The drywalled ceiling in my bathroom has developed a long crack along one of the drywall seams. What would be the proper way to repair it. I have thought about digging out the seam somewhat and remudding the joint. Would it be better to retape the joint and apply mud again over that? It would raise that area but if feathered out far enough maybe it wouldn't show. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Step one, why did it crack. With out answering that one you should not bother trying to fix it.
How new is the home? How long as the crack been there? Any other problems in the area? Does it start near a door or window?
You will have to tape the joint first. You will also have to feather it. If you do it right of course it won't shows, because that's how all the drywall in your house was done. But first, I'd want to know why it's cracking. What is a "drywall seam"?
The house is over 25 years old and the crack has been there for many years. There was a popcorn finish on the ceiling so that the crack wasn't very obvious. I have removed the popcorn crap and need to somehow repair the crack before painting the ceiling. It is about 5 feet long and probably about a sixteenth of an inch wide (or less). It in a second story bathroom and there are no other such cracks in the house.
Tape is a must. It will take 3 coats at least, the first embedding the tape and the next 2 feathering the compound wider. You will need something wider than your normal "spackling" knife.
Good. Follow Jeff's advice and it should be fine.
A drywall seam is where one sheet joins another. At that point, tape is used.
Before repairing it, to be on the safe side, I'd put some additional drywall screws in the ceiling in the areas bordering the crack.
Then, I'd use the mesh fabric type of tape and joint compound to fix the crack. With 3 coats and a wide knife, you can taper it so it will be unnoticeable.
Never use mesh type fabric tape. It only makes future cracks easier. The purpose of tape is to make spackel flexible. Much like steel rebar makes concrete flexible - so that concrete will not crack as concrete moves.
Mesh tape provides no such flexibility function. Only paper tape provides flexibility to keep tape joint from cracking again.
Properly noted is to put sheet rock screws in before taping. Cracks could exist because two sheets are not joined together by a common piece of wood. Every adjoining sheet rock must share and be attached to a common piece of wood - even in inside corners. Otherwise cracks can happen.
Then since both sheets and wood may still move, then we use paper tape - not mesh tape - to give the spackel some flexibility without cracking.
Make sure that the entire interface between paper tape and wall is 'glued' together by spackel. If just one air spot exists between tape and wall, then either tape will peal off later or spackel will crack. The reason for mesh tape is that some tapers fail to properly seal every cubic microinch of tape to the wall using spackel as the glue. Paper tape always makes a stronger surface.
How to get tape to pr> A drywall seam is where one sheet joins another. At that point, tape > is used.
I know what a seam is - I want to know what he is calling a seam.
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