THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 1996 TAG: 9603070343
SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY PAGE: 22 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: ABOUT THE OUTER BANKS
SOURCE: Chris Kidder
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Gypsum board may be a wonderful invention but, let me tell you, it has to be one of the messiest materials used by man.
It's tough enough cleaning up after a crew of house framers who drop everything - including sandwich wrappers, Coke cans, yogurt cups, half-eaten bananas, cigarette packages and butts, broken tools, nails, screws and anything else they no longer need - on the floor or in the yard.
Add the paper trash, dust and mud splatters from drywall installation and you have a first-rate mess.
But construction mess is a mess any homeowner should welcome. Mess means work-in-progress; it means final closing is just around the corner. Grab a broom, sweep it up and let the workers get on with their work, I say: Let's get this baby finished.
In years past, putting up the interior walls in a house was a carpenter's job because walls were wood. Even plaster walls had wood lath behind them. Then, gypsum wallboard was invented around 1917. It didn't really catch on until World War II, and then it revolutionized the wall building business.
Gypsum is hydrous calcium sulfate, a common mineral. Found worldwide in plentiful supply for now, most deposits were formed some 250 million years ago.
Gypsum is the main ingredient in plaster: plaster used on walls, plaster used for molds and casts, plaster of Paris (named for the large gypsum deposits in the Montmartre district of Paris, France). It's also a component in Portland cement, used in stucco and other exterior wall finishes.
Wallboard manufacturers are the biggest consumers of gypsum. A 2,000-square-foot house uses about 200 four-by-eight foot wallboards. It would seem to me that gypsum is a limited resource, but I couldn't find any literature suggesting that folks are worried about running out of gypsum so I guess I won't be either.
Before gypsum wallboard, wet plaster was slathered on wood lathe, metal lathe or other backing materials to make a finished wall.
Gypsum wallboard, commonly called drywall or plaster board, is a prefabricated form of gypsum plaster sandwiched between paper coatings. Some people also call gypsum wallboard Sheetrock, but unless it was manufactured by U.S. Gypsum, it's not Sheetrock. Sheetrock is a registered trade name.
While we're being technically correct here, let's go all the way: All gypsum wallboard is drywall but not all drywall is gypsum wallboard. Drywall is any sheet material used to finish interior walls. Some of these materials, like gypsum board, require the application of wet plaster - commonly called ``drywall mud'' - to finish the seams so they're not even really dry.
Drywall is used in most residential construction these days because it is an efficient way to finish walls. Drywall goes up fast; the mud dries faster than an entire wall of plaster. Drywall is less susceptible to damage during the drying stage, so work can proceed around it while it dries.
And drywall is cheaper than plaster by $3 to $5 per board, installed. (Most plaster, today, is installed over a water-resistant wallboard rather than over lath).
There's an art to drywall installation. Once the board is nailed, screwed or glued in place, it takes several applications of mud and careful sanding to erase all trace of seams and fasteners. Even when done right, drywall is prone to ``nail pops'' - protruding nail heads - as the wood frames dries out and the house settles.
Once paint is applied, every drywall imperfection shows. That's why my general contractor requires his painter to apply a primer coat and then wait for the drywall contractor to come back and take a look. There are always spots that need attention, he told me. ``It's the only way to do it right.''
It seems that the people who hang drywall have built a reputation for being either wild and unreliable or fiercely independent (there's only a shade of difference between the two). Almost every house-building story I've ever been told - and in my years of writing about construction, I've heard many - took a turn when it came to drywall.
Depending upon the storyteller's tolerance, eyes rolled or tempers flared; few were ever neutral on the subject.
When it came time to hang drywall in my house, I expected the worst.
In fact, the crew was a personable bunch of guys who accomplished a lot in a very short time and did one fine job. They generated a lot of trash, a lot of dust - their drywall mud left the house looking as though it had hosted a gaggle of very large gulls - but when the dust cleared and the paint was applied, there was little doubt they were craftsmen.
The painter is done now. I've agreed to paint the wood trim myself as it's finished over the next two weeks. My builder raised his eyebrows at my insistence on doing this, but the job will be made easier by the arrival of relatives bearing paintbrushes.
The vinyl floors and the cabinets will be installed this week. Appliances will arrive. The electrician and plumber will be back to finish their work. By the time I write a column about my house again, it will probably be finished. And, from then on out, any mess in the house will be my own. MEMO: Send comments and questions to Chris Kidder at P.O. Box 10, Nags Head,
N.C. 27959. Or e-mail her at realkidd(AT)aol.com
by CNB