CPSC Releases: Guidance On Identifying Problem Drywall In Homes (Update 2022)
Update: The CPSC now has a multiple step process. They break down the identification process down into two steps on their website. They first want you to do a visual inspection if your house is built between 2001 and 2009. Or if you have drywall installed during that time frame you can also inspect for that. Even one piece of drywall could be one of the impacted ones from that time frame. So you can have a house from 1920 that had a remodel in 2006 and has some degree of Chinese drywall. The CPSC wants you to check the evaporator coil for blackening. The evaporator is the inside portion of the Air conditioning system that the house air passes through. This is typically taped and screwed down behind a panel. You can remove this panel and check and see if the copper tubes are blackened. There are normal types of copper corrosion on these coils. I would mainly look for blackening. Also, now a decade after this all came to light, aluminum coils are much more popular and dont have the corrosion issues. The other steps the CSPC wants you to take after you look at your evaporator coil is to check your wiring. If you dont feel comfortable messing with electrical components than get an electrician or inspector to check for you. For step two, if you have both of those present you can look for chinese drywall markings on the drywall, most easily done from the attic by raking aside insulation. Lastly you can do a number of lab testing methods to corroborate the chinese drywall to check and see if sulfur levels are elevated. Some of these testing methods can be dangerous if you do not have experience doing it. We recommend you get a professional to evaluate it.
With so many companies popping up to offer testing, inspection, and remediation for Chinese drywall, it’s no wonder the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published a warning: “Don’t Get Nailed by Bogus Tests and Treatments”. The CPSC also recently released guidelines to help bring some standardization to the inspection, testing and remediation of possible Chinese Drywall installations. Hopefully, these guidelines will bring some peace of mind to those who have been wrongfully told they have Chinese drywall. For those who are unsure whether or not they have Chinese drywall, these guidelines may help determine if Chinese drywall is present.
Griffith Home Analysis has long-established relationships with accredited environmental labs. We have been providing residential environmental testing for nearly twenty years and don’t take take it lightly. The CPSC recommended drywall tests measure for contaminants as low as 10 parts per million. As a result, we leave the accuracy of these types of tests to qualified chemists. We do not perform onsite drywall tests as we have found some of these types of tests to be inaccurate.
We have discovered, just as the CPSC has suggested in step one of their new guidelines, that a visual inspection of the accessible drywall areas and the home systems’ accessible metal components is the best place to start to determine if the possibility of Chinese drywalls existence in a building. Looking for possible markings of Chinese drywall or the corrosion resulting from Chinese drywall has proven to be our best tip-off that a home has Chinese drywall.
Visual identification can be difficult since most of the drywall manufacturer markings are obscured. Most views of the drywall manufacturers stamps are limited to partial stamps on the back of the drywall, pieces of the boards end tape or partial UPC numbers. We rely on our database of information built from hundreds of drywall inspections and first hand information from labs, drywall manufacturers, drywall distributors, builders and developers to help sort the limited information obtained in a drywall inspection.
For more information see the CPSC page: http://www.cpsc.gov/info/drywall/InterimIDGuidance012810.pdf