LESLIE: Terri in Missouri is on the line with a ceiling issue that’s just cracking up. Tell us what’s going on.
TERRI: I have a wall in my living room/kitchen area that has a vaulted ceiling that, at the 8-foot level, it has a horizontal crack and it keeps reappearing after it gets repaired. It’s happened three times and it cracks again after about two or three weeks; it doesn’t last very long. So I was wondering how we could fix that permanently.
TOM: Well, that’s an area where you have a lot of movement, a lot of expansion and contraction. And if you just try to spackle it, it’s not going to work. So I think what you really need to do is to use a perforated drywall tape.
TERRI: Perforated drywall tape.
LESLIE: It looks like a mesh.
TOM: A mesh, that’s right. And it’s sticky. And after you kind of lightly sand the surface around the crack, you lay the tape in there and then you spackle over that tape until you don’t see the tape anymore. And that creates a stronger bond between the two sides that are moving and the crack won’t open up again as the house goes through a normal expansion and contraction.
TERRI: Sounds good. Thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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