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Several home builders in the Front Range now repairing homes affected by formaldehyde

Posted at 7:44 PM, Jul 26, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-26 21:44:54-04

DENVER -- For 10 months, homebuyer Tracy Jackson has been waiting to move into her new Aurora home and while she was supposed to move in next month, she is going to have to get more comfortable in her empty temporary apartment.

“I got a phone call last week saying my closing was going to be delayed about a month,” Jackson told Denver7.

After several customers complained of an odor in newly constructed homes, her builder, Richmond American Homes, is having to repair her basement’s joists. The odor comes from a coating that contains formaldehyde.

“You can smell it and it does sting your eyes when you go into the basement,” said Tom Sibert, another homebuyer in Parker.

Sibert also felt similar effects when he checked the basement of the new home built by Lennar. He was supposed to close on the Parker home by tomorrow.

"It's our dream house. We have been planning for this for years now and we are finally finished we're really excited, so it's kind of a letdown not to be able to close tomorrow," he said.

The company Weyerhaeuser that supplied the coating known as Flak Jacket says about 2,200 homes throughout the country have been impacted. It's going to cost the company roughly $60 million to fix or replace affected joists.