Homeowners are claiming that drywall used in new construction may be causing illness and property damage – if the drywall in particular came from China.

According to recent news on the Chinese Drywall  subject, some insurance companies are now dropping homeowner policy renewals for customers who make a claim for damage based on the offgassing of dangerous fumes.  A Yahoo News/Associated Press story from a few days ago noted:

“The defective materials have since been found by state and federal agencies to emit “volatile sulfur compounds,” and contain traces of strontium sulfide, which can produce a rotten-egg odor, along with organic compounds not found in American-made drywall. Homeowners complain the fumes are corroding copper pipes, destroying TVs and air conditioners, and blackening jewelry and silverware. Some believe the wallboard is also making them ill.”

A good article on the subject can be found here at the Wall Street Journal.  According to this piece, the damage to U.S. homes is estimated to be in the billions of dollars:

“The Chinese drywall, also known as gypsum or wallboard, is under investigation for emitting sulfide fumes suspected of causing the homeowner complaints. As many as 100,000 houses across the country have the suspect drywall, most of them built in 2006 and 2007 when a spike in new construction occurred in part as homeowners rebuilt following hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. That prompted imports of drywall, which developers traditionally had sourced domestically.”

Seems to me like there’s little incentive for the Chinese government to accept any responsibility for property damage and health issues in the US, and that their lawyers could poke holes in the claims that their exports were solely to blame.  Good luck with that!

One thing is certain:  I’m definitely not surprised if a cheap imported building product turns out to be “not the greenest of materials”.