How to Repair Settlement Cracks in Drywall

welcome back you guys so before i start rolling the video i just want to give you a little bit of context about when this was filmed so i recently went on a trip up to whistler to help train somebody's crew who is in the restoration business so they do you know a bunch of drywall and carpentry stuff but they really wanted to focus on getting these guys fine-tuned for drywall so if the video seems a little bit different than my other videos it's because i'm actually talking to the crew and training them as opposed to spending all my energy talking to the camera like i am right now so it will have a different feel but while we were there we came across the perfect settlement crack that attached to a nice big crack in the corner bead and i think there is tons of useful information in this video so i hope you get a lot out of it and without wasting any more of your guys's time let's jump right into it okay we got a nice beautiful crack here that needs to be fixed attached to a corner bead crack i believe this was repaired i don't know exactly what's wrong with it there's going to be a bit of exploratory surgery going on here to to get it right but what we're not planning on doing is like opening it way up and putting new board in there i'm going to start just by carving out this crack throwing some screws in this corner bead and seeing if we can maybe put a few screws in here to firm this up first thing i usually do carve these out to just see yeah like it feels empty and soft right there so something's you know if it feels empty and soft it's not a surprise that the two pieces of drywall can move independently and create this crack so right away you might want to come over here you can see it's just empty back there there was no mud gluing this thing together to help stop it cracking at least you know like not soon a structural crack i can't guarantee that this is going to stay uncracked forever as buildings move seasonally with the hot and cold and moisture changes but i guarantee you we could get this through at least a few years if we do a really good repair yeah structural cracks are really hard to guarantee indefinitely because i'm not in control of what the foundation chooses to do there's a lot of mud on here a lot of mud on here which is good because we're going to shave off some of this mud so we can easily hide this joint instead of just building it out bigger and further i'll show you guys what i would normally do without a bazillion dollar sander this is where a paint scraper comes in really handy i won't do this in here because we'll make a giant mess but i get a paint scraper and we can really easily shave that down you can shave it down to bare drywall you know make it a few inches wide and now you have a really easy space to hide a nicely taped joint okay i'm going to turn the suction on pretty high because i mentioned it when the suction's on higher on this thing it digs in that's what we want i need a little more out of here i'm just gonna have to scrape it a little like the scraper might even be faster it's just a lot messier and you don't necessarily have to get the tape off we just so happen to be down there so may as well you see it's pretty actually pretty well stuck on so it wasn't the fact that the tape wasn't stuck on well it's that there was nothing behind it i'm pretty happy with that oh yeah we just got a couple of old nails here not doing their job anymore let's start seeing what happens when we put some screws in here see if we can find anything to actually fasten to just being really careful not to over sink them so sometimes you don't have the option of having something to actually re-fasten to but in this case we do [Music] that greatly increases the chance that it might not crack again that's busted so any loose or broken board should come out it looks like we're just making this repair bigger and messier but basically what we're doing is getting everything out of there that shouldn't be there we've got a couple of nails here anyone have like a hammer and a nail bar i mean we could just put them in now that they're a little bit deeper in there they're less likely to come back to the surface especially with the rest of this board being more secure [Applause] so sometimes less is more in this case more is more as long as there's meat so yeah we had a lot going on here seasonal shifting water damage poorly secured board not filled joint like any one of those things could have caused this to crack but we have like all of them going on so this should i'm pretty confident that this should actually stay good for quite a while i'll need more screws though because i'm about to start fastening this corner bead because it would be negligent for us to not repair this when the whole thing already has to be painted [Music] so putting these screws in here does two things uh one it shores up this corner bead makes it a little stronger and two it actually helps any poorly secured mud break off so we can scrape it off and repair it better okay so one of the things you want to check for and i could see it right away when i was doing this is is there movement between the two sheets so as soon as i started pushing on this last time i could see that these two sheets were able to move independently now that it can't the only unsupported unscrewed part we have is right