Myron Ferguson has written about the importance of heating a home before hanging and taping rock. It is not clear to me why this is so important. Isn’t humity, not temperature, the more important factor in the wood expansion and contraction process? Therefore, shouldn’t a house framed up in the dry air of winter be at its hightest contraction point and therefore unlikely to cause nail pops in the warmer, wetter months? I’m starting to doubt this logic based on my experience with a recent addition, which was framed up in the dry winter but is now suffering from what I consider an inordinate number of screw pops.
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In winter the AIR is drier, but it takes heat energy to get moisture out of th estuds and into the air. They will dry in winter eventually, but who wants to wait that long?
screws do make it easier to avoid nail pops. What size screws did you use? Too long increases odds of pops with wet lumber drying later.
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thanks for the speedy reply. Yeah, I used 11/4 screws, so I don't think that's the problem. My painter has been a good sport and has repaired as many of the pops as we could find. Hopefully now that the house has passed through a contraction cycle that will be the end of it.
eleven quarter screws?ph- one and one quarter!
;)Must be you just didn't have tight to framing when screwing in is all.
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I kinda wonder what effect glue has on all this. Glue will help hold the board tight to the wall while fastenig, but also will not let it "give" as much later when the screw starts to push out.
Actually, this should be an easy thing to experiment with -- get a few scraps of really wet stud and a few scraps of drywall. Screw them down and somehow gage the screw head relative to the face of the DW. Wait a few months (or speed things along with an oven) and measure again. Try it with various types/lengths of screws, with and without glue, etc.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Good thought! Take that ball and run with it!See you in the end zone
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I just tore the drywall out of a new house that had been glued and scewed.
I wasnt impressed with the glue . I had thought it would be more but Im glad it wasnt for me . Now I wont ever use glue for standard drywall.
Screws did the holding .
I always had that question. Is it necesary to glue and screw? The only thing I could see is the glue acted as a leveler. On the other hand if it was someone elses money its not a bad idea. Just not mine . I have now tore out a job that was glued and screwed and had to wait years before I got the opportunity.
Tim
Edited 5/21/2007 6:40 am by Mooney
I have only used glue a couple times and was not advocating it. Did I say something implying that? I don't know.
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"In winter the AIR is drier, but it takes heat energy to get moisture out of th estuds and into the air. They will dry in winter eventually, but who wants to wait that long?"Sorta, but not exactly.It depends on your location, but winter air is often in the 50-70% RH.And wood responds to RH. But the absolute water vapor in the air is low. And when heated that 50-70% RH might be 10-20%. It is the low RH that dries out the studs..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
FWIW, my drywallers want consistent heat, would rather it be dry but the one thing they don't want is extreme variations. They say the killer is the propane ran out Saturday so by monday morning the house is freezing. The salamander is fired up to incinerate... bringing the second floor ceiling up to a balmy 90 while the first floor is frost covered. Makes sense to me.
Just to make things a little more gray...
We ( a drywall co. ) discourage propane heaters and prefer fans to remove moisture. This is during the mudding process, the propane introduces too much moisture. We want air circulation.
We are less concerned about temp than moisture, but we are in Ca. (S.F.) and deal with a lot of wet fog on our sites. Mike
Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
Propane is the worst choice for this too though. It adds gallons and gallons of water to the air and frost to cold spots in the walls. The water is a byproduct of the combustion.
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Any unvented heater will add moisture. Propane is a little worse than kerosene, but not much.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Finally my chance to get back on you for being so nit-picky with me sometimes on details!;)I have two unvented 220V elecrtric heaters that do not put out moisture.And propane makes considerebly more than kero. I don't recal the figures right now but it is a lot- though I would prefer propane based on smell of exhaust and lack of spills.
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I'd have to work out the molecular weight of each to come up with exact figures on H20 per BTU, but propane is C3H8 while kerosene is roughly C13H28. Proportionally propane contains more hydrogen vs carbon, but not that much more.I suspect that part of the reputation of propane for moisture is simply that you can run a propane burner at a higher BTU rate without odor, CO2, and CO problems.Yeah, I'd agree though that unvented electric heaters would produce virtually no moisture. ;)
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Propane is by no means perfect, but heating the house up during the day to let it freeze at night will have a far greater affect on the finished job then additional moisture.
I do not recall ever seeing screw pops,nails sure.I can think of two possible causes,screws that are too short or possibly the screws broke the paper.Not really sure about the latter.Even if the studs were 2x6's and wet, they would shrink maybe as much as 1/4",but properly screwed the boards should stay tight to the studs.
The only time I had heat while rocking was when it was too cold for me to be comfortable.When the compound is applied then of course you need to heat the house to 60° or more.
mike
Screws that are too long will cause pops faster than screws that are too short. The longer the screw the more it will tend to be pushed out of the wood as the wood shrinks.
But the OP says he used 1-1/4" screws, which is about as short as one can effectively use for standard 1/2" board. So I'm guessing the wood was just too wet.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Well the whole house moves and theres nothing you can do about it .
The house will settle in the ground the most the first year. Footings settle .
Trusses to me are the worst movers and shakers. Nothing in a house moves as much as truss uplift. I repaired several trusses last week from fire . So when I got done we wanted to see how strong they were compared to the others . After all these years I had never done this test but it was a coffee break discussion about how well we did the repair . I sent a 250 lb man up to walk them. I held a straight edge under the load spanning across several with an 8 footer. They all moved under the load. So a snow load would definately deflect them and of course a drywall ceiling screwed to the trusses.
Theres more to look at other than temps. But temps are a major factor of movement .
I know what happens in extreme cold changes to extreme heat . Our attics here in the South run 150 to 200 degrees . In the winter if a house isnt heated it can be fighting 0 temps out side. But the daily change from 175 degrees under full sun, to 65 degree nights will cause the ceilng to move daily.
If youve ever been around framing you know that as studs for example dry they change . I worked on a wood floor where I did all the work in building my new house . I thought I had the floor as straight as it was possible . I even used a planer on 2x12s. I had string lines on the floor . It moved before I finished the house to my despair as I found out when I laid floor tile. Those floors moved the walls too. Once drywall is finished , the trusses are connected to the walls .
Theres too much to consider in pointing a finger at one thing.
Tim