They are looking to recoup their losses from subcontractors, insurers and others involved once they have concluded their investigation of how far the damage has spread. So far the builder hasn't found any evidence of the defective drywall in any homes outside of Florida during the same time span. However, 550 million pounds of Chinese drywall was imported into the U.S. from 2004 to 2006, and it is unknown how many homes were victims of the defective product.
The housing boom in the early-mid part of the decade has been noted as the beginning of this problem. Normally, drywall is bought from domestic producers, but the boom caused shortages, so some home builders, particularly in Florida, purchased drywall shipped in from China. Only a few years later, in 2009, there appears to be something rotten in the State of Florida.
Many of the construction companies who installed the toxic drywall have since gone out of business and many companies deny that they used or sold Chinese drywall at all. Home building supplier Lowe's has gone so far as to offer customers damages up to $100,000 for damages caused by contaminated drywall, all the while stating that none of the drywall sold at their stores was in anyway defective.
During the building boom, between 2001 and 2007, millions of sheets of drywall were imported into the U.S, Canada and Australia. The drywall was cheap, readily available and was the perfect solution to the shortage created by the housing boom and recent disasters in Florida and New Orleans. Unfortunately, the good deal turned sour in a hurry when it was determined the drywall was toxic.
Consumer Product Safety Commission has published a list of brands that show which brands of drywall are emitting the worst of the contaminants. They hope that pointing out the worst offenders maybe some resolution can be found to the problem, particularly since there has been so little acknowledgment from any of the Chinese companies thus far regarding this problem.
One of the biggest issues in home real estate currently that isn’t directly related to home financing is the problem of defective Chinese drywall. This noxious product gives off sulphur gas—both carbon disulfide and carbonyl sulphide—which gives off a rotten egg smell and forms other compounds when it reacts with substances in the home.
Sometime after Chinese drywall started showing up en masse in American homes, home owners started noticing acrid smells, corroded pipes and wiring, and health—particularly respiratory—problems. According to real estate experts, one of the reasons that the contaminated dry wall installation was so extensive—especially in certain areas of the nation—is due to the recovery and rebuilding after natural disasters in those areas that damaged homes.
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