here there's just no no wood back here so that's why we have it there and from there up because there was something but now these two can't move so the next thing that i haven't done yet is i haven't continued to really get this cleaned out because again we're trying to glue these two sheets together and put a piece of supporting or covering tape over top of that and that's what's going to really help it stay strong for longer than the check to clear so i'm now working on taking loose stuff off the corner bead you can see that you remember i screwed it in and now this stuff can just kind of come off pretty easily so you want the corner bead to be pretty secure here so we're getting the two for one here we're getting a corner bead repair and a crack repair so as long as the corner bead isn't able to move too much i'm pushing on this part of the flange again looking for that independent movement if that flange can move then it's going to be more likely to crack if if anything structurally moves anything like that so this mud is not very well stuck to this old steel corner bead could be a variety of reasons it could actually just be water damaged it made it lose its adhesion but when we go and put that nice sticky quick set with extra glue in it nothing's coming off this well i don't know if you guys can hear that there's a couple of soft spots that need a couple more screws and it's also not uncommon for when you start screwing in this side for the bottom to start cracking so keep an eye out for that in this case it hasn't started cracking so the bottom is nice and secure but there was that yeah i want it more screwed in in these two spots and the deeper the deeper this flange gets covered in mud the less likely it is to crack so some of these spots where it was maybe worse is where the flange was kind of coming out right here you can see it there's just less mud there now's the time to put any extra screws in i don't know i was doing that i was just making it actually puncture the steel bead there so it went in easier and never waste an opportunity if there's a little hole there already it doesn't have a nail or screw in it you can always put another one yeah there's not a lot of oh you know what this bead was clinched on so uh that's part of the reason why it's let go there's a like one nail here two feet away another nail uh give me that camera and i'm gonna show you guys what it looks like so they use this tool right here and it sort of smashes some little teeth there it creates an indent those teeth grab the drywall and it's supposed to hold it there but clinched be clenched beads fail all the time goes on the corner bead you smash it with a hammer and it puts these little it like makes yeah so go up there you could take a look you can see how they've clinched it on a bunch but those just always let go over time no it's tiny and it's only biting into the paper of the drywall so like it's not going to last clinching is fully like a 1970s 1980s old school steel bead technique there's so many things so many kind of old school methods we can hear see here that cause problems that are outdated why all of this is doing what it's doing [Music] [Applause] [Music] as i was reaching out way over there i got reminded of this like annoying but accurate thing that was at bcit it was some dude standing on the top of a safety ladder reaching way out it's like awkward positions lead to unsafe conditions it's so stuck in my head [Music] so the reason i vacuumed that is i mean think about if you're doing a woodworking joint you're not going to leave it full of crumbs and sawdust before you glue it up right you're going to want to get all the loose material out of there so that it has the best chance to get a really good bond now comes some mud 20 minute is gonna do a great job of this because we don't want it to take all day okay this is where the glue really comes in handy and i don't need too much we did a lot of this yesterday um and i'm actually going to go a little more gung-ho and do a bit of extra glue so you could do this whole thing with like these first couple of coats with taping mud or heavy heavyweight all-purpose which we don't have here in canada i kind of wish we did but i definitely recommend kwikset because it won't shrink it'll set up soon so that you can then apply your consecutive coats it's stronger and harder definitely quick set with a good amount of glue added is in my experience the best most durable thing to use for cracked corner beads cracked joints it does a good job the thicker it is the less it will shrink even though kwikset doesn't generally shrink the dry edges of the board are going to pull the moisture out of this and even quick set even quick set shrinks in between those big gaps with the really dry edges of the drywall the gypsum kind of instantly pulls the moisture out of it so this right here this is the most critical stage where we need to this is the part where i look like a total noob putting the mud on all silly but what we are doing here is i'm forcing the mud all in this direction in and around and behind this piece of drywall and then i'm going to go this way and force it in so we're not actually going to tape yet here i need to make sure to pull most of what i just put on off so that we have the space to hide the tape on the next one and create a relatively flat joint here but this is the