Being on the front line of the drywall trade allows this reporter a unique perspective into the everyday trials and tribulations of a broad spectrum of drywall dogs. The everyday run-of-the-mill challenges have been discussed in this column ad nauseum. However, for the past few months there is a new stranger in town, and with him comes disease and sickness. Actually, I don't think he's really new. As a matter of fact, I have met him a time or two myself.
He would show up out of the blue and bite me just hard enough to get my attention and then disappear. He would take a sabbatical, change his appearance and then pay another surprise visit. Often, he would pick the most inopportune time to show up. I never really wanted to see him but it would have been a much less painful visit if he dropped by while I was working on a one-bedroom addition. Not this guy.
He always picked the job that had hundreds of sheets. One with huge open expanses of light-washed walls that extended up into the stratosphere. He never shows his face in public. He will wait until all the drywall finishers are long gone and the painters are in their trucks headed for the next job.
Then, like a virus that lies dormant waiting for an unsuspecting victim to infect, our stranger starts dosing the finished/painted walls. The sick feeling in the pit of a parent's stomach upon awaking to find a child covered with angry red bumps. After having an outbreak of chickenpox is close to the feeling you get as you field the phone call from the angry builder. Yes you have been visited again. Sometime, over the last few days, the job had been infected and is now covered with white chickenpox. Occasionally, after an extremely bad infection, not only are there bumps, there are also stripes. The only known cure is to sweat it out after hours of re-work.
Has this stranger ever paid you a visit? The following post from the Walls & Ceilings message board is from a recent victim of an extreme infection:
"I'm having a USG rep come Monday on site to inspect a problem with a new home I hung and finished last summer.
"Walking into this home everything looks flawless. The ceilings are smooth and were skim-coated to perfection. Even the experienced eye couldn't find a seam throughout the main floor of this home. Then you head to the finished basement. Every single taped joint on the walls and ceilings shadows through. You can actually see the tape. Every single screw head has a protruding perfect little ring around it, even under the tape. The difference is night and day.
"The thing is, I finished every last inch of this home by myself, the same as the last some thousand odd homes: glue, screw, prefill as necessary, tape, 10, 12 and skim. The builder is also the homeowner. The painter I know well.
"One thing's certain: I didn't leave it this way, it happened gradually. Upon further inspection of this basement, it occurred to me that this is all 1/2-inch, 48-inch sheets. The upstairs is nothing but 5/8-inch, 54-inch for the ceilings. The only explanation I have is the board shrank-can this be?"