The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

Drywall is the most common material used in finishing interior walls of houses in the United States. It is also known as gypsum board because it contains a gypsum compound held between two sheets of thick paper. Good insulating properties, fire resistance, and relative ease of installation are responsible for its popularity as a building material. However, as many as 100,000 homes may now be ruined as a result of defective drywall used during their construction.

According to homeowners, building associations, and doctors, the drywall gives off foul-smelling sulfurous fumes that corrode metal in the homes and cause irritation in the mouth, nose, throat, and lungs of occupants. It may also contribute to upper respiratory infections, and many families have been told by their doctors to leave the affected homes. The actual compounds responsible for the smell and the corrosive effects have not been identified, but a recently published article in the journal Clean may point to the answer. Analyzing the content of the natural gypsum deposits where the raw material for the defective drywall was mined, researchers discovered numerous organic sulfur compounds that seem identical to the unidentified sulfur compounds found in the finished drywall.

The drywall was installed primarily during the housing boom that was caused partly by rising real estate values and partly by hurricane damage in the South. The building boom led to a shortage of domestically-produced drywall, leading builders to import drywall from China. Estimates of the number of homes affected range from 30,000 (the number of complete homes that may have been built using the amount of imported drywall) to 100,000 (the number of homes that might also have received the drywall if small portions were used in many renovation projects). The majority of affected homes is in Florida, but reports of this defective drywall grow as warmer weather increases the emissions of sulfur compounds in homes across the country. Reports of sulfurous emissions from drywall have been received in Alabama, Arizona, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C.

Although some builders are cooperating with homeowners to resolve the problem, others are not. If your builder is refusing to fix your defective drywall, forcing you to choose between your health and home, schedule a defective product lawsuit consultation with The Cochran Firm today. Whether you work contact us in Miami, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Huntsville, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi, or at any of our other offices, you can count on the nationwide resources of The Cochran Firm to help protect your family and your property.

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