On Friday we had an independent inspector, Foreman, come into our home to deliver the bad news. He headed straight for our air conditioner handler which is located upstairs in our loft. When he removed the front panel to revel the coils, it was clear that something is going on it our house too. The toxic sulfur drywall makes all the copper coils turn black, but this isn’t the case for us. All of our coils as well as all the galvanized metal has a thick coat of rust. Our 2 year old air conditioner is well beyond it’s years, looking more like a unit that is near the end of its lifespan of 10-12 years. We do have a couple spots of the blackened coils which might mean that we only have a few of the sulfur panels of drywall. Our inspector, Foreman, informed us that unfortunately our rusted unit is clear evidence that something in our house is not good. He believes that there is another type of toxic drywall, what he calls Phase 2 (the sulfur based drywall is Phase 1). This phase 2 drywall, which he believes we have gives off an ammonia or light vinegar smell. It also has a laundry list of side effects and medical problems that it causes. The a/c unit is effected first because it circulates all the air from the house through it, despite the fact that we keep the temp on 80 while we’re at work for about 12 hours of the day. Below are pictures we took of our air a/c air handler located inside our house. The bright orange/red rust is rusted galvanized metal, which should not happen. The coils are rusted as well.
We even found a piece of wire tubing that had been left in the unit that seems to have some corrosion on it as well.
The result…we have to wait about 6 months for more symptoms to begin to appear before we will have evidence that it’s the drywall that is causing our problems. Our air conditioner will break and the coils will need to be replaced and we will begin to get sick. It will bother our eyes, nose and our ears will bleed. We’ll probably get a skin rash and any open wounds will take a very long time to heal. The dogs will be lethargic, they might stop eating or just throw up all the time. They will constantly want to go outside and refuse to come back in, trying to avoid the house. They will also get a rash, which this might be the cause of Wrigley’s constant skin problems. Below is a picture that we took yesterday of Wrigley's rash upon our arrival home from being out of town all weekend and leaving the dogs at home.
It is believed that all the homes on Montauk Point have the sulfur drywall and all the homes on our street, Chatum Light Run, have the ammonia drywall. We are one of the oldest homes on our street with the ammonia drywall so we will begin to show signs first.There isn’t much we can do right now. We were told just to document everything by keeping a log and taking pictures. I had a rash on my arm all last week, coincidence….I don’t know. It went away this weekend while we were out of town and out of the house. We’ll see if it comes back now that we’re home again. Wrigley is covered in a rash as always, we’ve already taken pictures and I’m making an appointment with the vet to get his records for the past 2 years we’ve been in the house and talk with him on his feelings about it all. The Lennar inspection is scheduled for March 5th, which he’ll probably tell us we don’t have the sulfur so we’re clean. We plan to open up the a/c unit and question him on that. We’re also going to schedule an a/c repair man to come take a look at our unit to have his professional opinion as well as get something in writing from him on why he thinks our unit is well beyond it’s years.
We’re not sure what we’re going to do at this point. We don’t want to be trapped in our house, but we also don’t want to make any irrational decisions right now because we’re both scared to death!
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