repairing cracks on seams

backnmt

I have several places in my house where drywall matches up. Either tape wasn't used or something else. I have tried lightly sanding this area, using a mudd, dried and resanded and tried repainting. it cracked again, and now it is raised as well. Do I need to retape and texture? Or is this because the house is still settling?

sdsester

Is the cracking happening at the seam or are the edges of where there should be or maybe is original tape cracking?

You are going to get lucky getting tape and mud to stick to even a sanded painted surface unless you prime it first and even then you may have trouble? I would scrape down as close as you can get to the original tape, if there is any.

I cannot tell from your post whether you can tell if the seams were ever taped and got mud or this got skipped somehow? If you are taping new tape over failed tape you will not get very far and unfortunately you will have to scrape down to where the problem started at some point.

Each side of your drywall where you have the failures is nicely screwed or nailed into something or did someone do something goofy and they are free floating? Would not be the first time I have seen this so this is why I am asking. If your seams are not on a joist or stud and there are inadequate numbers of fasteners, this could cause the seams to be pulling loose. Drywall is heavy stuff and if someone skimped on screws or nails it has to pull loose.

I hope you are using a nice drywall knife to get the tape on. Layer of mud goes down. The tape gets pressed into it. I level it out with maybe a blade worth of mud over the top and let it dry. No fuss beyond this on the first pass.

Then you go back with a thin coat over the top. And then, using a nice wide drywall blade I skim coat the joint into the wall so it blends in. Others may have other approaches. Drywallers would find this too slow I am sure.

I happen to hate the mesh tape for most situations but it might be a good choice for you in this repair situation? I hope you are using the good old fashioned paper tape.

Bob Mariani

if this keeps cracking then something with the structure needs to be addressed. The foundation is moving, the studs were green, something is wrong.