Tampa Bay area drywall giant calling all DIYers

GIBSONTON Residential construction is ramping back up in the Tampa Bay area, but not nearly to the extent it occurred before the Great Recession.

The slower pace has prompted drywall giant National Gypsum Services Co. to reach out to a growing customer base the do-it-yourselfers.

The company, which has a manufacturing plant here, has even hired celebrity design maven Anitra Mecadon, host of the DIY Networks Mega Dens, to lure in homeowners who may be ready to tear out some old walls and replace them. For many, post recession, Mecadon said, its more about DIY projects than about trying to sell a house. She has produced a YouTube video to show homeowners how easy the products are to install.

National Gypsum, which ranks itself as second largest in U.S. drywall sales behind Georgia-Pacific Gypsum, is using a fairly new line of colorful wallboard to entice families into trying its products. The patented Purple family of National Gypsum products includes XP (extra protection) drywall that is mold and moisture resistant (think kitchen and bathroom remodel), boards that are impact and abrasion resistant (think busy family room and garage) and boards that reduce noise between rooms (home theaters and bathrooms abutting bedrooms).

The privately held company with about 70 employees at its Gibsonton facility on U.S. 41 started business here in 2000 and is cranking out 33 products, including enough drywall to fulfill the current needs of every home builder in Florida, said product manager Kelly Guinsler.

Drywall is a $4 billion-a-year industry in the United States, employing about 9,000 people at 158 businesses, according to IBISWorld, an industry research firm. Because National Gypsum is privately held, it does not release specific financial information, spokesman Stephen Hass said. As for how much of the DIY market National Gypsum hopes to corral, all of it, Hass said.

Like most other construction-related businesses, drywall manufacturers took a big hit to their bottom lines during the great recession.

Before the recession, there were about 1.5 million house starts on average in a year nationally, Guinsler said. It has been six years since we have seen anything over 1 million.

Florida construction permits for single-family homes were down 11 percent in August from 2013, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Tampa still ranks second in the state for new single-family building permits only behind Orlando.

As a whole, the state is only up 1 percent this year for single-family. Nationally, the U.S. is barely ahead of last year and is up less than a percent, so Tampa is behind those trends, Hass said.

Continue reading here:
Tampa Bay area drywall giant calling all DIYers