Drywall, Gypsum Wall Board; Its Not All The Same!

So there are four large players in the North American Drywall market.  They are National Gypsum, Georgia Pacific, USG, and Lafarge.  Now you may be saying wait are you talking about Sheetrock?  Well yes but that is a trade mark name and there in lies the confusion.

National Gypsum calls their drywall Gold Bond NOT to be confused with "gold board" a misnomer for the yellow colored board produced under the name DensGlass by Georgia Pacific.

Georgia Pacific calls their drywall ToughRock.

USG produces drywall under the name Sheetrock

Lafarge calls their drywall.. wait for it.. drywall no special brand name must be because they are Canadian.

All these companies also produce FireRated Gypsum Board under special names.. Fire-shield, Fireguard, Firecode, and Firecheck.

They all also produce moisture/mold resistant panels, the paper on these is usually colored green, blue or purple depending on brand.

They all also produce a glass fiber mat covered board for exterior sheeting usually used as a backer for an EIFS or other veneer or weather barrier system.  Georgia Pacific originated the product under the Densglass name.  Nat Gyp calls it e2xp sor extended exposure. USG produces is under the sheetrock name as Securock it is bright green.  Lafarge call is Weather Defense and it is grey in color.  CertainTeed also makes exterior Gypsum sheeting under the names Proroc and Glasroc.

Okay now I had a contractor I had just paid an extra 4 grand to install Densglass.  instead I get a purple mold resistant drywall.  He insisted it was the same saying its Gold Bond its the same as Densglass.  Number one Gold Bond sounds nothing like Densglass and I paid for that specific product.  Number two I don't really care what the color or the name of the product is what I want is a glass fiber mat covered gypsum board.  He says well its better that what we were going to originally put.  So!  Its not as good as what I fucking paid for!  He still insisted it was the same quality the next day.. Un-fucking believable that a GC doesn't know the different kinds of Gypsum Board available.

NOT GLASS MAT FACED!!!  NOT DENSGLASS!!!

Needless to say he will be even more confused when it comes to to all the variants of cement board or tile backed board.

Lets get electrocuted

There is this sign on the bottom of the escalators in our building.  It clearly states you shouldn't drill into it...

What do the carpenters do?  Attach metal studs to the bottom using self tapping screws (which have a drill bit on the end)..

The reason not to is that there is sensitive mechanics and electrical equipment on the other side..  Oh and they screwed some in right where the electrical supply conduit enters.  I believe that it is a juicy 600 AMPS more than enough to blacken your socks...

I know they are not in control but are they even watching

Oh our general contractor has no clue what is going on around him.  In this project we are replacing one stair well and leaving the other pretty much as is.  So the other day the Architect is walking through with us and says "hey where did the hand rails go?"
We said "ask the GC I guess they are replacing them."
"Why, they were perfectly good?"
So we go in and ask hey whats going on with the hand rails, they were existing to remain. The GC didn't even know they were gone! They had been gone for weeks!

Then there was the disappearance of a large mushroom exhaust fan from a set back roof.  They said oh we were not working area. What does that mean you have keys and control of the whole site.  Then they blame a couple of painters that were using the are to work from to paint a neighboring building.  First of all the fan was 10 years old, secondly probably 3 feet tall and a 5' diameter and several hundred pounds.  in addition you mean to tell me you security didn't notice the painters walking out with it? I mean there is only one way in and out!

All that is nothing compare to the vault incident.  A bank is moving back into the first floor "the building was originally a bank headquarters...  in the cellar there was a bank vault with a custom vault door 28" thick.  The banks interior fit out contractor did a walk through and noticed someone had taken a cutting torch to the door and had started to dismantle it's inner workings.. when we told the contractor they said hey that area is out of our contract are we are not responsible for it.  Dude you are doing work everywhere in the building your the base GC! you had to replace the walls around it! how do you figure you are not responsible.  they said they would look into it.

A week later we ask if they find out who did it?
the response was "No." then it got weird
"So the person who did it could still be working here?"
"No."
"So you do know did it?"
"No"
"but you said they are not working here?"
"yes"
"so then you you know who did it"
"I just told you we don't know who did it"
"I am confused how do you know they are not here if you don't know who did it"
"right"

That is not word for word because this happened weeks ago but it is very close.

Who ever did it spent hours of time and left all the pieces too. (I assume they wanted the metal to sell as scrap) These people are so incompetent!  Just good at fucking everything up!

There lawyer took it even farther.  He sent a letter saying they couldn't be responsible because they didn't know it existed.  Didn't even know it had been a bank or that there was a vault.  We had a few of our job meetings in the room with the vault and the building has Hanover Bank written in big letters right across the front!  I guess they are just deaf dumb and blind!