Submitted by astropiano1998 t3_zfiz0d in DIY
Recently we had some electrical work done in our home and it required them to cut a couple 4 inch holes in our walls. We still have the pieces that were cut out, but as mentioned this is my first drywall repair and could use some advice on how to go about it. Thank you for your time.
Was going to say this is one of those projects where YouTube will make it 100x easier
As a new homeowner this guys is amazing and makes everything so much more approachable. Redid a whole wall, multiple rooms and some electrical watching him the past few months.
I once saw him install a window using only spray foam insulation.
He used a few screws to temporarily hold it in place
He's badass. Been watching his videos while doing random projects. Love his calm attitude. Also, if you've not seen stud pack, they are pretty awesome as well.
Was a total drywall noob. Basement flooded. Redid all the drywall in my basement using what I learned from jeffs videos. Get compliments on it all the time. Hes the man!
I was looking for advice on this so thanks for posting this. You too OP.
Thank you so much for this I’ve been terrified to touch my walls
One piece of advice, especially if you haven’t done a patch before - you’re better off doing 3-4 thin coats of mud (making sure you allow enough time for it to dry in between) than trying to get it perfect with just 1 coat. Each coat can go a little wider than the previous so that you taper any bump that might appear.
To add on to this, mudding done right should only require a light sanding on the very last coat and none on each of the initial passes. it took 10 years for me to get this right as a DIYer. Some tricks: As said above, do thin passes between drying. Better to add to little than too much. As the mud is drying, when it’s firm but not hard, you can hit it with a wet sponge to to level out a mistake. Also, it’s okay to leave little ridges in the mud. You can scrape these off pretty easy with the putty knife. Anyway, no big deal if you need to sand a lot, but it’s good to know that done right, there’s almost no sanding involved.
As a professional drywaller…you always sand in between coats. Always
Nah. We just scraped the seams down between coats.
We always sand. There and in th e towers
Yours. probably turned out better than ours. We also textured the ceilings which I found to be ugly.
Had that job for about a year between college and high school. The sanding days were what convinced me to go to college. Lol
Yep. That’s why my son won’t do it. I do high end work. I also specialize in texture and making ceilings dead flat from texture
I wouldn’t say I miss it but I do appreciate knowing the trade as it’s made every bathroom remodel and basement improvement much easier and cheaper in the years since I had that job.
I’d say it’s the most difficult to master or at least make look serviceable
Working Hourly?
Never. I own the company. It’s all quotes. Or a value per unit
I see. it's just an image thing. So people aren't getting more than one estimate.
Uh no it’s competive bidding
Lol. Sure.
I’m dealing with 150 million dollar developments. My portion might only be 400000 or less. Trust me it takes days of pouring over blueprints on the computer to calculate installable items or linear footage of something like parapets. Only to find out some other larger company is throwing in your items for cost so they go with them. It’s a real pain in the ass
Why do you subscribe to DIY?
So I could let people have the benefit of my extensive experience and knowledge. I figured I might be able to help people avoid costly mistakes
Expensive DIY drywall mistakes? Lol
Let’s say your a tenant and your trying to repair a hole you’ve made. Let’s say it’s a party wall. So you need 5/8 drywall. That’s $50 a sheet here in van. Then you need a knife to cut it with. $16. Pan, 3 taping knives. $100.00. Tape $2.00. Bucket of mud $30.00. That’s around $200.00. Only to pump out a crappy job that the landlord is gonna take your whole damage deposit for. Rent here is minimum $1500 for a bachelor. A whole house in the burbs might be $3800 or more. $200 is a chunk when Your paying these rates here
This shows you haven't been a renter in a while. At best they are going to grab a 4-8" metal drywall patch, a 4" plastic putty knife and a pint of Drydex. They are out for $25 at this point and still have to either match paint or if they are lucky there is paint in the rental. The paint will still flash. There is little to no chance they will be able to repair a spot bigger than 8" without it looking like crap.
