All American Painting Plus is known for our painting services, but there’s a lot more that we do every day for our clients and customers. One of the most important tasks we perform is drywall repair. Unfortunately, people don’t always associate drywall repair with All American Painting Plus, so they might leave the problem unrepaired or look around for another kind of business.
To demonstrate our knowledge on the subject, we’ll talk about all the ways drywall/sheetrock can be damaged, and the reasons why it is a good idea to have it repaired sooner rather than later.
How Does Drywall Get Damaged?
Drywall is a great product. In the old days, walls had to be built with primitive materials: plaster, wood, stone. Today, drywall comes in 4×8 foot sheets that are easily lifted and secured to the studs in your wall. It is thin enough to easily repair if a portion is damaged, and strong enough to stand up to abuse. But damage does occur, often in the following ways.
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- Bumps, Slashes, and Horseplay. People frequently put a hole or dent in their drywall when moving heavy furniture. In families with pets or children, the drywall usually takes a beating on a regular basis. Drywall is strong, but it won’t stand up to everything.
- Water Damage. Water is bad news for drywall, but the surface holds up better than you might think. While water soaks into drywall, it doesn’t rise higher than the surface level of the standing water. As such, if your house was flooded, you’d only have to remove and replace the drywall to the level at which the water reached at its highest point.
- Foundational Issues. Occasionally a house will shift, causing rigid surfaces like drywall to crack. If you see cracks in your drywall, it may be a sign of a deeper problem that you should deal with before getting it repaired.
Why Repair Drywall?
Beyond the obvious aesthetic issues, there are many reasons to get drywall repaired. Drywall has many functions, but one of the most fundamental is to keep the elements out of your house. Holes and cracks may let wind, construction residue, insulation, pests, and moisture into your home. Drywall damage also makes your home less energy efficient, as heat and air conditioning escape through damaged regions of drywall.
Is Drywall Expensive to Repair?
Not at all. For small holes, a patch can be made from another piece of drywall. This is fitted into the hole (which is often enlarged to accommodate the patch neatly), taped into place, cemented, painted, and refinished so that the repair is not visible.
In larger damaged portions, the removal of entire pieces of drywall may be appropriate, but new pieces are not expensive, and the labor is not so difficult or time-consuming that it will break your budget.
Drywall repair is almost never a big project, but homeowners sometimes worry that it will be. Once you understand how easy and beneficial it is to fix your drywall problem, we think you’ll be more likely to call All American Painting Plus today.