If you have not yet been convinced of the importance of having a home inspected before you buy, here's one key reason: Chinese plasterboard. You may have heard about it on the news, but how bad is it?

Drywall imported from China, especially between 2001 and 2007, is at the root of the problem. However, plasterboard wrong in this country can be a problem, too. Despite the major problems have occurred in the southeast, particularly Florida, the issue has been reported in 32 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.

Heat and humidity cause the defective plaster to release gases such as hydrogen sulfide, which creates a smell of rotten eggs. The gases also corrodes copper and other metal surfaces. As a result, there may be damage to the air conditioning, electrical wiring, plumbing, and other appliances and electronics. The smoke detector may stop working. Even silver jewelry can become black.

Chinese Plasterboard is very friable. That means that small particles can easily become dislodged with little friction. Particles reach the lungs. This can cause problems even after the plaster has been removed. Health problems reported include difficulty breathing, headaches and nosebleeds.

Unfortunately, to date, there is no proven rehabilitation protocol, which means that there is a good solution. One claim of chlorine dioxide to decontaminate buildings company with drywall China. However, the office of Florida Attorney General warns of various deceptive practices aimed at homeowners, such as false test kits, offers a home inspection, ozone generators and chemical cleaners.

These warnings indicate that the presence of defective drywall can not be determined by the air testing of a house, or corrected by chemical sprays or ozone generators. This makes finding a qualified home inspector requisite knowledge to start the path to finding Chinese plasterboard and solve the problem.

Here is a little deeper. Plasterboard is a common building material typically made of a base layer of gypsum plaster thick pressed between two sheets of paper. It is then dried in an oven. The U.S. gypsum imported foreigners during the building boom between 2004 and 2007. Moreover, numerous hurricanes in the southeast of 2004-2005 caused a shortage of American-made drywall.

The problems have been attributed to the use of fly ash in the imported plasterboard, which is degraded in the heat and humidity. Made in the USA using fly ash drywall, too, but the manufacturing process used creates a cleaner product.

It is possible that a house has been built with drywall from various sources. Drywall is usually printed on the half back. Drywall is important to note that Chinese can be marked "Made in China", "China", "Knauf Tianjin", or have no marking at all.

As expected, the problem of Chinese drywall creates all kinds of financial and legal challenges for homeowners. The government is aware of the problem and has begun to take certain actions ..

In late November 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a report to find a link between Chinese plasterboard, hydrogen sulfide and corrosion of metals in homes. These results should enable government agencies to "develop protocols to identify the houses with the corrosive environment and determine the effectiveness of remediation methods. In other words, they are working on the problem, but more studies are needed, even in the area of health problems.

In May 2009 the House passed a resolution to encourage banks and mortgage servicers to work with families affected by contaminated drywall.They are also asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to study the problem of Chinese plasterboard.

While the CPSC says that not all households have been affected, as early estimates are tens of thousands of homes are contaminated. Because of the severity of problems caused by China gypsum wallboard, which is more important than ever to have a home inspection done on the house you want to buy. Maybe you suspect that the problem in the house where he now lives. Look at a reputable inspector, home with knowledge of the first steps to find and solve the problem of China drywall.