Patching vs New "Sheet Rock"

[MiamiCuse]

This week I had someone come and bid on installing sheet rock on my house. After he looked it over he gave me some valuable advice and said I should fix a few things first then call him to do the job.

So here are some of the things I am fixing.

In my house, about 60% of the sheetrock were removed. Some rooms have both walls and ceiling removed, some only walls, some only ceiling, depending on what was being modified.

He said that in some rooms, where I asked him to patch some holes, that it's cheaper and easier to gut and replace then to patch. For example, one room I had five holes in the ceiling. I did not make the holes, the electricians did. When they rewired they did not get into the attic, so they punched random holes in my ceiling to pass the wires and conduits. They told me it would be easy fix for the sheetrock guys. Now the sheetrock guy says they are not easy fix. He can do it but it will not be as good looking and it will be more expensive then using new sheetrock.

The reason he said these are hard to patch, is because it is not typical sheet rock. In some areas he said I have sheet rock, then a "brown coat", then plaster, with embeded wire mesh in them. He said it is a pain to patch, and difficult to patch perfectly.

Same with a hallway. I have one hallway that is fifty feet long. About thirty feet of this sheetrock was removed and now we have to put new. Again, he said, rip out the other twenty feet, put new 1/2" sheet rock. Otherwise, I will have to match the old "thickness" which is slightly more than 3/4". He said it would be expensive to mix 1/2" and 3/4" and the result may be questionable.

So in a null shell, he is recommending that I demolish ALL my sheet rock - all walls, all ceilings instead of dealing with a mix of old and new.

This week, I started to look at demolishing one room's ceiling, and immediately ran into problems. Some sheetrock in the ceiling seem to span into other rooms. For example, one interior wall's top plate actually is below the sheetrock, meaning the sheetrock is sandwiched between the top plate and the bottom of the joist. So to take that ceiling down, I have to make a cut on both sides of the top plate to free the sheetrock. This is a mess. Using a grinder with a diamond blade to cut through this sheetrock/brown coat/plaster/wire mesh is slow and dusty. I thought framing of the walls is done before sheetrock? How can sheetrock be on top of the top plate?

[chaniarts]

walls were added after the house was built. now is the time to remove them if you want.

otherwise, just cut the paper with a knife and leave what's on top of the top page there.

[Eternal September]

Patch the walls with 1/2" rock but fur out the studs and plates first using

1/4" plywood strips first.

elk

[hallerb]

i would gut everything which will make insulating very easy and uncover any hidden problems that may be lurking under the surfaces to be removed.

the job will look better if its all the same

[trader4]

Without actually seeing it, of course, it's hard to give an accurate opinion. But I tend to agree that it's probably better to tear the rest out in any areas where there are lots of holes, height mis-matches, etc. Pros can put up new drywall really fast and the material is not that costly. I suggest you spell out that they use screws, not nails to install it, so you don't have to deal with nail pops over the years.

For the sheetrock to be embedded across the top plate, the wall would have had to have been added after the house was built. Either that or very strange construction.

[Evan]

OMG, ROFL...

Dude, this is another one of your bone head posts that leads anyone with actual remodeling and construction experience to question whether or not you should even touch tools...

It is 10 times easier to completely sheetrock bare walls and ceilings than it is to patch and paste and mud joints and scratch coat to end up with as flat as can be ceilings and walls when you are done... It is a lot of artful labor to blend in older walls with new work and is better done with one clean boundary joint in mind rather than a series of patches...

As to your removal method being dusty and slow, I would suggest that you are not doing it properly and require at least one helper to assist your demo work by using a vacuum hose positioned close to where your cutting tool is being used to cut down on the dust... You could demo that stuff quicker with the right demo tools than making perfectly square cuts in something which you could break out close to the wall and then hammer it from one side to pop out on the other...

In this case since you are again not using the proper tools or techniques and are out of your elements, this might be something you want to contract out to someone good at doing demo... Removing the remaining

40% of the interior sheetrock in a home should not take days upon days...

~~ Evan

[gls]

responding to

gls wrote: Miami, I've got the exact same deal as you; "mud" walls (3/8" gyp board with a scratch and finish coat; about 3/4" thick) INCLUDING the hack where a wall was added after a ceiling was done! I'll muddy the waters a bit by saying that these are great walls that beat drywall in a lot of ways. They are strong, smooth, and quiet. I like them better than sheetrock. For small holes, I have used 5/8 drywall with a layer of compound over it to bring it up to the thickness of the old wall. Where you have a large amount of material to replace, you'll probably want to just rock the whole thing. Either that or find a real plaster guy who can build the same kind of wall, but that's probably big bucks. Good luck with it.

[MiamiCuse]

That's the puzzling part, it looks original from the first construction, unless they put up ceiling sheet rock then framed the interior.

[MiamiCuse]

Yes that can be done. They sheetrock guy was telling me it's cheaper to just go with a complete redo then spending a lot of time patching and fixing things at different thicknesses and depth. I have looked at the walls in different rooms, and it seems some walls are thicker than others. That brown coat is not always the same thickness. He has a point but man this is a lot of sheetrock to tear down and dispose. These are much heavier.

[MiamiCuse]

Thanks for the screw reminder. I'll make sure to discuss that point with him.

It could be both strange construction AND the walls framed after. The house has a small span because it's a wrapped around house an interior courtyard, so all the interior walls are non-load bearing, most of them are just there, standing free without anything sitting on them. The walls are all framed to be 100" tall. At the base is a 4" wide piece of wood, the three ply sheet rock sits on top of this strip of wood, making the total height 100". The wood is 3/4" thick, matching the rock thickness. I guess the wood makes nailing baseboards easier.

