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Patch drywall in ceiling


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Learning how to patch a drywall ceiling is a handy piece of knowledge that can save you thousands of pounds in repair costs over a lifetime.

Your drywall ceiling may get damaged through ceiling leaks or wear and tear, and it's a relatively easy fix for a seasoned DIYer. 

If you can learn how to hang drywall ceiling or have accomplished removing a popcorn ceiling, you can certainly turn your talents to patching a drywall ceiling. We asked Nick Cryer, founder of high-end residential construction company Berkeley Place , to share his top tips for patching a drywall ceiling below.

How to patch a drywall ceiling for a pro-worthy finish

A drywall ceiling might need patching after fixing a ceiling leak as part of repairing a ceiling with water damage. These top tips will ensure you’re prepared to take on those repairs yourself for a fresh new ceiling that’s as good as new.

You will need:

1. Cut a new section of drywall

Try cutting an ‘inspection hole’ before removing the damaged section of drywall. If you cut the hole and see electrical wires, plumbing, or gas lines you may need to hire a professional to replace your ceiling.

Otherwise, draw a box around your damaged area with a framing square, then cut this size out of the existing drywall around the hole.

‘Measure the thickness of the drywall (most likely 12mm), and cut a new replacement section to size to cover the hole or damaged area you want to patch,’ says Nick.

You can use a tape measure or ruler to measure the cutout section to get the exact dimensions for the new piece.

Place two slabs of wood inside the hole to support the new section and screw in. Then screw the new section of drywall into place.

2. Apply drywall compound and tape

Taping the edges of the new patch of drywall to make it invisible is the trickiest part of the 'how to patch drywall ceiling' job, according to Nick.

He says: ‘You will need drywall compound and a roll of paper tape. You can use mesh tape, but it isn’t as strong. You can also create a perfect corner and crisp edge with paper tape that mesh cannot equal.’

He adds: ‘Drywall compound hardens quickly and doesn’t shrink, so it’s ideal for filling cracks, gaps and joints before applying the joint tape.’

Apply a layer of drywall compound over the new patch and then press your paper tape over the seams, running over it with your putty knife to smooth.

Then cover the whole patched area and paper tape with a layer of drywall compound to hide the tape and seams.

You will want to apply up to three coats, and it’s a good idea to sand the area between each coat to make sure it's smooth and doesn't have any 'high spots'.

Using a large 12in putty knife makes the job easier.

3. Sand and clean

After the third coat of compound, sand the area until super-smooth and then clean with a damp cloth to remove dust.

4. Apply your primer

You will then need to prime the ceiling with a drywall primer and paint the patch to match the rest of the ceiling for a seamless finish. Your drywall ceiling patch repair is complete.

Can you patch plaster ceiling with drywall?

Yes, you can patch a plaster ceiling with drywall. Cut out the damaged area of plaster, then use drywall to patch it, securing it in place with drywall screws. 

Ruth Doherty is an experienced digital writer and editor specializing in interiors, travel and lifestyle. With 20 years of writing for national sites under her belt, she’s worked for the likes of Livingetc.com, Standard, Ideal Home, Stylist and Marie Claire as well as Homes & Gardens. 

How to Patch a Ceiling

Project details

Skill

1 out of 5 Easy Though mixing powdered joint compound to the right consistency takes some practice.

Cost

$35

Estimated Time

4 hours, including wait time

Tools & Materials

Step 1

Score the Perimeter

Photo by Wendell T. Webber

Place a drop cloth beneath the work area, put on safety glasses, then use a utility knife to make a shallow cut around the damaged area. This cut helps to keep you from inadvertently stripping the paper face off the undamaged drywall during the next step.

Shown: TOH senior technical editor Mark Powers uses a utility knife to cut around the water damage on a drywall ceiling

Step 2

Scrape

Photo by Wendell T. Webber

Use a 6-inch taping knife to peel off the loose layers of paint and paper, and the crumbly bits in the drywall’s gypsum plaster core. Take care to keep the knife blade from going beyond the score line you cut in Step 1. Dust the scraped area clean using a soft-bristle paintbrush.

Step 3

Tape the Cracks

Photo by Wendell T. Webber

If the blistering occurred at a seam between drywall panels, or if there are cracks in the plaster core, cover them with joint tape to keep the repair from cracking. Mix up a small batch of 20-minute setting-type joint compound to a peanut-butter consistency, mist the ceiling with water from a spray bottle—that ensures the compound will set properly—and apply a thin layer of compound to the ceiling with the taping knife. Then use it to press the tape into the wet compound, as shown.

Step 4

Spread the Compound

Photo by Wendell T. Webber

After the tape layer hardens, mix a bigger batch of joint compound and transfer it from the bucket to the ceiling with the 6-inch taping knife. Now switch to a 12-inch taping knife and use it to smooth the compound and feather its edges. Wait several minutes for the compound to firm up, then mist and smooth it some more. With patience, you can eliminate most imperfections with the knife before the compound becomes too hard to work.

