bad china drywall again?

[ceb58]

Looking for some opinions. We have a 50K sq ft warehouse. In the warehouse the owner of the building, in 2005, put up 10 ft steel studs to make an office area. It has 3 rest rooms, 6 offices, a small break area and an area that they install the radios in racks. On normal days there are 2-3 people there for a short time and the warehouse person is there for 8 hrs. Lately there has been a strong rotten egg/sulfur smell in the office area. The owner has had plumbers out to check the traps and vents and all of that is OK. I am now wondering if we aren't dealing with some of the bad China dry wall. I am going to pull some recpt. this week and check for blackened wiring. What I am curious of is why, if, it is bad drywall why is it just now starting to smell? The only thing I can think is it due to the amount of rain we have had during the winter. Ideas?

 

[jusme123]

wow just read a couple of articles on the issue. Is the drywall company making good an all the home repairs? Its involves thousands of homes that need electric wiring removed and sheetrock ripped out to bare studs, thats a huge cost :jawdrop:

 

[GoldDigger]

Looking for some opinions. We have a 50K sq ft warehouse. In the warehouse the owner of the building, in 2005, put up 10 ft steel studs to make an office area. It has 3 rest rooms, 6 offices, a small break area and an area that they install the radios in racks. On normal days there are 2-3 people there for a short time and the warehouse person is there for 8 hrs. Lately there has been a strong rotten egg/sulfur smell in the office area. The owner has had plumbers out to check the traps and vents and all of that is OK. I am now wondering if we aren't dealing with some of the bad China dry wall. I am going to pull some recpt. this week and check for blackened wiring. What I am curious of is why, if, it is bad drywall why is it just now starting to smell? The only thing I can think is it due to the amount of rain we have had during the winter. Ideas?

One possibility is that something has changed regarding the ventilation inside the walls or the air exchange in the office rooms themselves.
Another is that some of the walls might be firewalls with two layers of sheetrock, one good and one bad. If the bad stuff is on the office side and well painted it might take some time for the decomposition products to get into the wall cavity.
Just throwing out some WAGs.
By pulling cover plates, you should also be able to get an idea if the smell is stronger inside one or more of the walls. (But don't just lean down and sniff real hard!)