Chinese Drywall - Sources

Sources

Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. Ltd., part of Knauf Gips KG has been identified as a major producer of imported Chinese drywall. Though a number of other Chinese companies are believed to have produced defective drywall, Knauf's name comes up most frequently because the company prints its name on its products. Much of the other contaminated drywall has no markings, making if difficult to identify its origin.

Dramatic increases in new home construction, coupled with the reconstruction effort after hurricane damage, led to a soaring increase in the quantity of imported Chinese drywall. Time magazine reports that more than 550 million pounds of drywall has been imported from China since 2006, including much from the known principal manufacturer of the contaminated drywall, Knauf. However, domestic drywall manufacturing averages over 15 million tons per year, leaving imported Chinese drywall with only a small portion of the market. It is estimated that this imported drywall has been used to construct approximately 60,000 homes.

From January to September 2006, 52 million pounds of Knauf drywall were unloaded in New Orleans, three-quarters of it from Knauf Tianjin, and at least 37 million pounds of Knauf drywall was shipped directly from China to Florida ports.

Drywall usually has a source printed on the back. Chinese drywall may be marked "Made in China", "China", "Knauf Tianjin", or have no marking at all. A home may have been built with drywall from several sources, American and imported.

In April 2009, home improvement stores The Home Depot and Lowe's confirmed from their suppliers that no drywall sold in their stores was imported from China.

On November 23, 2009, CBS News reported that they had done a drywall study to compare American and Chinese drywall. Random samples of new American-made drywall in six U.S. cities, new Chinese-made drywall from China, and samples of drywall from five damaged U.S. homes were collected and sent to the University of Florida to be tested by a team of researchers led by professor Tim Townsend, a scientist and leading expert on the effects of drywall on the environment. The report results stated:

"As expected, the contaminated Chinese samples gave off high levels of sulfur gases. But all but one of the U.S. samples emitted sulfur gases, as well - not at levels as high as the defective Chinese product. "There were some American products that we tested that had higher emission than some of the new Chinese products that we tested."