The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), recently set up a Web site to keep consumers, drywall manufacturers, builders and other apprised of its investigation into the latest problematic Chinese import, drywall used to build homes.

Drywall imported from China, blamed for rotten egg odors, fast metal corrosion and health problems for some homeowners, contains sulfur and other materials not found in U.S. made drywall, according to preliminary federal tests.

CPSC's Drywall Information Center offers updates (online and via email) on the investigation, help for homeowners trying to determine if their drywall is making them sick, where drywall problems have been reported and other related information.

Preliminary research from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found the Chinese-made drywall contained sulfur, which is not in U.S. drywall, but widely used in black gunpowder, matches, insecticides and fungicides.

EPA tests also found strontium, (a metallic element that is highly reactive chemically, including, in a finely powdered state, spontaneous ignition at room temperature) at levels 10 times as high as in U.S. drywall.

The EPA also found two other organic compounds, generally found in acrylic paint, but not in U.S.-made wallboard. They were • propanoic acid, 2-methyl-, 2,2-dimethyl-1-(2-hydroxy-1-methylethyl) propyl ester • propanoic acid, 2-methyl-, 3-hydroxy-2,4,4-trimethylpentyl ester.

Since those findings, the CPSC has worked with their Chinese counterpart, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) and hope to visit Chinese gypsum ore mining and wall board manufacturing facilities. CPSC also hosted Chinese officials visiting homes in Florida and Louisiana.

Some 36,000 homes in Florida, as well as additional properties in post-Hurricane Katrina Louisiana and Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi and California, were constructed with the Chinese-made material, recently found to be quite different from U.S.-made drywall.

CPSC is also investigating complaints, tracking imports, analyzing health effects, air sampling 50 homes, collecting samples and otherwise pursing the investigation. The questionable residential building material has been installed in some 100,000 homes nationwide according to U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), whose high number of complaining constituents put him at spearhead of an effort to learn more about the suspect drywall.

The case has drawn class action and builder-originated suits against suppliers and manufacturers.

Published: August 20, 2009

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.