Chinese drywall in Real Estate

Posted: under Real Estate.
Tags: , , , ,

I have a certain number of phone calls from out of state potential buyers. They’re looking online for Cape Coral properties and usually, they can see low price homes that look very nice. When I check them, most of them have defective drywall. And most of those buyers have a vague idea of what is defective drywall, most commonly called chinese drywall.

Most of the time I can explain the issue, but recently, I was showing few properties and came across a home showing the effects of the chinese drywall. I took the opportunity to shoot a few photos. A picture worth a 1,000 words :-)

The next 3 pictures show the 2 copper water pipes underneath the kitchen sink. The corrosion of metal in general and copper in particular due to the defective drywall shows a black substance on the copper. The first pictures is the actual 2 pieces of copper. On the second one, you can see my finger is clean while on the 3rd picture, I touched the pipe and got that black substance on my finger.

chinese drywall copper pipes

chinese drywall black substance on copper

chinese drywall black substance on copper pipes

The next pictures is the lightning fixture in one bathroom. You can see how the metal coat is pealing badly due to the defective drywall.
chinese drywall effect on bathroom lightning fixture

You can also see the effects of the chinese drywall on the silver behind mirrors. I try to catch a few pictures of mirrors where the silver is pealing behind, showing a kind of black stain.

chinese drywall effects on mirrors

chinese drywall on mirrors
defective drywall effects on mirrors

Here is a picture of an electrical outlet where you can see the screws all blackened and any part of copper wiring out the plastic cover is balck as well.
chinese drywall effect on electrical outlet

Another picture where you can see the metal is pealing.

chinese drywall effects

Of course, I’m only a Real Estate agent. For confirmation of what can do chinese drywall, you should talk to a drywall specialist. He or she will be much more qualified to explain the effects of chinese drywall.

Incoming search terms:

Post to Twitter

Comments (0) Mar 17 2011

Cape Coral chinese drywall issues

Posted: under Real Estate.
Tags: , , ,

Drywall imported from China and commonly referred to as “Chinese drywall” is causing quite a stir. But I also heard from my own office manager that no less than 9 different countries- including the USA – were actually making defective drywall and US builders were buying and importing them into the United States. So while those drywall are known as Chinese drywall, I prefer to call them defective drywall instead.

Defective drywall was imported to the United States in massive amounts during the housing boom between 2004 and 2008. It appears that when the importation of defective drywall first began, no one knew how much trouble it would cause. But then again, I challenge builder to open their imported container full of those defective drywall and not noticing the smell, which could have thrown a red flag right there.

Over time defective drywall begins to emit toxic fumes and odors that smell like rotten eggs. As if the smell isn’t bad enough, many people have become ill from chemicals found in drywall from those countries and homes themselves are falling apart as a result of the defective drywall. For instance, copper pipes are corroding and appliances are breaking down, all as a result of the drywall.

Desperate homeowners have filed claims regarding the problems associated with defective drywall with their insurance agencies only to find that problems as a result of defective materials used in construction are not covered in their policies.

To add insult to injury, the insurance policies on homes constructed with defective drywall are then canceled. To complicate matters further, other insurance agencies don’t want to write up policies on homes constructed with defective drywall, so desperate home owners are left without insurance on their homes. Since it is required to have insurance on homes that are not completely paid for, this puts home owners in a real bind and some of them even lose their homes because of it.

Replacing defective drywall may seem to be the only solution to this problem, but such a fix is neither cheap nor easy. Depending on the size and construction of the home, the two quotes I got from a contractor were roughly around $20,000 for each 1,000 s/f of home. Not only these drywall need to be replaced but the isolation also need to be replaced. Plus, all copper pipes and electric wired need to be fixed as well.

Most of the homes that have defective drywall were built in Florida, but other states, including Colorado, were also constructed with defective drywall. Here, in Cape Coral, when I show some properties to potential buyers, I have a lots of questions to answer in regards of defective drywall. I hope the public will find their questions answered here.

Incoming search terms:

Post to Twitter

Comments (0) Sep 23 2010

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes