What It Is

Chinese drywall, toxic drywall, defective drywall…these are just a few of the terms being used for the drywall in your home that may be causing illness and failing A/C systems, but the pro’s refer to it as corrosive drywall. During the building boom of 2004 to 2007, many construction products, like drywall, were in short supply. To help meet this demand, American suppliers turned to overseas manufacturers to assist. Supplying over 550 tons of drywall (enough to build over 60,000 average sized homes) [1], China became our largest alternative source (hence the “Chinese drywall” label.) What many don’t realize is that nearly as much defective drywall came from within our own borders. To supplement the shortage for man-made gypsum, many US manufacturers reintroduced the tried-and-true method of using natural gypsum taken from nearby riverbeds (similar to what the Chinese manufacturers were doing). Unfortunately, most of these natural gypsum beds are now located downstream of power plants, factories and the like, and contain unusually high levels of sulfur, pyrites and strontium compounds.