Step 5

Sand

Photo by Wendell T. Webber

When the compound is hard, use a medium-grit sanding sponge to erase any blemishes. Pay particular attention to the edges.

Step 6

Prime and Paint

Photo by Wendell T. Webber

Wipe off the dust with a damp sponge. When the patch is dry, brush or roll on a water-based primer. And when the primer dries, follow up with a coat of ceiling paint. Then stand back and admire your handiwork.

Step 7

Tale of the Tape

Most tape that bridges drywall joints is made of paper (above, top). It’s strong and inexpensive, but absorbs moisture and doesn’t bond well with joint compound.

Fiberglass mesh tape (middle) isn’t affected by moisture and becomes fully embedded in the compound. But its relative thickness means that feathering edges and covering inside corners takes time and skill.

The latest leap forward, FibaFuse, combines paper’s thinness and ease of use with mesh’s moisture resistance and ability to become one with the compound. It’s the tape we used for this project.

How to fix drywall joints on the ceiling

To perform interior work in a private house or apartment, different building materials are used: wood, plastic. Finishing the kitchen or balcony, use tiles. But recently, drywall has become the most popular material for leveling walls and ceilings in a room.

Moisture-resistant material

It has many positive characteristics compared to other materials:

  1. It doesn't matter how uneven the surface is, what condition it is in - thanks to such sheets, it is easy to level them.
  2. After installation, a space is formed between the wall and drywall, in which you can place a heater or hide communications there - wires, pipes.
  3. Only one lane can cover a large area.
  4. A decorative finish is applied to the surface of the sheet, painted or covered with wallpaper.

Drywall sheets, if you look closely, have different ends. Rounded shape - at the factory seams. They are also flat, but still have a recess. Sheets that have not been processed at the factory do not have recesses. After mounting them on the ceiling, you need to make such a cut yourself. It is made with a sharp knife - the edge is cut at an angle of 45 ° to make a joint: factory seams and a groove that is cut off.

It is important when choosing to evaluate the appearance of drywall. If it doesn’t look perfect, then you don’t need to save on putty, which you buy ready-made in a store or prepare it yourself from a dry mix.

When unforeseen circumstances occur during installation and the sheets burst or break, there is no need to throw them away, you can use these sheets. Cut off the damaged area. Trimming must be done carefully so that the edges are even, then attach it to a solid layer and fix it. Sometimes you have to connect two cut sheets, but this is not a big deal, just after installation, the seams should be carefully sealed. But not everyone knows how to do it right. In order to avoid mistakes, we will consider simple ways to connect sheets, as well as how this is done.

Tools needed

Like any other construction job, grouting requires the right tools:

Materials for the process: putty, also a special primer that penetrates the surface.

Workflow

The first step is to remove dust from the drywall surface that is already installed on the ceiling. The gap between the building material should not be more than 5 mm. Connections should also be captured. Treat the entire area with a deep penetration primer and very carefully.

Priming

If there are places where the self-tapping screws are poorly screwed in, you need to immediately correct the situation so that they do not interfere during puttying.

The edges are processed with a sharp construction knife, making chamfers. Dilute the solution in the correct proportion and use freshly prepared. It is applied with a metal spatula, in a vertical position, make sure that the prepared mixture completely fills the joint between the GCR.

Putty must dry well. A special reinforcing mesh is applied to the joints. It can also be used during installation if it is elastic.

The mesh is laid over the entire length of the joint and is slightly sunk into the applied putty layer. Serpyanka should lie down so that its edges remain even. After that, the excess mixture is removed from the drywall with a wide spatula.

After the work on processing the joints between the sheets is completed, they begin to level the seams. On the dried layer of putty with a mesh, apply another thin layer of putty so that the surface is even, and after drying, grouting with a special mesh can be done.

Puttying with paper tape

To strengthen the joints on the ceiling, not only sickle is used, but also paper tape, which has perforations. By connecting the joints between drywall with such a tape, you can make them much neater.

First, apply the prepared putty, as in the case of sickle, to the joints and wait until it dries. In the meantime, you can do reinforcement.

In some cases (depending on the manufacturer) it is necessary to soak the tape in water before use and let it soak.

Tape application

Prepare a thick, high-quality PVA glue and apply it to the surface of the paper strip. You can do this with a brush with a not too long pile. Fold the strip cut to size and smeared with the adhesive side inward, like wallpaper, and set aside. So glue all the prepared tapes that will be used at a time with glue.

A layer of PVA glue is applied to the joints and the prepared strip is immediately applied to them. Gently smooth the tape with a spatula, but do not press too hard so that it does not tear.