…hence me being able to explain to them what’s required and what they will actually have to do for positive outcome to occur and how much money that will cost. No. I haven’t rented in about 30 years. I’m a hustler when it comes to making money and have always invested in a variety of things including properties
Guessing you haven't picked up a taping knife in a decade either.
Nope. I work on the tools all the time. Always working. Our whole discourse this morning I was helping one of my installers reset about 30 washer/dryer stackers after the sprinkler guy replaced the heads that the painter managed to hit. $50 bucks a pop. Later this afternoon I’m heading over to a hotel that I’m redoing myself (drywall on this one) one unit at a time (it’s a Ministry funded place where they place addicts for housing). Then tomorrow I’m doing a bunch of appliance installs at another job…then I gotta work on a quote for a 15 story- rough carpentry on that one. I have a big 35 story rough carpentry and closet organizer install starting in august. I do all the measuring and material cutting for my installers
I like doing these appliance installs. I charge $500 a unit…so can be worthwhile To do some of this myself when you get into a 200 unit situation
I don’t understand the image thing your talking about
I am asked to do a quote. If it’s accepted it’s accepted. Then 8 months Later I start t he job
For a whole house?
Sure. Just talk a quick walk around the place with your 6" knife and scrape off any ridges you see between coats. Not a lot found when using boxes tbh. Always some in the corners but most of the seams were already good.
Certainly not inline with what the pros I’ve spoken to say. whats Your reason? It isn’t needed to get a flat finish. Is there another reason?
Where are these pros operating? What part of the world. Couple reasons why you sand. There is always going to be slight imperfections in the mud…these will break off as your adding your next coat
Hit send by accident. The bits of dried mud will then cause difficulty in skimming the coat. Your also going to contaminate your pail. The next reason is really an extension of the first. Any kind of fast setting compound is naturally going to be tougher than your top coat…again A quick buff sand to take any bits of grit off is going to go miles in providing a super slick top coat. I’m 51…and I own a construction company. It’s literally what I do for a living. Every drywaller I know sands in between coats. If you don’t…you do not make money at it. Amateur.
For reference I work out of the lower mainland in British Columbia, canada
Alright. You convinced me. Appreciate the knowledge dump. As an example of a source of my expressed opinion,, the Vancouver Carpenter on YouTube talks about not needing to sand. But again, you convinced me.
I haven’t checked him ouT. But a carpenter isn’t a drywaller. HavIng said all I have said….I suppose it’s possible to not sand a very small patch and recoat it. Not a great idea but possible if under duress. I do whole houses or hundreds of feet of cutouts at a time. The sanding between coats isn’t meant to be a grind down…just a buff. To make things easier. Bear in mind I’m only doing 1-2 coats after tape coat.
Old tradesmen Fucking hate change or doing things differently then they were taught.
Do you know how many people out there are trying to differentiate themselves by deviating their approach ever so slightly, usually adopting older parallel abandoned but slightly less effective methods? This is called ego and marketing and humans are sick with that stuff. There’s a reason things are done a certain way, and it’s a good reason. But this reason only holds if your source of knowledge isn’t a complete block head and is focused on doing things the right way for the sake of doing it the right way, rather than other reasons. Then there is also incompetence.
Lol keep telling yourself this. It is stopping us from saving the earth.
Are you kidding me? That’s the exact point that I’m trying to make is that all this needless deviation from historically proven traditions is causing terrible calamities such as the extinction of the entire biosphere! Plastic instead of glass and wood? Giving up millennia old forestry practices and causing historic and unnecessary wildfires? The earth is dead because we want to do things new and different instead of tried and true. You beat me to the punchline but somehow have the opposite point of view, I’m completely baffled to be honest. Traditional farming, building and social practices could have stopped a lot of this.
On the other hand humans are the most effective natural iterative design network the universe has ever seen.
So you don't want to feed 8 Billion people.
Why don’t you want to feed people?
I'm done here. I won't argue with Idealists. it's a waste of time.
