Is Your Home Making You Sick? How to Keep Your Family Safe
WILLIS: Over the past few weeks, CNN has told you about defective Chinese-made drywall that may be damaging homes and causing health problems. Now, federal investigators are also setting their sights on it made by an American company.</s>WILLIS (voice-over): It was supposed to be their dream home.</s>JILL SWINDLER, HOMEOWNER: The AC went out, the appliances went out, we had jewelry tarnishing and the plumbing fixtures tarnishing, but none seemed to be related.</s>WILLIS: The Swindler's built their home themselves. Michael a construction foreman by trade had overseen the building of more than 500 homes in Florida. For his own home, he bought 289 sheets of ToughRock brand drywall made by Georgia Pacific at a nearby lumberyard. (on camera): You don't have Chinese drywall in this house, right, Michael? You built this house.</s>MICHAEL SWINDLER, HOMEOWNER: Yes.</s>WILLIS: What is it that you have?</s>M. SWINDLER: Georgia Pacific.</s>WILLIS (voice-over): The Swindler's knew about complaints regarding tainted Chinese drywall, but their walls were lined with a product made by an American company.</s>J. SWINDLER: One of the first things we noticed was the plumbing fixtures in our kids' bathroom, little by little started corroding. They brushed their teeth in these for three years.</s>WILLIS: The fire alarm was going off randomly. Copper wires were turning black and within months soot blanketed the fixtures.</s>BRIAN WARWICK, ATTORNEY: That's sulfur that's on the right. This gypsum is not natural gypsum and that's the issue.</s>WILLIS: Brian Warwick is representing the Swindler's in their lawsuit against Georgia Pacific. He says the problem with ToughRock brand is that a key ingredient is synthetic gypsum which contains chemical materials scrubbed from the exhausts of coal fired power plants. (voice-over): So you don't know what the connection is. You don't have science behind you to tell you specifically what's causing the problem?</s>WARWICK: The science has yet to be developed. Actually going through the process. We believe our experts know what the problem is.</s>WILLIS (voice-over): Representatives from the Florida Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Protection say they found the Swindler home appears to have the same symptoms as homes containing Chinese drywall in which state and federal studies have found sulfur. Georgia Pacific would not agree to an interview with CNN, but did say in a statement, "We are disappointed that they elected to pursue a lawsuit without first informing us of their concerns. We stand behind the quality of our products and take customer complaints seriously." Afraid for the health of their family, they have moved to a rental home nearby, their dream home facing demolition.</s>J. SWINDLER: If it's going to corrode our house like it has, it's got to be doing something negative to our bodies.</s>WILLIS: The Consumer Product Safety Commission also has an active investigation into the tainted drywall. Its labs focusing on what exactly is in this drywall and how it might be connected to the problems these families are coping with. And this, of course, all leads to the question how do you know what materials your contractor is using? Here with some advice is a Ed Del Grande, contractor and host of HGTVPro.com. Ed, great to see you, as always.</s>ED DEL GRANDE, HGTV PRO: It's great to be her, Gerri. I have the final -- first of all, everything is brand new with these issues, so there has to be a lot more testing to be done.</s>WILLIS: You're absolutely right and that testing, obviously, we're waiting for reports that will give us some final analysis of this, but Ed, I got to tell you, when I walked into that house, I was just hit with the smell of rotten eggs. I think homeowners out there want to know, you know, how do I know I have a problem with this drywall before it gets to the point that this family has just seen.</s>DEL GRANDE: Well, in any home, what you want to look for is your copper pipes, if they're water lines or your air-conditioning coils, they're usually made of copper -- if you see them turning black, there could be an issue and you should contact your contractor right away or your local building inspector.</s>WILLIS: And the risks here are pretty big, because there's copper in the wiring, right, so it could affect the electrical components of your house?</s>DEL GRANDE: Well, yeah, there's copper in the wiring, there's copper in a lot of appliances, there's copper, naturally, in a lot of plumbing systems and in your faucets, so this is an issue that could affect just about every area of your home, so if you had construction done recently, you may just want to double check, there's no reason to panic right now, like I said, everything is developing, but contact your builder if you have any questions.</s>WILLIS: Contact your builder, of course, and look, you know, the remedy for this, really, is taking out the drywall, right? I mean, and that's going to cost a pretty penny.</s>DEL GRANDE: If it is proven that the drywall is the issue, yes, the only way to do it, you have to go in the house and strip everything out. That may include the insulation, the copper piping, the copper wires, so before someone takes a direct step as to stripping the entire house out, you got to make sure tests come back that it is definitely the drywall.</s>WILLIS: Yeah, the link needs to be made. Lots of complaints. We're still waiting for the report, as you say. But I want to talk to you a little bit about a broader issue, here. I mean, how do you know about the products in your house and the construction of your home? Obviously, with drywall, if your house was built before, you know, maybe six years ago, five years ago, you don't even need to think about this or be worried about it, but I think people with new homes need to think about what exactly is this house made of? How do they get that information?</s>DEL GRANDE: Well, you know what, this is an eye-opener for the whole industry, just like the auto industry, restructure. People have to realize you can't just sit back and pick out pretty light fixtures and that's your job, you have to work with the builder and pick out every material as you go along to make sure it's everything you're looking for.</s>WILLIS: Ed, great advice. Thanks for the help today, we really appreciate it.</s>DEL GRANDE: Thank you very much, Gerri.</s>WILLIS: The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season is officially underway. Whether you're in hurricane area or not, we're looking at your insurance to make sure you're covered.