[ZeroGravity06]

Google and YouTube have made me a drywall beginner. :vs_laugh: (I have no shame in being honest)
I am finishing a basement that has 9.5 foot walls. Because of many reasons, I had to purchase 4x8 drywall, thus eliminating the option of hanging 10' drywall vertically. Since Google and YouTube does not provide hands on training, I have chosen to hang the drywall but hire professionals to finish the drywall. So I want to make it easy and cost effective for me.
Several questions.... and think about if I was hiring you. What would cost less and be faster for an installer to tape and mud?
When hanging the drywall, should my 1.5 foot seam be in the middle?
If yes, then do I need to cut the tapered edge off of my full sheet to join the butt end of the 1.5' wide piece?
Can a butt end be joined up with a tapered end? (No, right?)
Or should I have 2 full sheets at the top and the 1.5' (with a tapered edge) to eliminate an 8 foot long butt joint? (That would create 2 tapered edges to finish.)

I have yet to find anywhere on the web that talks about the edges of the seam for a horizontal installed wall that is over 8 feet.

I love construction, but I am building on my skills. Thanks, in advance!

 

[daveb1]

I'd find a taper first and ask what he wants. Sometimes them hanging the board is not worth doing it yourself. And they've got tricks for getting bigger boards in tight spaces if that's your concern. Any money you save with smaller boards will get used up with extra taping.

 

[Mike Milam]

By ALL means, wait for guys who do this a lot. But, if I were hanging it, I would cut the bevel off the bottom edge, put the next sheet on and cut the narrow piece for the top. That way you have bevel edges to beveled edges.

An aside, I would do the ceiling first.

 

[huesmann]

You'll have bit of waste, but you could still go horizontally. Cut 1-1/4' off the bottom piece and put the cut edge on the floor, then a full size sheet, then cut 1-1/4' off the top piece and put the cut edge on the ceiling.

 

[jeffnc]

Tapered seams are easy, so the best way is to have all tapered seams. Tapered seams trumps height IMO. They'll probably be working on stilts anyway. So logically the small piece has to go at the top or bottom. Drywall finishers are used to having a tapered seam at the top where it butts up against the ceiling sheet, so I would just put a full sheet there and the small piece at the bottom with the cut edge down.

 

[XSleeper]

Another vote for hanging horizontally, full sheet at the top and a 1.5 ft ripper on bottom.

 

[ron45]

I would run 2 sheets horizontal the normal way and install an acoustical ceiling eliminating the 1.5 piece. This will also give you plenty of room to run wiring, lights, pipes, etc., without any hassles.
It will also cut down on noise.
Many different kinds to choose from.

 

[mjhaston]

As a former taper, it depends on how big your area is. How many boards are you hanging. Most hangers back in the day would run a 1.5' rip in the middle. You'd have one standard tapered join and then a taper against a butt. It'll take a little work to get it all nice and flat. If you had to put the joint at top or bottom to make sure it was a true tapered joint, I would opt for the top. I'd rather finish it on my stilts or benches, rather than squat the whole time......although my son did just give me the idea of using his rolling stool to box out 100' of Nocoat at the bottom of knee walls!

 

[RustNeverSleeps]

If I were you I would give the drywall finisher the option to also bid on the install. If you had all the drywall onsite it would not take so long for a professional to install (easy for me to say, lol). And they may install it in a manner that makes the finishing step faster, leading to the same overall price. For example what if you (as a novice) don't drive the screws deep enough, or too deep, don't leave enough gap to fill in with mud, or blowout corners as you install creating a bigger mess to finish, etc.

There are a lot of good tutorials on youtube. Lately I have been watching the Vancouver Carpenter to learn a few things myself. If you can install the sheetrock, then I think you could also finish it, though it does take a some practice to get a good finish with minimal effort.

 

[Missouri Bound]

Back in the day, it was always full sheet at the top and bottom and the "patch" in the middle. That puts the majority of taping at a more workable level.
Bending and reaching to tape a joint gets tiring real quick. The easier it is to do the better the result.

 

[jeffnc]

Bending and reaching to tape a joint gets tiring real quick. The easier it is to do the better the result.

That's true, but it's also easier to do a tapered joint than a butt joint, so those are conflicting attributes. If it were my house, I'd want tapered joints even if I have to kneel.

But maybe the best thing to do would be to ask what the finishers would prefer.