trying not to sensationalize the topic or give offense, because sometimes when you're too blunt about national matters, people can get offended. I don't think that "Chinese Drywall" is an appropriate name for the article, because there probably is non-defective drywall made in China, but maybe the current clunky title should be changed. Please do be WP:BOLD and move it if you'd like, or we can discuss this further. Perhaps you have some suggestions? Katana0182 (talk) 03:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

You never want to have the title of your article have a weasel word as the first word. Allegedly is not a good word to ever have in an encyclopedia. I'm suggesting a move to Imported Drywall Controversy of 2009, or something along those lines. (the title has all small letters, which is incorrect grammar.) Thanks, Ono (talk) 17:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and moved it, removed "allegedly", as the sources say that it happened. Wikipedia only reports the information, so biased words such as allegedly can't be used. Did a copy edit, fixing grammar and removing weasel words. Thanks, Ono (talk) 17:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Chinese side of the story?

Wikipedia is a great and invaluable source of information...when did we let it get hijacked by lawyers as this plainly has?

I agree what is more interesting is what is the cause and how did this stuff get imported into the states without out authorities picking up on this smell?. What I have read is that the bigger issue is the Chinese side of the story, (we know of one company) what about the rest of the stuff that is screwing our houses that was imported. I read in the paper that government owned Chinese companies exported most of the defective board!—Preceding unsigned comment added by Callum98 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 28 April 2009

Oh yeah CHINESE is the actual Cause. Its their language, specifically!

Chinese Drywall (ASIA CALCIUM SULFATE = CALCIUM SULFITE. Yes, Literally!) Then China decided they'd make it out of gunk extracted from coal flue gases by scrubbers instead of mined gypsum - now, "Chinese drywall" is in people's homes and it rots everything cause they made CALCIUM SULFITE instead. Reason Why? The words for CaSO4 (硫酸鈣) and CaSO3(亞硫酸鈣) differ only by one symbol (亞), which translates as "ASIA" (source: translate.google.com)

Since it was for export, screwing it up was inevitable...

The Chinese should just learn to use letters like everyone else, that way they can avoid fuckups like this in the future.

"Desulfurization process, calcium hydroxide and sulphur dioxide generated Asia calcium sulfate" Source: http://www.tonke.cn/company-en-hhxixo.html

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaphraud (talk • contribs) 2009-05-11T16:32:18

And like it's a huge difference in English, calcium sulfite and calcium sulfate! FYI 亞 means "secondary", "inferior", so the Chinese weren't too happy when Westerners started calling the land they're on "inferior continent" when transliterated. And in chemistry nomenclature the "secondary" is added in front of "sulfuric acid-calcium" because sulfite is not saturated. But either way, calcium sulfite oxidises to sulfate on its own, and Flue-gas desulfurization has been around, making gypsum for quite a while now in the western world. Also you are showing considerable anti-Chinese bias here ("Since it was for export, screwing it up was inevitable", "The Chinese should just learn to use letters like everyone else...") so please do remain neutral on this issue, for the good of you and me and Wikipedia in general. And sign your name too. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Gee, and to think that I was expecting that the reasoning for enabling this error (which, once international shipping gets involved and the source and product names are printed next to each other, would be difficult to avoid 100% of the time) was going to end up being something about the electrical state of oxidation and the notion of "ground". Regardless, there's no anti-Chinese bias in the phrase "Since it was for export, screwing it up was inevitable" - think about it my friend, because it is for EXPORT, the process of translation is going to be one of the problems in the marketing of the stuff... and especially with electronic translation, the error is very easy to make - which is exactly WHY it appears on the English versions of Chinese web pages! **Had export not been involved, this error wouldn't occur because translation into English is unnecessary**. Granted, you may have nailed it with my overall tone, but since you quoted a specific, I defended that. Zaphraud (talk) 00:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Knauf Tianjin -> Knauf, the German(?) company?

I think Knauf Tianjin is a subsidiary (or something similar, I don't know) of this global Knauf company. They list the Tianjin plant in their Knauf worldwide page and I think they would be responsible for quality control and stuff like that. I don't think it's particularly fair blaming it on the Chinese origins of these boards when an international (western) company fully aware of all the health regulations and stuff are churning these boards out. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Promoting involved politicians

I've reverted the substitution of a Sun-Sentinel 'reference' back to the existing one to the Bradenton Herald. The Sun-Sentinel ref is not to a reliable source, it's to a blog at the SS stuffed with videos of someone's favorite politicians speechifying. The error that User:Lmhstrumpet points out in the Bradenton Herald version of the article (an amendment is identified as a bill) is trivial, and in any event immaterial, as it does not affect the article statements cited to it. --CliffC (talk) 00:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Photo of corroded A/C coils, two versions

I've once again removed the photo submitted by User:Chinesedrywall, whom I believe has a conflict of interest, and substituted a photo from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's Drywall Information Center. I have also filed a sockpuppet report for new user Drounders. ---CliffC (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Sulfur-reducing bacteria the cause? Conflicting opinions on this theory

One theory not mentioned in the article says that the sulfurous gases and resulting metal corrosion are caused by bacteria present only in Chinese drywall. This is interesting, but right now seems fringe-like; some of the related news stories seem to be based only on news releases from a company that sells remediation by tenting the house and gassing it with chlorine dioxide, one snippet here

All Chinese drywall has bacteria in the gypsum core. [Company] tests the drywall before treatment to show the presence of the bacteria and uses it as a marker to demonstrate the penetration of chlorine dioxide into the drywall gypsum core. After the treatment, [Company] takes samples again and shows that the marker bacteria are all dead within the drywall.[5]

A paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences seems to support the bacteria theory, concluding in part

There is sufficient evidence to indicate that there are bacteria that can reduce/oxidize sulfur and iron in contaminated drywall and these bacteria are not present in the non-contaminated drywall.[6]

However, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's guidance is to gut the home, removing all tainted drywall and replacing all electrical components. As to bacteria,

...CPSC has also released a study by the Environmental Health & Engineering Inc. that tested whether sulfur-reducing bacteria are present in Chinese drywall. Eight out of 10 drywall samples tested showed no bacterial growth including Chinese samples that emitted high levels of hydrogen sulfide in the LBNL study.[7]

It should be interesting to see any independent news reports on the bacteria theory and long-term success of remediation efforts. --CliffC (talk) 15:04, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

extent of problem

I would have liked the article to define the extent of the problem. Presumably the thousands of homes that use the defective drywall would generate thousands of complaints and thousands of renovations to remove it. It seems that some of the homes in humid and hot climates are not experiencing the odors and subsequent health problems. If home owners need to check their copper pipes to see if the drywall is impacting their homes then maybe the problem is not uniformly severe. Where there batches that were more toxic than others? Are there people who are not as sensitive to the effects? How bad is the problem in general? --59.161.114.164 (talk) 14:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC)bruceinindia

controversy?

Why is this labeled as a "controversy"? We imported defective drywall, made in China, which made people sick. Call it "Chinese Drywall Incident" or something like that. But there's nothing "controversial" about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tpkatsa (talk • contribs) 22:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Federal Regulations against Chinese Drywall

This article is seriously lacking any mention of Congressional and Federal actions, laws and responses after 2009. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.227.80.63 (talk) 11:20, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

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