Michael Foreman's Chinese drywall inspection protocol is now available for free download

This is big news.

Foreman and Associates, Inc. has been leading the way in Chinese drywall (more appropriately called tainted corrosive drywall) testing and remediation since August, 2008. Bear in mind that the Consumer Product Safety Commission—the lead federal agency on this matter—officially started receiving complaints in December, 2008.

Go here to download the free protocol.

In October, 2009, I was involved in organizing an ASTM workgroup with the task of creating an inspection protocol for tainted corrosive drywall. Shortly thereafter, I recruited Foreman into the workgroup.

In January of 2010, Foreman submitted his then proprietary protocol to the workgroup, in the hopes of jump-starting our activities. Beyond modifying his document to put it in conformance with the ASTM format, little more would have been required. Yet, for a number of reasons—none of them good—almost no progress was made toward approving the protocol until November.

Suffice to say that there were a variety of political elements at play, as well crass commercial interests on the part of the so-called "technical contact" of the workgroup—who is in the business of selling certifications in various aspects of tainted drywall evaluation. Amazingly, this same individual is still a proponent of the long-discredited use of x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) as a tool in inspecting for tainted corrosive drywall.

As it happens, the progress that did occur in November was solely as a result of one member, who fashioned essentially a simplified version of what Foreman had submitted almost 11 months earlier. This simplified version was actually submitted to the workgroup in August, but inexplicably, no action was taken until an official committee meeting in November.

I will spare you the details regarding the unprecedented rancor and less than robust ASTM management oversight that has marred this workgroup from its very outset.

Frustrated with the endless delays and grotesque politics, Foreman has made his formerly proprietary document freely available to all.