stage where we're going to fill this corner bead and i'm going to do the same thing here just that wiping upwards direction is forcing it into all the little cracks and helping improve the bond it doesn't have to be perfect you're going to be doing more coats you just want this is like the glueiest mix i will make the other ones probably won't have as much just because the glue makes it a little stickier and not as easy to work with again both directions so now we're only about 10 minutes later this mud hasn't even set up yet but we can see that particularly in here where it can make contact with the edges of the board it's pulled all the moisture in and even kwikset will shrink on your first coat when you're pre-filling so that's why instead of just getting right to taping this that's why we did that pre-fill first a little more water helps the mud and glue absorb into the paper tape the fiberfuse stuff would be good would be good but here's why i'm not a fan so i'm gonna risk itchy fingers to show you guys this both of them will tear like this no problem but the fiberfuse i feel like it's just easier to like tear my fingers are going to itch this this will suck but the paper in my opinion paper tape is stronger and you're also using similar materials the face of the drywall is paper so even though tears really easy like that [Applause] has better shear strength so some people would say okay well what about mesh tape definitely the strongest but it has a lot of lateral movement like this and what happens when it cracks underneath there right as soon as this cracks can you see me you can see your crack too can you see me no it's going to hide the crack for way longer so getting good with paper tape is my recommendation for anyone who's planning on learning how to repair drywall well get acquainted with and learn how to use paper tape well because in my honest opinion i think it's the best product out there for the job so i'm really trying to make sure that i let the moisture saturate into this tape for a bit so you would never production tape drywall like this this looks slow and dumb i can hear all the you know seasoned vets in the comments be like i could have done 60 of those in the time you did half but like what i'm doing right now is i'm making sure there's mud under all the tape and i'm making sure the whole thing just got nice and saturated now i'm wiping wiping it out and and now i'm going to contradict myself a little bit here but we know that this is going to be under this surface and this surface it's now got room to be buried and just because i don't feel like dealing with a couple of annoying pieces where did i put that mesh tape because i don't feel like dealing with a couple of annoying pieces of paper tape we had that part where it was just a little bit bigger this won't hurt mesh tape is good for small patches small repairs you remember that part that was all blown out from people hammering on it i was one of them just gonna embed those real quick okay now that we've done that let's get a real knife now not the six inch now we're actually gonna start i'm trying to get this on before it kicks off because we may as well get ourselves a little head i don't like to pre-fill and tape in the same coat but if i'm using kwikset i don't mind taping and coating in the same coat that's pretty good i'm gonna leave that alone got more coats coming what this is still going to take at least one or two coats to make pretty but you get the general idea now so two more coats with a sanding in between this will be really smooth that's really strong this is going to stay good for a long time so that's about it so yeah that is my standard procedure for fixing a settlement crack it really is just about first carving it out and seeing if there was anything gluing those two sheets together in the first place next you want to make sure it's really securely fastened so make a nice gluey mix then pre-fill and the reason for that like i mentioned in the video but didn't get into i think quite enough is because when your tap tap when your tape lays really flat and doesn't have wrinkles in it i think when it's subject to movement it is stronger if your tape has a bunch of wrinkage from wreakage so if your tape has a bunch of wrinkles from shrinkage that occurred while it was drying i don't think it's as strong as something that's super flat so that's why i had that little comment and the subtitles in the video but yeah hopefully you guys got something really useful out of that there was a lot of info in there and i hope it was well articulated enough that you could digest it anyways that's all that's all i have to say you guys i hope your project's going really well but i hope you're doing even better so thanks for watching till the next video

Channel: Vancouver Carpenter

Views: 150,651

Keywords: drywall repair, drywall repair patch, drywall repair clips, drywall repair large hole, drywall repair water damage, drywall repair hacks, drywall repair ceiling water damage, drywall repair outlet box, drywall repair electrical outlet, drywall repair after wallpaper removal, drywall repair hole, drywall repair around shower, drywall repair and, drywall repair and texture, drywall repair and installation, drywall repair in bathroom, drywall patch repair and paint

Id: uTT2IdjxmiI

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2022