Shoring up potentially damaged studs without removing all the drywall?

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Hypothetically speaking, if you *did* decide to remove all the drywall and work on the studs, would you be doing the work, or would you hire someone?

[The Reverend Natural Light]

Drywall is cheap. If there was some type of structural compound that could be pumped into a wall, surely it would cost a lot more than re- drywalling the room. Besides, if it's an exterior wall then it should already be filled with insulation.

[StarMan]

If one is working on a wall where there may be some past termite damage (now certainly gone), there is a somewhat "cracking" sound when pounding the drywall, is there any way to reinforce the studs without having to remove all the drywall from the walls in question?

In the house in question, the carpet, baseboards and the room itself is in good enough shape as to not need work, so to re-do all the drywall would be a massive effort and expense. The state of the studs is unknown, but surely there's some damage. In a few years, no structural damage was noticed.

The fear is that being a corner room, if the studs are compromised, eventually the structure could be damaged. Removing the drywall would allow new PT or metal studs to be inserted.

I'm wondering if there are alternatives. For example, some INJECTABLE polymer or something, which could be inserted into holes drilled in the wall, which would fill up any gaps in the studs and strengthen them?

Surely there are solutions none of us have thought of which would prevent having to take apart the carpet and baseboards etc.

Thanks!

[jimmyDahGeek]

Put on a dust mask and start tearing the drywall off. It's not that bad a job, drywall is cheap, and you might be surprised at what you find inside. I was in a similar situation with an old house once and when I took off the drywall there were a couple of studs that were completely destroyed. The only way you can be sure is by removing the drywall.

GoodLuck,

Jim

[Rick Blaine]

I agree. I _hate_ working with drywall for the dust & weight, but it isn't hard or expensive for a single room. My issues is I always screw up the textured finish so it never quite matches the rest of the room.

-- "Tell me what I should do, Annie." "Stay. Here. Forever." - Life On Mars

[EXT]

Textured finishes seem to be a localized feature, especially in the south-west as far as I can tell. In my area of North America it is never done. So it may not be a problem for the OP.

[DerbyDad03]

I think a point that a couple of you may have missed is that it's not the drywall that the OP is concerned with, it's the baseboard and carpet. In other words, to remove the drywall would mean removing the baseboard which in turn might impact the carpet installation.

That said, I agree that proper inspection and repair of the studs is not possible without removing the drywall, regardless of how much downstream work this causes.

Unless of course he wants to try it from the outside. ;-)

[Kurt Ullman]

A few small holes and a fiber optic device might do as well. Don't know about the expense of renting one. Is that viable or have I watched one too many CSI's (g)>?

[Rick Blaine]

Yep, that's also a pain. But if you take it slowly and use a thin flat blade, you should be able to remove the baseboards with damaging them. Be sure to score the wall paint/baseboard seam with a razor first. The carpet shouldn't be a problem as the tack strips are usually far enough away from the wall that you have space to work.

'fraid so.

-- "Tell me what I should do, Annie." "Stay. Here. Forever." - Life On Mars

[Bobo]

Making a few holes for inspection, or removing a strip of drywall that crosses all the questionable studs should allow you to see how bad it is. If you find a bad stud you may be able to sister a new stud to it in pieces small enough to fit through the hole.

[observer]

Unless he's worried about the expense or matching the baseboard that remains, it's not a hard job to replace baseboard. Usually a crow bar is used to remove it. And the tack strip is usually about 1.5 to 2 inches away from the baseboard so it shouldn't need to be replaced and the carpet can just be pulled off and put back on when all is finished.

I agree with the rest that pulling the sheetrock is the best method for fixing the studs. Like another poster, if the wall is textured, matching it to the existing might be the biggest problem in my opinion (well at least for me it would be).

[StarMan]

No info?

[DerbyDad03]

What do you mean"no info"?

There's been 11 responses and just about all of them say pull the drywall.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I think he's still waiting for a reply on how to be lazy and do a half assed job. The replies so far were all how to do it the right way.

[StarMan]

Really???

I've seen no responses until today, until yours. I didn't check for a week and was surprised to see nothing.

I wonder how well it would do to cut the drywall ABOVE the baseboard.

[StarMan]

No, I've seen *NO* responses until today, just yours and the one other.

Lazy? Hardly. Just looking for a way to save a ton of time when it's not necessary. It's best to explore unconventional options.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Cutting it above the baseboard, as you inquired, is the lazy way. In the long run, it will make more work. To summarize the previous posts, you must remove the drywall to assess and properly repair the damage.

[StarMan]

Thanks for the summary.

I don't know why I couldn't (and still can't) see those other replies. I tried "catching up" with the newsgroup AND "synchronizing" the group. I now have headers going back 6 months but no other responses to this thread. Strange.

I also made 2 replies tonight - yet I only see one. Makes me wonder if there's a problem with my NG server.

Anyway, I understand about looking into the walls in this case. It's just one of those cases where the work involved in screwing up the baseboards and all DW in this room could take time that it may not be easy to find, given many other projects, plus it's unsure just how bad the situation is.