Federal product-safety regulators on Friday released preliminary guidelines on how to fix homes built with tainted Chinese-made drywall, including stripping the homes of all problem wallboard, electrical wiring and natural gas piping.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is leading a $3.5 million, multi-agency investigation into the imported drywall, said last fall that the building material emits higher levels of volatile sulfur gases than typical U.S.-made drywall and is likely causing metal corrosion in homes. Homeowners claim the product also causes respiratory illness.
While the commission said homeowners should replace fire alarms and sprinkler systems, it stopped short of recommending they replace air conditioner coils, pipes used for water plumbing, or other home electronics and personal property because, it said, those items don’t have “a direct connection to safety.”
“Our concern is for building products for which drywall-related corrosion might cause a safety problem,” Inez Tenenbaum, the head of the commission, said in a conference call Friday morning.
The commission also recommended that homeowners remove only the tainted drywall that is emitting hydrogen sulfide, and leave in place any domestic wallboard.
“We have no science that points that the emissions are affecting the non-Chinese drywall,” Tenenbaum said. “Our conclusions are once you take the problem drywall out, you will cease the off-gassing and then you can move back into your home.”
Click the link for the rest of the article.