The tape, after drying, takes the form of joints and becomes thinner. Now it's time to prepare the finishing putty, designed to seal the joint, and apply over the strip. After drying this layer, grout is done using a special grater with nozzles.

At first glance, this tape seems unreliable. But it's not. It firmly connects the joints on the ceiling. Such a seam does not crack and will not crumble.

Finishing the edge

When buying drywall, you can see that the edges have a specially made rounding or thinning. This form serves its purpose. Without these edges, it will not be possible to carefully seal the seams. Putty is applied to these places for leveling.

Only in this way will the surface get a good connection between the edges of the two sheets of drywall and level the plane. The application of the finishing mixture is considered correct if it slightly extends beyond this rounding. In this case, you will get a strong and even connection.

All joining edges must be recessed to produce a strong and secure connection. Otherwise, cracks will appear in these places.

Chamfered joints on sheets

Conclusion

So, how to seal the joints of drywall sheets? Although such preparation of joints for processing delays the finishing process, one should not neglect seemingly unimportant nuances at first glance. Without the use of tape or sickle, the joints will not be as strong and will crack shortly after the repair. It is not so scary when non-woven wallpaper is glued to the ceiling. But if it is planned to color it, then saving time in this case will become irrational.

To see clearly how to seal joints on sheets, watch the video:

How and with what to seal joints in drywall?

When creating shapes or simple drywall constructions, there are many connections and seams. Naturally, in this form, the surface is no good. All these joints need to be sealed with something.

Many sheets break, do not throw them away after that. No, they will go to work. You just need to cut the break point fairly evenly, and connect the damaged sheet with a new one. Sometimes two cut sheets are simply connected.

Requires alignment where they meet. But not everyone knows how to properly, and how, to close up such seams in drywall. To avoid mistakes in finishing and preparing surfaces for further work, consider the simplest and most popular ways to do this.

Net putty

Before starting work, check the available tools. You won't need much:

After that, you can proceed to sealing the joints of the structural parts.

The method offered by Knauf, and has the status of "official", involves the use of a mixture for sealing joints in drywall constructions and joints, called "Fugenfühler".

This mixture, though good, is far from perfect. When using it, with a high probability, when the humidity in the room changes, or with the smallest deformations of the coating, the putty at the place where the parts are joined can easily crack.

It can be used when there is a strong certainty that such things will not happen.

Much stronger, although much more expensive, mixture from the same manufacturer, but with the name "Uniflot". This is a putty designed specifically for joints, and its characteristics are much better than those of the Fugenfüler. To work according to this method, you will need a self-adhesive mesh made of fiberglass or vinyl. It is sold in small rolls and is very convenient to use.

The first step is a spatula and some putty. It must be evenly applied to the junction of the sheets and completely filled with a mixture, and leveled with a spatula.

When the joint filled with putty dries, you can stick the sickle. It should lie exactly in the middle so that equal edges of the grid remain on both sides of it.

Next, on top of the grid, another layer of putty mixture is applied. After it dries, it is rubbed with a grater and the work is finished.

Putty with paper tape

Much stronger, you get a seam that is pasted over with perforated paper tape instead of mesh. With it, the connection of two parts is obtained more accurately, and its strength increases.

Putty must be applied first, as in the previous method. While it dries, we are engaged in reinforcing material.

Depending on the manufacturer, drywall tape may require pre-soaking in hot water prior to use. Be sure to take into account the time it takes to get it wet.

It is better to thoroughly wet any variety of it with water. Next, you need to apply an even and not very thick layer of PVA glue on the surface of the paper. To do this, it is best to use a brush with not very stiff bristles.

The cut and applied tape is folded with the adhesive backing inward, as in wallpapering. The finished strip is postponed, and the next one follows it. This is done until the right amount is reached to seal those joints that are planned to be leveled at a time.

Dry joint surface needs to be grouted. This is easy to do, a grater is used for grinding. After that, the joint itself must also be smeared with glue, and immediately stick a tape on it. You need to level it with a spatula. Be careful not to press too hard on him, as he may tear the tape.

When the tape dries, it will take the shape of the seam and become much thinner. Now you can process the joint with putty again, and grind it again with a grater.

Despite the apparent fragility of the connection, paper tape for drywall seams, tightly fastens two sheets of drywall together. After gluing the tape, the seam is guaranteed not to crack.

Finishing uneven sheet edges

If a sheet has been cut or broken and then cut along the edge, it must be prepared before use. Why, how and why - we will answer further.

If you pay attention, on the edges of all gypsum sheets, you can notice a rounding, or decrease in the thickness of the sheet. This was done for a reason, but for a very specific purpose - sealing the joints of the sheets.

In the recess, which will be obtained by joining the edges of two sheets, putty is applied when leveling.

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