Mr Indemnity sent me a link this afternoon to a NYT article about how Chinese drywall in new construction is making homeowners sick and their appliances and electrical systems fail, because he knows how I like to get wound up about cheap Chinese crap and how it's ruining our economy and probably killing us all. Thanks, Mr Indemnity!
But one sentence stood out. I quote: "The Commission recently sent investigators to China to meet with manufacturers and visit mines that produce the drywall, and China has sent experts to visit affected homes in the United States." Excuse me? Drywall mines? What the hell *is* drywall? I didn't think it was a substance found in, y'know, nature. Do you think Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, and the rest were down the shaft excavating drywall with their pickaxes? Did Loretta Lynn write any songs called "Drywall Miner's Daughter"? And I don't know the entire periodic table, but I'm fairly sure drywall isn't on it.
I call shenanigans on this one.
xoxo
Addendum: Mr Indemnity just emailed me that drywall is primarily gypsum, therefore the mines referenced are gypsum mines. To which I say, sloppy fucking writing NYT.
4 comments:
Drywall is made of gypsum.
A lot of the Chinese stuff gives off sulphur vapors among other caustic things. Ironically, when NBC news had a college chem lab in Florida test it against the US stuff, it turns out that a lot of the US stuff gives off more fumes than the Chinese stuff.
Lots of lawsuits and people losing their homes.
Gotta love living in late nineteenth century chic here in Shangri-Lowell, where I believe it was even too early for asbestos.
I live in a semi-ancient house where many of the walls are ol'-time lath and plaster. Praise be!
What I can't figure is that sulphur is at least as valuable as gypsum. And nobody can figure out how to split the minerals? Sheesh!
*When I was a boy*, we called this stuff sheet rock. The gypsum is why. Just to prove that lath and plaster walls are old than I am.
God, you men and your "science" and your "facts" are a buzzkill. Will no one indulge me my fantasy of singing dwarves mining perfectly rectangular sheets from the drywall cavern? Sigh.
Admit it, "Drywall Miners Daughter" was hilarious.
And those NYT writers are sloppy sloppy sloppy.
You could still have seven dwarves mining gypsum, but their names all have to begin with G.
Post a Comment