Repairing recurring drywall problem
For the past 20 years I've had a recurring problem with a 3 - 4 foot horizontal crack in the finished stairway wall leading to our rec room. I’ve tried repairing this crack in vain several times with various fillers, compounds and tape.
My wife and I were extremely happy with Rob’s drywall work in our bathroom in 2011, so I asked him back to look at the stairway problem. He examined the basement construction, explained to me what he thought the problem might be, and then told me what he needed to do to prove his theory. I allowed him to remove a 3’ wide x 2’ high piece of the stairway wall where the crack existed, to reveal what was behind it.
Just as Rob suspected, the drywall was installed such that the horizontal seam between 2 drywall sheets was installed directly over the joint of the 2” x 4” bottom plate of the main floor wall and the top of the 2” x 10” floor joist. Undue movement on the main floor adjacent to that wall (kitchen) or pressure against the basement wall could stress that seam, eventually resulting in a crack. He removed the drywall along the cracked seam and overlapped the area between the upper and lower walls with new drywall, thereby avoiding the seam-on-seam problem.
While he was there, I also had Rob drywall a closet for me that I had recently framed in the basement.
Thanks Rob, for another job very well done!
- Approximate cost of services:
- $250.00
- Company Response
thanks so much for the review it is greatly appreciated. I am hoping that this patch does the trick for you and that the crack does not continue to be a problem, it shouldn't but if it does crack again than you may end up having to drywall the wall by standing the sheets up, in other words just take all the drywall off that one area and stand the sheet upright, instead of lying it down.
hope the closet comes out okay. good luck with the doors, great job on all the framing.
thanks so much again and keep in touch.