You’re not saying anything coherent anyways
It’s to prevent debris and floaters when you skim. It’s not about being stuck in old ways it’s about production and high end workmanship that dOesnt need a ton of filling afterwards. Scraping a joint might work on small patches. Try that on a whole townhouse complex and watch yourself get kicked off site. Plus….I’m only 51. That’s not old. I’m still learning all the time And I’m the first one to do something new…if it makes sense.
I find, at least personally, a lot of carpenters over estimate their work and underestimate how bad it can look. I'm biased, but carpenters are the bane of my existence
I do it professionally, doing work for the union in cleveland for a multi-million dollar company. You don't "finish sand" on bed coats, you do what we call a brush down. The goal is any lap marks or edges will be buffed out, which means it's easier to box over. Then at the end you finish sand, using lights and hand sponges to make sure it's smooth. Some guys don't sand and just cut edges with a knife but personally i think their work looks worse than just brushing it down.
I think the problem is that we are in a diy forum. What one homeowner or tenant may find acceptable won’t fly by industry standards. My company does a variety of different types of jobs. I used to do a bunch of restoration work but now I concentrate on larger jobs like rough carpentry for a new tower complex or installing appliances for same towers. When I do restoration work it’s larger jobs like dealing with the drywall issues in a hotel after mold remediation. None of the scrape down with a 6” knife would fly on any new tower project or townhouse develoment
Yea, i tell people to brush down in diy work because it can be a pain to sand down a lap mark you coated over, and i expect lower quality work from diy home owners. Scraping down with a 6 definitely works okay for diy though.
Yeah. What kind of houses are people living in. Here in Vancouver that wouldn’t fly at all. Our housing market is probably the hottest in North America right now. Cheapest most rundown house in Vancouver proper is over 2 million. People are always looking to flip their house and make a quick 100k. Everything has to be spot on all the time. And the homeowners know this so workmanship has to be top notch
Here in ohio when the housing market got wild we saw a lot of very poorly done quick buy and flips which looked awful, but still sold. One such house had globs of paint that they never bothered to sand down. It was a shit show. Some of the best finishers I've worked with come from doing houses, but also all the worst finishers I've worked with come from doing homes too haha.
It’s mostly wealthy asians and Indocanadians that run the market here. Very particular. Sometimes they’ll change the wall color as soon as your finished the whole job and ask you to re do the whole thing They always expect the world
Stick a small 1x2 into hole larger than patch. Screw into 1x2. When it's secured put old cut out over hole and Screw to 1x2. Then mud and tape edges feathering it out 8 inches or do each side
YouTube 'Vancouver Carpenter' ....he's set the gold standard of YouTube drywall content.
Tips? V grove your seams. Apply a fill coat first, let that dry. Then do a really tight seam tape with fibafuze. Then start coating for aesthetics. Scrape between coats, only sand once. At the end.
Also. Take a tape measure and measure 12 inches from the left of the hole and make a pencil mark. The right. Top and bottom too. Now draw the biggest circle you can to connect all those dots. That's your finish line, when you're done your mud should be feathered out that far.
Edit: typo
Vancouver Carpenter on the California patch. I followed this video as a rank noob and they came out perfectly
The best way is to screw some type of board behind the edges. Use fiber tape with the little squares in it, it doesn't require mud behind it like paper tape so it won't hump out so bad. The keys to drywall are don't rush it, make sure it is dry in-between coats. For the best results feather out at least 12 inches on each side as it will help hide the hump that will be there.
I wish somebody told me when I was learning: it’s going to take you a lot longer to get “good” results then you probably think, if you’re a perfectionist.
I made 5 california patches based on this video and i couldnt believe how well it turned out. https://youtu.be/17awCvAA7Q0
I'm incredibly not handy and had never touched drywall before and the results were essentially perfect to my eyes. If I had paid someone for that work I would have been completely satisfied
Find the centers of the studs in the bays that they cut the holes in, cut out a square piece of sheetrock the same thickness as the existing, cut a square from center of stud to center of the next stud, secure the new sheetrock with 1-1/2~1-5/8" sheetrock screws, sand the surrounding existing sheetrock back to almost the sheetrock's outer "paper" about 8~12" back from your cut lines.
