How To Repair Water Damaged Drywall

There are few elements more destructive to the home than water. We spend so much time protecting our homes against the likelihood of fire that we often forget that a single leak can cause untold amounts of damage to drywall. It’s worth remembering that drywall has a paper backing and that the combination of water and paper never really ends well. If you don’t believe me, then simply go for a bath and drop your paperback novel in there. That may bring a whole new meaning to pulp fiction, rendering your book completely unreadable. While you novel may be beyond repair after a meeting with water, the same cannot be said for drywall.

Water damaged drywall is easy to spot as it is usually discolored and/or bubbled in the areas where the water has taken hold.

Repairing Water Damaged Drywall

1. The first step of the repair is to remove the damaged area, which can be down with a utility knife. Make sure to remove the damaged drywall in a neat manner and in a shape that will be easy to patch. It’s also advised that you try to pinpoint exactly where the water is coming from and take care of that before continuing with the repair. Failure to do that may mean making the exact same repair over and over again.
2. There is likely to be a bit of a mess on the floor once you finish that, so be sure to clean up and let everything dry out before moving on. If you’ve taken the time to cut out the damaged part properly then you should be left with an area that pretty easy to patch up pretty tightly. If the patch is being put in an area of the drywall that has nothing to attach to, you may need to add a backing piece that you can screw the replacement part onto. Once the drywall had been attached, you will then have to tape it, apply mud, and then sand it down smooth after it has had time to dry. If you haven’t had much experience with drywall, then you might want to look at fiberglass tape as it is adhesive and a little easier to work with.

This type of repair isn’t really that difficult to pull off, with the hardest part of the entire process likely to be the taping and mudding. If you take your time you should be able to get it just right, which is likely to end up saving you a good amount of money. A professional contractor would likely have the job done in a fraction of the time that it would take you to do it on your own, but this way you get the satisfaction of seeing that you did the job well with enough money left over to perhaps buy some paint to freshen up your newly repaired wall.

Keep in mind, that water damaged drywall can often come with other problems, such as mold. Before you go knocking down walls, be sure that you wear a mask and take extra precaution if you noticed any sign of black mold, since it would require an bit of extra working when trying to remove black mold.