Chinese-Made Drywall May Emit Sulfuric Acid, Destroy Cooling, Water Systems - Mfg. With Coal Waste

[hatrack]

EDIT

Lehigh Acres resident Billy Rybak said he was "stunned" to read reports in The News-Press about homeowners who have regularly replaced A/C coils and refrigerators and are blaming sulfur from their imported drywall as the cause. "This sounds exactly like what we have been dealing with for years, but we have been blaming it on the water," Rybak said. "We've been changing water systems like crazy."

Also Monday, Lennar Homes, which has heard similar complaints from residents in the Bella Terra condominium, responded with a written statement from Darin McMurray, Southwest Florida division president for Lennar. "So far, our investigation in Southwest Florida shows that independent subcontractors installed Chinese drywall in a very small percentage of Lennar homes built between November 2005 and November 2006," McMurray said in the statement. "Lennar has taken extensive measures to ensure the safety of our homeowners and their families. Scientific testing shows no indication of any health risks to our homeowners."

EDIT

Dan Reid of Intuitive Environmental Solutions in Fort Myers, said he has been getting complaints about sulfur dioxide from drywall for three months. He said he has investigated four complaints and has found measurable levels of the substance. "There are no residential safety standards, but the levels have been well within workplace standards," Reid said. "There has been nothing extreme."

Reid said his research indicates at least some drywall imported from China during the homebuilding boom years of 2004 and 2005 was made with waste materials from scrubbers on coal-fired power plants. Those materials can leak into the air as gases combine with the moisture on an air conditioning coil to create sulfuric acid, which appears to be dissolving solder joints and copper tubing - creating leaks, blackening the coils and even causing the system to fail, Reid said. Rybak moved into his home in 2003 and said he has had to replace air conditioning coils four times and his refrigerator once.

EDIT

http://www.news-press.com/article/20081223/RE/812230384/1075

[DS1]

1. We need to stop buying garbage from that cesspool, and put them out of business

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Good luck with that

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2008/11/practical-values-o-say-can-you-buy.html

[Deja Q]

2. McMansions, anyone?

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. I'm not really surprised

A few years ago there was a problem with drywall that was infested with cockroach eggs. Brand new houses and apartment complexes would suddenly have roach infestations and at first, nobody could figure out where the little bastards were coming from, but no amount of bombing or roach motels could keep them away. Eventually they traced it to the drywall. I don't know if that shit came from China too, but I really wouldn't doubt it.

[louis-t]

5. But, probably saved 50 cents a sheet!

You know, priorities. :eyes:

[madokie]

6. I think we need to refuse to buy any of the products from china

They've shown us they can't be trusted to do it right so fuck 'em. I'm not sure anymore if anything coming from there is safe. OTOH I have friends, brothers and sisters who would love to have the jobs it takes to make these products right here and the best part is I can trust my bro's and sis's to do it right moreso than I can someone in another country half the way around the fucking world away.

[tom_paine]

9. Exactly so, we DO need to reject Chinese products;But two things stand in our way, and they are BIG!

1) The American People are so drugged and hypnotized by TV and so bedazzled, even now by the amazing strength, consistency, and all-encompassing nature of the Bush Lie Machine and the M$M it largely controls (with brief, but phony, periods of mild opposition when the pressure below cannot be 100% silenced anymore - from then on 99% silencing will have to do...and it does).

There are MANY aspects of this, but let the media/M$M aspect of it stand in for all. (because this post would be too long otherwise) Even now, people are MAD, but just at the surface symptoms like the bad economy - understanding of the root causes simply is not there, largely thanks to our M$M and purposefully crumbled educational infrastructure. And that is the best wish a tyrant could ever have for a citizenry like that. INFORMED Anger is a tyrant's greatest enemy. UNINFORMED anger is easily dispelled in a short period of time, if the surface improves.

2) Things have deteriorated to such a point where the American Subject Populace is literally force-fed EVRYTHING. Poisonous food, posionous air, posionous media, poisonous politics, almost all is poison, currently, I am sorry to say. THIS is the ultimate task of fixing the System of Checks and Balances Obama faces, if he is the man we think him to be.

The sad truth is, we have almost as little choice now in having a house full of Chinese products, as the Chinese Subject Population does in having a house full of Chinese products. 95% of Americans could not AFFORD to have a house full of anything BUT cheap Chinese products.

And our nation doesn't manufacture anything anymore, anyway. The auto industry is in the process of closing our plants down here. Why? GM and Ford opened up new plants in St. Petersburg, Russia in the early 2000s (look it up), and while American unions are being busted and American factories shuttered, those Russian Plants are operating at full bore, probably at a quarter of the labor costs.

Is the Auto Bailout another carefully choreographed dance of Phony Opposition and "Pretend to Fail"?

I don't know.

[havocmom]

13. Havocdad was just online trying to find shoes fit for his work in our area, but NOT made in China

He is one frustrated hombre right now!

It is sad, but it seems there is very little actually produced in the US save pretty worthless stock certificates. There are some things made here, and proudly proclaimed on the label, but made with the same labor source too much in China uses: prison labor. So when we find Made in the USA on the package, we STILL need to research a bit further. States bid their prison populations out to corporations for some of the funding they need. Prison workers are a corporate wet dream.

