Attic Drywall Cracks

How to prevent drywall cracks at drywall side or end butt joints.

Attic drywall cracks.

Use kiln dried lumber for framing walls and ceilings. Cracks that are an 1 8 or 1 4 of an inch wide or more. Cracks in the drywall and plaster are a very common occurrence. They occur over time when there is stress or even a little settlement of the home.

Clean out the crack. You ll need a 6 inch taping knife a 10 or 12 inch taping knife 1 square piece of plywood or a plastic mud pan drywall compound drywall tape paper or fiberglass and fine grit sandpaper and a sanding block. At drywall installation best practices with wet or poor quality framing there are bound to be problems in the drywall finish. Cracks in your drywall or plaster interior walls could be the result of your house settling which could come from the foundation or may.

Water leaking from a window or the roof or even a leaky attic water line can run down inside a wall s framing and saturate the drywall which then softens and deteriorates creating a crack with. Causes of ceiling cracks and how to fix them a fine straight ceiling crack could be the result of a poorly taped joint. Use your taping knife to scrape the edges of the crack to remove any dust. A crack a 16th of an inch or larger that runs at a diagonal angle through a sheet s of drywall requires a lot of force to create this crack.

Ceilings that have multiple cracks that are more than just a small hairline crack are a concern. The drywall in my house separates from the ceiling and opens a gap of a quarter inch in the winter. It s like the drywall is ripped apart. Mice rats birds or other animals may have entered the home and are chewing digging and pecking on the interior of your home from the attic or inside the walls.

Those fissures in your wall have several possible causes. Poor attic ventilation creating quite the crackup los angeles times. If an insufficient amount of drywall mud was used during the taping process. Wide cracks and areas that have a number of cracks.

Contractors may call them hairline cracks meaning that they are very thin looking. As steve bliss points out. The majority of the time they are considered cosmetic and can be covered over when repainting is done.