LESLIE: John in Waterbury, Connecticut finds The Money Pit on WABC. Let’s talk drywall.
JOHN: OK. I have, in a couple spots (audio gap) the house, some what I call stress cracks.
TOM: OK.
JOHN: You know, probably from – not where the joints and the sheets of drywall are but just odd places. One happens to be in the living room underneath the big picture window. Anyway, what I’ve tried so far is to cut a V along the crack; like cutting it out and then retape (audio gap) taping compound and painting over it. The cracks come back. I’m wondering if you have any advice on what might be done to solve those stress crack problems.
TOM: Now when you cut these out and then retape them, are you using paper tape? Paper drywall tape?
JOHN: I think one time I used the sticky tape.
LESLIE: The fiberglass one that’s like netty?
JOHN: Yes.
TOM: Because that’s the repair that I have had the absolute best success with. And it’s really a multi-step process. Usually you have to sand down the area to make sure you’re getting something that you could really adhere to. Use the fiberglass drywall tape and then build up your spackle on top of that by starting with a four-inch spackle knife going to a six or an eight and finishing up with a 10 or a 12-inch blade so you’re really feathering that out.
The place that you identified – under a big window in a corner like that – that’s actually not an unusual space because that’s where you get most of the movement in the wall. Those types of stress cracks frequently show up above the corners of doors or windows where you have not as much as wall framing and a lot of movement. So what you’re seeing is not that unusual.
But I would repair it again with the drywall tape made out of fiberglass. That is definitely the best material to use for that particular situation.
JOHN: That sounds good. I’ll give it a shot.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT. 888-666-3974.
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