[Dan Lanciani]

| He said that | The reason he said these are hard to patch, is because it is not typical | sheet rock. In some areas he said I have sheet rock, then a "brown coat", | then plaster, with embeded wire mesh in them. He said it is a pain to | patch, and difficult to patch perfectly.

I have this on my ceilings and several variations (mostly without the metal) on the walls. I like it a lot better than drywall. It has all the advantages of old-style plaster combined with the inherent regularity provided by the drywall base. In particular it does not dent if you bump it with a hard object. Unless I were gutting for some other reason I'd try to keep this for the walls. I don't bump the ceiling often so I wouldn't mind drywall there as much. :)

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

[Evan]

It is not that puzzling when you factor in that load bearing partitions go up in a building first, to carry the load of the floors or roof above... It is less laborious to sheetrock large square shaped areas and install non-load bearing partitions after the ceiling has been sheetrocked than it is to deal with maneuvering large 12' long sheets in and out of a warren of smaller rooms... The additional labor required by using smaller sheets or cutting down the longer ones to make getting it in the rooms creates more non-factory side edge to side edge joints which are more labor to properly tape and mud...

How many penetrations from the walls put in after the ceiling sheetrock went up through the ceiling for wiring and such are there in those walls up into the attic or roof framing are there? Or does all your wiring route around the exterior walls to get back to the main panel?

~~ Evan

[Evan]

Yes, it is cheaper, because the large uncut sheets can go up VERY FAST compared to having to measure and cut each sheet to fit around whatever patches of old stuff are left...

Not to mention all the fussing with scratch coating that will have to happen to blend in the materials of differing thicknesses...

Some walls are thicker than others because they were plastered by different people... One plasterer was clearly better at doing it because he or she used less material to finish the walls...

ROFLOL... How large is this house you are remodeling... Throwing away a bit more material should be nothing -- you should have a 60 yd. open top construction debris dumpster on site anyway for such an extensive job...

Your time is better spent hiring someone to demo all this stuff for you and letting the sheetrock pros handle redoing your bare stud rooms...

~~ Evan

[dadiOH]

Instead of removing all the old, is it possible to just put a new layer over it?

[hallerb]

get a quote for demo and debris removal, a quote to do a comlete new drywall job, and a seperate quote for patch repair replace as needed.

get a seperate quote for a dumpster if needed and invite some friends over to help with demo

you could go with blueboard and skim cote plaster, it costs more but is far harder.

in any case all new will get you a far better looking job.

think of this how many times will you be doing this?

long term the rules on lead in paint will only get more strict, if you replace everything all your walls will be lead free, a positive at home sale time:)

[HerHusband]

MC,

It might be worth it to patch one or two holes, but when you've reached your swiss cheese state I would agree it would be easier to just gut and start fresh.

I've patched plaster and lath walls with layers of sheetrock. It's doable when needed, but takes a lot more work and is difficult to blend.

Demolition is messy work, no matter what you do. Tape plastic sheeting over the doorways to keep dust out of the rest of the house, open the window, lay down drop cloths to protect the flooring (and make cleanup easier), and cover any duct openings. Of course, wear a dust mask and safety glasses.

Then grab hammers, prybars, or whatever and start ripping things down. Don't worry about being neat, it's going to be messy. Stop every now and then to haul debris out of the room so it's not a tripping hazard or getting in your way. Take it out the window, if possible, to avoid tracking dust and dirt through the house.

As for the sheetrock over the walls, score the wall/ceiling corner with a utility knife before pulling down the ceiling. It should break fairly cleanly. If not, use a reciprocating saw to cut through whatever lath, mesh, or whatever is in the way.

Since this is a DIY newsgroup, I would gut one room at a time, add insulation if needed, then install the sheetrock myself using screws. It's not that difficult, and sheetrock is fairly cheap if you do mess something up. Even if you rent a drywall lift for the ceilings, it should be cheaper than hiring out, and you won't have the entire house in a state of demolition at the same time. You can hire out the joint taping and mudding if you wish, but it's a fun skill to learn that you'll probably use again later on. Start in the least visible room (utility room, closet, etc.), and develop your skills as you move to more visible rooms like the living room and kitchen.

Good luck,

Anthony

[hallerb]

it sounds like the home is near gutted already, so colateral damage isnt such a big concern.

[Don Phillipson]

It sounds as if you disbelieve him. A second local estimate may help you decide.

[DD_BobK]

Smitty-

Thanks for you commentary...... it was what I had in mind but mine would not have been as well said.

Evan- Give the HVAC group a try, you'll fit right in.

cheers Bob

[EXT]

What you have is most likely gypsum lath (not really called sheetrock) with plaster. This is small 16" x 48" x 3/8" gypsum sheets (made to be plastered) with brown coat base plaster covered with white finishing plaster. There should not be wire mesh over the whole area, it was typically placed on outside and inside corners and over areas prone to cracking such as the top corners of doors and openings.

Unless you only have a couple of patches, it would be simpler to gut and install regular drywall sheetrock. This is the ideal time to fix/add any wiring, lights, switches, plumbing adjustments, and to upgrade the insulation and install a code specified vapor barrier.

Rooms with minor fixes, could be patched, other areas with lots of openings should be gutted. New drywall is relatively easy to install.