Why do we all hate drywall so much?

Messages
2,369
What is it about drywall that makes everyone hate it?

As a machinist I work to tolerances of .001 and .0001 on a good day, you would think working with a sheet of paper bonded limestone 32 feet square that needs to be within the width of drywall tape (1.875) would be gosh darn easy. Let me tell you right now...its not.

No matter how carefully I measure, my joints are still gapped, the screws pull through the sheets and they are far more heavy then they need to be.

Maybe its just the material itself, it has just about every conceivable property OPPOSITE than wood. It has no grain at all. It has no strength in any load configuration. It's hardly renewable (the paper backing aside), and does not change with humidity. It also has the same color and consistency throughout a sheet and even from sheet to sheet and brand to brand. Adding to that, the stuff is brittle as glass, as dusty as a hay barn being filled with hay, and still looks like what hay looks like after it is processed by the horse after its all put up.

I need to get this drywalling done so I can get to the ceilings and work with real wood. Wood that has color, figure and grain. Wood that was milled out by my neighbors and harvested by my old logging friends. Yes white pine vee-matched that looks sharp and is processed by the local sawmill. Yep, drywall is...well...dry!!
 
mornin` travis....having fun with sheetrock i take it?.......look at it this way, if your wife where to paint painstakingly installed wood you`d have a fit...with drywall she can change colors as often as she wants and it just doesn`t matter;) ...tod
 
I totally agree.

I try to avoid drywall as much as possible. My biggest point of frustration with the stuff is doing the seams. No matter how much I try I can never get it as good as I would like it to turn out. :doh: :doh:

Not to mention the dust created from sanding my mistakes down. That stuff makes wood dust seem like a fresh breath of country air.
 
And you haven't begun to tape it yet! If you can find some way to hook a vac up to a sander you will be very happy.

I hate the stuff too, but sometimes it just has to be done!

I have a friend who is redoing a house, older by Fl standards, 1950's, it has plaster over lathe and the contractor refuses to use drywall on the areas that are being changed, he is bringing out a plasterer from retirement to do the work -- of course, big bucks

enjoy the day(s) it will get done!

Jay
 
And you haven't begun to tape it yet! If you can find some way to hook a vac up to a sander you will be very happy.

My Dad has a setup that you connect to your shop vac. It has a bucket in the line full of water. Basically the water traps most of the dust. I guess you could call it a 2 stage dry wall dust collector. ;) Using this will help keep your vac filter from clogging with the dust. This set up uses a pole sander that the vac hose connects to. Insead of sandpaper it uses an abrasive screen to allow the dust removal. I have used it once and it worked fairly well. The bucket of sludge that was created wasn't too pleasant through.:doh:
 
I am hoping that I will not have to mud this new addition. The wife does not want me to anyway, and I am not really great at it, noe is it something I want to do.

I did some checking around and unfortunately, there is not much to choose from. My number one go to guy for drywall muddying (he did it for my uncle who is a contractor) said:

"Yeah I can do that for you Travis. But I am a bit busy right now. The soonest I can get to it is next December. Can you wait till then?"

Ahhhh, let me think about that for a moment. A growing baby in a one bedroom house...a project that has to be shut down for 6 months....NO!!

So now I got to find out if this other guy can do it. He's an odd duck, is very good but quite particular. He has to have the entire house to himself. Nothing in any room, wide open spaces and he has to listen to country music. Myself that is almost the deal breaker. I would rather listen to static then listen to country music!! Still for a good muddying job, I might let him listen to that terrible whinning, moaning and general noise they call country music.
 
Travis

If you hire him, you're not going to be there if you abide by his "rules"

And if you are, I'm sure you can put some hearing protection on.

Someone once looked at my CD collection and said that I was a musical schizophrenic, so at times country music can be OK! Just tell him all you want to hear is Alan Jackson and Toby Keith and you want it LOUD! That and enough caffeine and you'll do fine. Beat him at his own game.

Looking forward to some more progress pics!

Jay
 
I have no trouble cutting and mounting but I lack the "mud gene". Years after my first attempt I had to do some more drywall for a room addition. I did all the sheet work. I paid a 20 year old who did mud work all day long for a living. $100 and he was done in about an hour. Had all the tools and the ability. I would've messed around for 3 of 4 weekends trying to do as well.
 
Mudding isn't too bad if yer walls are straight, get yourself some 45 minute hot mud and go to it. Never leave a glob or ridge figuring you'll sand it off later. Put on several wide, thin, smooth coats, and give it a quick sand afterward. Or if you want, spray texture it, then you don't have to worry much about the smoothness.

Still sucks to do a whole house or a big addition, got to just get in a groove and turn off the brain :thumb:

Not to be too pedantic, but its gypsum (alabaster), not limestone.
 
Last edited:
I'm the same as Glenn and Steve. I don't mind hanging it but I hate to finish it. I don't even mind the initial mudding but I absolutely hate to sand it. The dust gets all over, it dries your skin and just overall is a miserable job. When I have to do sheetrock work, I try to hire someone to do the finishing. But as I get older, I'd probably hire out all the work because the sheets are so heavy.

Mike
 
I'm not a big fan of the stuff. It gums up the drum sander paper something terrible, real hard on the planer knivers, doesn't resaw worth a darn.... The list goes on. Got wood?
 
Hey Travis ... didn't you say you were doing an addition? As in new walls ... straight? ... square? .... holy cow batman :) ... wait 'till you have to do an old house without a square corner, last mudded by guys who equated quality with quantity and figured that 90' corners don't look quite right unless the wall curves gradually into the corner :) ... kinda like my 50 year old house .... that I'm just finishing up a bathroom reno in ... yah, I'm with you ... I hate drywall too :)

cheers eh?
 
Hey Travis ... didn't you say you were doing an addition? As in new walls ... straight? ... square? .... holy cow batman :) ... wait 'till you have to do an old house without a square corner, last mudded by guys who equated quality with quantity and figured that 90' corners don't look quite right unless the wall curves gradually into the corner :) ... kinda like my 50 year old house .... that I'm just finishing up a bathroom reno in ... yah, I'm with you ... I hate drywall too :)

cheers eh?

Oh believe me, I have done my share of older homes. From my fathers home (1960), to my Grandmother's home (1880's) to my summer home (1830's)...I understand full well what you mean by lacking a square corner.

As for a ceiling, there is no way this guy will ever stick a sheet of drywall on any ceiling I own. Me and the ex-wife tried to put one sheet up on the ceiling one time. We were too cheap to rent the lift so we tried to do it on our own. The sheet came down in pieces around our ears. That made me mad so my drill got thrown across the room narrowly missing the Mrs. Then she started yelling, I started yelling, and well the next thing you knew we were getting a divorce.

Well okay so maybe it took 9 years more for that to happen, but I think that sheet of drywall had something to do with it. As a side note, I am quite sure her internet boyfriend had absolutely nothing to do with our marriages demise:dunno::D. No it just had to be that sheet of drywall.

Anyway I found that V-matched White Pine is a cheap, good looking alternative to drywall. Its inexpensive, easy to put up by yourself, fast and looks really good. By the time you get done buying your sheetrock, renting the lift, muddying the sheets, priming and painting it, you are darn near the cost of v-matched white pine (at least where I live).
 
Top