Once you have it sanded down and even with your patch, put a coat of drywall mud on the seams, then tape the seams and mud over your tape. Don't allow the first coat of mud to dry before taping and re-mudding. This will help give an even finish to skim over.
Once it's taped and mudded, you may need to sand the tape lines depending on the thickness / type of texture.
Put an even skim coat over the patched area and surrounding area and feather it into your existing texture.
Once you are happy with the base, texture it to match the existing, whether it's orange peel or hand texture, put a coat of drywall primer on the areas with new mud and paint.
I prefer to go back to studs instead of just patching the round hole because it allows for the patch to be completely secured and most of the time prevents cracking at your seams, and is also easier to tape squares evenly.
Just my two cents.
California patch is much easier for holesaw holes. And much less prone to cracks in my experience.
I can tell you how to fix it but it takes finesse to make it look nice. Get a piece of 1x3 and cut it about 7” long Put a screw for a handle in the middle of it, screw it in about 1/2” Stick 1x3 in hole , use screw to hold, and put screws through drywall to hold , don’t screw too deep Screw on patch Drywall tape seams Apply compound filling seams and not too thick. Once dry scrap and re apply, Reappear Sand Prime paint
YouTube it. It's not that hard, and a good learning experience.
Lots of good youtube videos on this. My favorite is Leah from seejanedrill: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1MOSNtI5boE
Instead of the wooden brace, I used drywall clips. Just another of many options: https://www.lowes.com/pd/SHEETROCK-Brand-6-Pack-1-25-in-Steel-Drywall-Clips/3009628
Youtube is a fantastic resource for learning how to do stuff.
Need to screw a piece bigger behind them use the drywall to fill the hole . Skim over with plaster or cork .
Good comments here already. Don't cheap out on taping knives. Get 4", 6", and 8" knives from Harbor Freight. It's much easier to get smooth surfaces and feathers when the knife is the right width.
If they are hole saw holes, just get the same size drywall and do a california patch.
Use the same size hole saw bit to drill almost all the way through from the backside of the new drywall. Cut the facing of the drywall into 6-8" squares (atleast 2" of "flap" all the way around), and peel them off while pressing on the back of your cut, and you'll pop out a plug of drywall the right size for the hole, with a square of facing attached. Pop it in the hole and trace around the paper. Sand the texture off inside that area. Then apply drywall compound to the back of the paper and around the plug edges. Press it in, and use a large drywall knife to squeeze the compound almost out. Let it dry, then blend like normal drywall.
Don't use too much mud. Don't use too little mud.
I don’t sand. I wet sponge 🧽. If you use a wide taping knife and a stainless mud pan you can spread the mud nice and thin and taper it out wide. Two coats will do.
Another vote for the California patch. Ive done a number of them in my house. Can’t even tell they are there.
It’s legit mud. Like mud from outside.
use a paint stirrer to hold the pieces in place when you put it in. put paint stirrer in hole and put screws in above and below (or beside) on each side, Then put new drywall in place and screw it into the stirrer as well. It will make holding it in place much easier.
Just hire a handyman.
Not an appropriate response in this sub. It is DIY, after All.
I’m fairness, I do a lot of DIY but I don’t do doors and I don’t do drywall. Drywall is easy to patch but difficult to look perfect. Drywall in my laundry room? Sure. Living room? Handyman
I'd rather not. Thanks for the suggestion.
aircooledJenkins t1_izc25cy wrote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUcT5LHmA7w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrN9HDq8RK0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKGwfB39f58
Jeff has quite a few methods to go about repairing drywall. My biggest realization once I started to try to do it right is that the affected area ends up a lot larger than the original hole if you want to try to smooth it out to make it disappear.