A plaster wall or drywall helps in giving your concrete walls a facelift. It is because they hide all the cracks that are often the culprit of aging, old walls. Installing drywall can be pretty simple when you are armed with the right tools. Doing the job yourself can help you save money that you would have spent to hire a contractor. However, it would help if you never attempted to install the wall without someone to help you. It is because you can’t handle the drywall boards by yourself, especially when screwing them into place. Below are tips that can help you install drywall like the pros over at Orange County Drywall Repair.
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Clean and Measure the Wall
For best results, it’s recommended that you first clean the wall. It helps in removing the foreign materials that can contaminate the finish seams. Once the wall is clean, you should then measure the surface of the wall. It ensures that you don’t cut boards that are either too long or short, resulting in wastage of drywall material. When measuring the panels, you should use a pencil to mark the cutting point to avoid staining them.
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Cut Holes for Wiring
The worst mistake that you can make when installing drywall is failing to leave openings for electric and telephone switches. It is because you would have to pull out the wall and reinstall it. To avoid such a mistake, you should first examine the wall to see whether it has any electric switches that need to be accessed after the drywall has been put in place. It would help if you then used a hole cutter saw to make openings on the boards for such switches.
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Hang Horizontally
There are usually two ways of hanging drywall; vertically or horizontally. Most manufacturers recommend that the wall be installed horizontally. However, some homeowners opt to install the fence vertically. This option is ideal when you don’t have someone to give you a hand. Regardless of how you arrange the boards, you should ensure that they touch the edges so that they can remain sturdy. But before you start installing the drywall boards, you should first put the studs on all the sides of the wall. It is because they are the ones that will support individual boards before they are fastened.
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Start from Top to Bottom
When installing the boards, you should always start from the top to the bottom. This descending order makes the job much more comfortable and prevents you from messing with the compound material that’s often smeared on the wall to create a seal beneath the boards. It would help if you started by hanging the first board and then install the rest. It can help in avoiding patches, especially when the surface is too big.
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Fasten with Screws
Once you have hung all the boards on the wall, you should fasten them with screws. Although some people opt to use nails, they are not the best because they can quickly come off as the wall ages. Screws are highly recommended because they come with sharp grooves that make them more firm. However, you should take caution when driving the screws through the boards. If they are close to the edges, there is the risk of splitting the commission. They should, therefore, be distributed evenly along the length of the boards. For doing this task, you can use a screw gun. Here’s a list of the best screw guns recommended by firstwoodworker.com.
