Drywall Cracks Where Wall Meets the Ceiling: How to Fix?

Get advice for fixing those drywall cracks before they get worse – and doing it right the first time. Plus, if you're living in a townhouse or another multi-family form of ownership, structural fixes might not be your responsibility. Get…

LESLIE: The sky is falling. Not really. Jeffrey in New Jersey, how can we help you?

JEFFREY: Yeah. Hi. I live in a townhome. It’s about 16 years old; been here about 5 years. And where the wall meets the ceiling, it’s starting to separate. There’s a lot of cracking there. You can see where the taping is and it’s starting to separate and there’s even a crack going out from the corner about 6 inches.

TOM: OK. So first of all, drywall cracks, especially at intersections like that, are pretty typical. There’s a lot of expanding and contracting that goes on with homes and those types of cracks are not uncommon.

Drywall crack repair has to be done right so that it doesn’t reoccur. And by that I mean you usually have to cut out the old drywall tape and then replace it with a fiberglass mesh tape. And then, on top of the mesh, you’re going to add about three layers of spackle and that’s going to help bridge the gap between the seams.

Now, the other thing I’d point out to you is that because you live in a townhouse, the structure of that townhouse may not be part of the building that you own. So, if it is indicative of any structural issue, then the association would be involved in the evaluation and the repair.

So if you wanted to sort of cover all your bases, I would, in writing, bring it to the attention of the association, give them the opportunity to look at it and photograph it and see if they want to be involved. But I suspect that it’s probably a minor issue caused by normal expansion and contraction of your home.

JEFFREY: I’m sure you’re right. The only thing that’s bothering me mainly about it, it’s along the entire wall in a couple of spots.

TOM: Yeah. Yeah, it’s annoying, I know. It’s a drywall repair and if you hire a good painter that can do that kind of work, that might be the least painful way to get those restored. Because after you repair it, you’re obviously going to have to repaint it.

JEFFREY: Sure. OK. Well, thank you.

TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.