NEW ORLEANS — A Chinese drywall manufacturer has agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve court claims by thousands of Gulf Coast property owners who say the product corroded pipes and wires and otherwise wrecked their homes, the largest settlement of its kind so far.

The deal announced today by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon calls for the Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. to create an uncapped fund to pay for repairing roughly 4,500 properties, mostly in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

A separate fund capped at $30 million will pay for other types of losses, including those by people who blame drywall for health problems.

Russ Herman, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said the settlement is worth $800 million to $1 billion, although an attorney for the Chinese company disputed that estimate.

Knauf attorney Kerry Miller said the company “decided to step up and settle these claims and do the right thing.”

Fallon presides over more than 10,000 claims involving Chinese drywall. The cases were consolidated in the New Orleans federal court in 2009.