Should Builders Be Concerned With the Recent Recalls of Chinese Products?Buyer Beware?

Continued from page 1

Even so, the recalls of consumer products and the Square D scare have left consumers, regulators, and now even some residential builders a bit wary of buying products that bear the pervasive "Made in China" label. And in late summer, engineering firm KTA Tator added to their worries by revealing that some Chinese-made commercial steel contains dangerously high levels of lead paint.

Still, builders and building products distributors, who regularly rely on Chinese-manufactured fasteners, cabinets, toilets, granite, and tile with both American and Chinese brand names—often without knowing where the products came from—are unlikely to rid their inventories of imports in response to the summer spate of recalls that have so tainted the China brand.

American builders invited the Chinese into the home building economy by seeking out supply and lower prices during the housing boom of the early 2000s, says Bernie Markstein, senior economist with the NAHB. "There was significant demand in the U.S. that could not be met solely from domestic and other foreign producers," he says. "In some areas, like cement, when clearly there's a shortage of U.S. supply, you simply could not have built the number of homes we've built in recent years without the import of some of that item."

Michael Carliner, a home building consultant and Markstein's NAHB predecessor, agrees. "By broadening our sources of supply, we're less likely to run into shortages," he says. Carliner notes, however, that the home building industry relies far less on imports than "almost any other industry."

St. Louis-based Highland Homes saves about 25 percent on the cabinets it buys in bulk from China, even after paying to randomly test the products, which bear non-American brand names, for their safety and quality, says president and partner Bob Shallenberger. The company has about 10 single-family homes and 500 condominiums in production and works with a customs broker to import cabinets, hardware, granite, flooring, plumbing fixtures, and lighting directly from China.

Shallenberger, a one-time rug importer, says he gets a higher-quality product for the money than he would if he bought domestically. And the recent recalls haven't soured him on his source.

George Fowler, owner of New Orleans-based Smart Buy Kitchen and Bath, estimates that builders can save from 10 percent to 50 percent on building products purchased from Chinese companies. Fowler imports kitchen cabinets and granite from China and sells them locally to people he says "could never afford it" if they had to pay full price.

"I rarely get asked where I get my products from," says Fowler, who sells to home builders and developers. "A lot of them understand where it's coming from. I've never had a single home builder have a problem with it."