Tom, my lad, I was screeching from the treetops back in the early 80s that the American worker was going to be taken down so low that he would beg for repeal of all environment and worker protection laws in hopes of some small crumbs from the corporate table. Everyone just wrote me off as a crack-pot idiot.

We are all Third World now. How I wish I had been wrong.

But, the natives are getting restless and waking up. Those huge crowds on election night.... yeah, peacefully assembled in enormous numbers then going so silent when a real leader took the podium to speak... Yes, lad, this old woman is guardedly optimistic. Sales are down, way down and people will find they can exist without being in constant consumer mode. There may be hope for humanity.

If we keep bringing leaders up from our ranks, leaders who know we are people, not chattle. We are a mass of people needing to remember what it is to be human and responsible for one another.

Merry Christmas, lad. And keep the light in the window. Americans may be coming home to some sensible conclusions. We do outnumber our oppressors. When enough of us grasp that simple equation, there is a chance to move toward real purpose and change.

[kristopher]

7. I don't think the accusation is substantiated...

From the OP:
...homeowners who have regularly replaced A/C coils and refrigerators and are blaming sulfur from their imported drywall as the cause.
...Dan Reid of Intuitive Environmental Solutions in Fort Myers, said he has been getting complaints about sulfur dioxide from drywall for three months. He said he has investigated four complaints and has found measurable levels of the substance. "There are no residential safety standards, but the levels have been well within workplace standards," Reid said. "There has been nothing extreme."

Reid said his research indicates at least some drywall imported from China during the homebuilding boom years of 2004 and 2005 was made with waste materials from scrubbers on coal-fired power plants.


Drywall
Drywall is a common manufactured building material used globally for the finish construction of interior walls and ceilings.

A drywall panel is made of a paper liner wrapped around an inner core made primarily from gypsum plaster, the semi-hydrous form of calcium sulfate (CaSO4.½ H2O). The raw gypsum, CaSO4.2 H2O, (mined or obtained from flue gas desulfurization (FGD)) must be calcined before use. ...


Flue gas desulfurization
Flue gas desulfurization is commonly known as FGD and is the technology used for removing sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the exhaust flue gases in power plants that burn coal or oil to produce steam for the steam turbines that drive their electricity generators.

Sulfur dioxide is responsible for acid rain formation. Tall flue gas stacks disperse the emissions by diluting the pollutants in ambient air and transporting them to other regions.

...Sulfuric acid mist formation

Fossil fuels such as coal and oil contain significant amounts of sulfur. When burned, about 95 percent or more of the sulfur is generally converted to sulfur dioxide (SO2). This happens under normal conditions of temperature and of oxygen present in the flue gas. However, there are circumstances under which ...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flue_gas_desulfurization


It COULD be the drywall, but the OP article presents the presence of "coal waste" as if this is an abnormal ingredient in drywall when, in fact, it is a common source of material for drywall. Could drywall (country of origin not considered) be a source of sulfuric acid? It looks like that could be a real possiblity.

What is totally unjustified however, is pointing the finger at China with absolutely no PROOF that defective drywall is actually the source of the problem and 2) no reason to believe that, if the drywall is the problem, that the origin of the offending drywall is China. I mean face it, our coal burning utilities don't have a stellar record of clean operations nor has the government of the past 7 years made monitoring and oversight much of a concern.

Frankly this all smacks of exploiting racism to divert attention from other possibilities.

[tom_paine]

10. Thought-provoking post, but I am not a big fan of Wikipedia as an infromation source.

Allow me to explain: Because Wikipedia is user-edited, it can be altered by people with an agenda. This s not speculation but fact, from the exposure of .mil and .gov sites making propagandistic Wiki edits (it's Xmas and I have shit to do - these are real events but you'll have to click your own mouse and do your own research if you wish to confirm, which should be easy) to Stephen Colbert's side-splitting assualt on his own and other Wiki entries.

Bear with me now. Even though Wiki is monitored and the poor edits fixed, it stands to reason using statistics and scientific logic (along the same lines of the idea that says there is a statistical certainty that six serail killers are operating in the country at any given time - sometimes it might be five or sometimes it might be seven, butt he underlyng logic is rock-solid) that at any given time a certain percentage of Wiki posts, small or not, are also in a state of, shall we say, "poor-editing".

Just something to think about when you search for source material to cut and paste here. Otherwise, it's and interesting post that bears consideration.

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, and Happy Festivus to you, kris!

:hi:

[kristopher]

11. I think it is terrific - for what it is...

It is a quick reference source for data that gives a decent start in small research such as this. Users should be aware of what you say, but unless you have a reason to dispute the information above, I don't see the relevance here. From my energy studies I happened to already know that exhaust scrubbings were used for drywall; wiki just wrote it out for me.

Have a great holiday season yourself. My best to you and yours.

[tom_paine]

8. Only a fool would buy a house built in the Bush Era. n/t

[Indenturedebtor]

12. Until you get screwed everyone else who does is a fool. I'll be waiting with your sympathy

when it happens to you.