Industry Voices<br>The Drywall Finish Process During the Cold Weather
Roundtable attendee Richard Schwartz discusses the need for proper heating on the job site.
This article was written to try and define the work conditions of the drywall business during the colder time of year. In my experience, many builders don’t realize that drywall finishing products cannot perform the same way in the winter months as in the warmer months. Workers are in houses to tape, bed and skim under conditions perfect for failure, and the homebuilders just want to close on their houses on their schedule, not ours.
We find that, as with many things we do, the builders don’t understand the way drywall needs to dry. One of the things we have been doing for years is using smooth wallboard. This product has to be pre-filled with Duo-Bond at all joints. With this product, the joint compound is not trapped under the tape. This helps in protecting the board from staying wet and weakening, which can create ridging and other problems. The last item is wet or extremely cold drywall does not sand well, it will fuzz the paper and destroy the quality of the board.