LESLIE: Phil in Utah has had some incidents with his drywall, let’s just say. What can we help you with?
PHIL: Yeah, I had some relatives of mine punch some three-to-five-inch holes, about three to five of them, in different walls of the house. Now do I have to have a contractor come and fix a whole section or can I kind of somehow fix them on my own?
TOM: Phil, do you still let the relatives back in the house?
PHIL: No. (Tom and Leslie laugh) No. No.
TOM: Wise man. Well, are they close together?
PHIL: No, they’re not. They’re in different walls.
TOM: Oh, OK. Well then yeah, you certainly can fix them one at a time. Here’s what you need to do. First of all, you’re going to cut out that drywall so that you have a square. So you said it’s a five or six inches around. You may cut it out so that it’s like 6×6 or 7×7 or 8×8 and you need a nice, square hole.
Then you take a piece of drywall and you make the drywall about an inch bigger on all sides than that square hole and then you flip it over and you score the back of the drywall, the soft part, and then peel that chunk of plaster off. So now you end up with a paper lip all the way around. Add some spackle and then basically plaster that patch right back over that hole.
PHIL: Oh.
TOM: Little trick of the trade to fill up a punch-sized hole in the wall or maybe when a doorknob broke through it; just to overcut the drywall a little bit and let the paper lip of the drywall serve the purpose of the tape and that’ll fix it.
PHIL: Uh-huh, uh-huh. OK. Well, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome, Phil. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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