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Help! Drywall disaster, can this be fixed?

15 years ago

Okay, long story short, we got totally screwed by a drywall contractor in the past few days. We finally woke up and fired him halfway into the project, leaving us with a 1st floor disaster. Here's some of things I have run into so far and I am hoping someone can advise whether this job can salvaged or will we have to take the boards down and start over.

1. Ceiling was installed after the walls were put up. Drywall book says always do ceilings first. How big of a problem is this? So far there are two areas where I can push the ceiling up by 1/2 to 1 inch. There are no scews in the area and I don't know if there is anything to screw into yet to stablize the area.

2. I have run into two areas where the ceiling and walls do not meet- 1/2 to 1 inch gap- either ceiling board short or wall short or both. Gap filled with mud and taped over- not dry after 4 days. Can I fill the gap with mud, let it dry completely and tape?

3. No tape in a couple of corners- boards butted without any gap at all. Concerned that there is no expansion gap, can I just apply tape to these corners?

4. On most of the seams, the tape was not embedded properly or even entirely covered for that matter. There are voids under the tape. Can I remove the tape and start again? The mud was not tapered and is quite heavy in some areas, I assume I will need to sand down before re-taping. The dust is going to be excessive.

5. Walls were installed first and then the cut pieces around the inside of the window were installed. Those inside trim pieces were not cut smoothly so there are chunks of gypsum missing, leaving a very ragged seam to tape. I am going to assume that is not the way it's done but short of taking down the entire sheet, what are the changes I can successfully tape this ragged edge?

6. Some of the ceiling boards are not flat, maybe a 1/4 lippage between boards, I do not know the reason yet. Can something like this be smoothed out by mud. And I guess that is a million dollar question, just how much can be fixed by mud?

I am just sick over this mess and would greatly appreciate any advice...

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Comments (5)

hendricus
15 years ago
1. Not the end of the world. You should try to fasten the loose boards.

2. If it's not dry yet I assume they used the mud from a bucket. Get the drywall compound in a bag and mix it yourself. The bucket stuff just dries out, the bag stuff sets up with a chemical reaction.

3. I would.

4. Yes. Try wet sanding with a sponge first. The bucket stuff gets soft real fast if its a little wet.

5. Poor. First fill the gaps and cracks with setting type compound, then tape, then mud like usual.

6. Sure. Just have to go over a wider area.

Almost anything can be fixed with mud, use the setting type and you can go over it again in an hour or two.
drywall_diy_guy
15 years ago
Wow, it sounds like the guys doing this had absolutely no experience or training!

You can fasten the ceiling drywall with extra screws - it is not a problem that the ceiling went up after.

The gaps can be filled and taped.

Tape with air pockets under needs to be removed if extensive. For small pockets, you can cut them out with a sharp knife and finish over.

Go to the site below - a lot of what you need to do is covered and explained for the DIY person.

Here is a link that might be useful: Drywall Taping Tutorials
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nene2013
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks to you both for replying!
We took the boards down in the smaller room- there was just too many issues. Haven't fully investigated the great room but with your info/suggestions, maybe not all of the boards will need to replaced. Still will take an extreme amount of effort to get the bad mud off the walls/celings to retape- a combination of water, putty knife and sanding will be needed. Am considering renting the Porter Cable vacuum sander but depends on how many boards are left. The good news is that they didn't use nearly enough scews to secure the boards so it's easier to pry them off the studs.

You know, Drywall Diy Guy, there were warning signs early on that those guys didn't know what they were doing but we talked ourselves into letting them stay a little longer. I don't think these guys were just untrained and inexperienced, I think this was deliberate bad job- they were scamming us.

But thanks to people like you both, who take the time to respond and make drywall videos and forums like this, we will recover and learn a new skill, to boot!
drywall_diy_guy
15 years ago
Now that you mention it, from your original post, it almost seems like the work was intentionally bad. So was their angle to get paid but not have to finish the job?
mmike032
15 years ago
Did you hire the lowest bidder?
Sounds like you went with the cheapest crew around and it bite you in the arse.

Why dont you hire a reputtable company to finish the job.
Sounds like most of it can be fixed by someone that knows what their doing.

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