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Written by asap
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Wednesday, 14 March 2007 |
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There’s nothing like a broken water pipe to send your kitchen and dining room ceilings crashing down in heaps of plaster, to warp your wood floors into a motorcross course, to make your walls swell and burst with moisture and mold.
On the bright side, you do get to know your drywall.
Let my pain this winter be your gain. You don’t have to own a home to know about drywall — maybe you just have a hole that needs fixing from that last rambunctious party. And tornados, floods, mudslides and hurricanes make no distinction between renters and owners.
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HOW THICK IS THICK?
The most commonly used width of drywall is 1/2-inch, and the most common size is 4 feet by 8 feet. Stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s also sell 4-by-10 sheets — mostly used for ceilings — and 2-by-2 pieces for repairs.
If you are putting drywall over another wall — say, plaster or paneling — you can use 3/8-inch on the walls. If you want to really soundproof a room, you can use 5/8-inch.
Do-it-yourselfers note: the thicker or longer the piece is, the harder it is to handle. Any 4-by-8 or 4-by-10 piece requires a flat truck or van to transport it and two strong people to unload it — and the 1/2-inch is noticeably heavier than the 3/8-inch.
It’s not called Sheetrock for ’nuthin.
After lugging 15 sheets up to the second floor, my college-aged daughter and I were drenched in sweat. And that was just for one bedroom. Contractors building new houses know better, using mini-cranes to unload pallets of drywall.
Renovators with older homes need to make sure a 4-by-10 sheet can make it around their narrow stairways, otherwise stick to 4-by-8.
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WHITE, GREEN OR THE NEW STUFF?
Fire codes will determine where you need to use fire-resistant drywall, and most building codes require moisture-resistant drywall in laundry rooms, bathrooms and around sinks. Moisture-resistant could also go in places like mud rooms and kitchens. It’s only about a dollar more per sheet.
The moisture-resistant pieces have a light green coating, which means you need three coats of paint to make sure that green doesn’t peek through.
At the Home Depot in Clifton, N.J., employee Roger Wortman was very excited about a new type of drywall: one that resists mildew.
“One of the most innovative products they have come out with is paperless Sheetrock for high-moisture areas like basements, bathrooms and kitchens,” he said. “Best thing is there’s no paper — and that’s where mold will grow.”
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AVOIDING THE BUCKLE
What you absolutely want to avoid is having a piece of drywall buckle — that is, fold in the middle. You cannot use any part that has buckled because the fold cannot be hidden by spackling tape; there will be a noticeable lump in your wall. You can, however, cut around the fold and use the end pieces for smaller sections around doors and windows.
To keep it from buckling, carry the piece vertically on its long side, not horizontally. This way the weight of the piece is supported by its long side.
The 1/2-inch width buckles less than lighter sizes, making it especially good for ceilings.
Sometimes a 4-by-10 piece will buckle near a corner because you hit it on a wall as you were navigating the tight spaces in your house or apartment. Just slice off the offending end.
To cut pieces to fit, measure carefully and use a Sheetrock handsaw. Don’t forget to cut out openings for outlets and TV cables.
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TO THE CEILING, TO THE WALL
I hired an excellent carpenter to help me do a ceiling, and we just barely wrestled the 4-by-10 sheets onto the ceiling and secured them with drywall screws without having the whole thing fall on our heads. Three people would have been much better.
A drywall jack can lift the sheets up to the ceiling, but that was an extra expense. A single person can allegedly put up a ceiling with a jack, but I think you would have to be a Roger Federer of the wallboard set, a maestro with the screw gun.
When you attach it to a wall, set the drywall on its long side so it goes across several studs, not just two. That way it is more secure and won’t stick out if one stud does warp.
If you are putting drywall over paneling or plaster, you need to pull off all the moldings around doors, windows and ceilings first. If you have an old house with thick, wide moldings you can leave those on and just pull off the bead moldings. All ceiling moldings have to go, because you need to install new moldings to help support the new ceiling.
For a small repair job, cut the Sheetrock in a rectangle or a triangle and support its ends on studs. Circles or arches are too hard to cut and tape.
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SPACKLE AND TAPE
All screws need to be covered with spackle. That does not mean great gobs on the wall. A smooth swipe of spackle, thin as you can make it, is best.
For places where Sheetrock pieces meet, put down a thin layer of spackle, lay drywall tape over it, then put on another layer of spackle. Let it dry for a day or two, then smooth it with fine sandpaper (150 grade or higher). The extra spackle will come off easily in a fine dust, but it will coat your house so clean it up pronto.
If you forget and paint before you sand, the paint locks the spackle in place, and it becomes nearly impossible get rid of those lumps and craters.
Corners need a smooth coat of spackle to cover the drywall seams. Any corners that jut out need a v-shape metal lacing put on before being spackled.
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HAVE A BEER
When the work is over, take a moment and congratulate yourself. You have done a yeoman’s job of creating a new living space.
Of course, each one of those walls and ceilings now needs three coats of paint.
Ouch, that’s a conversation stopper. Maybe it’s time to have another beer.
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asap contributor Sheila Norman-Culp is on leave from her job as an AP supervisory editor. | Only registered users can write comments.
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