Hi. I would like to remove sheetrock, install insulation, and replace the sheetrock. This is a stupid question, but how do I locate the sheetrock screws? I can locate studs, but what about the screws? Thanks!
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Are you sure you have screws and not nails? Are you looking to remove the screws because you want to re-use/re-install the old sheetrock? Some studfinders can scan for metal. If you know where the studs are, you can run it along the stud, scanning for metal. However, by the time you locate all the screws (maybe) and remove them, and cut the seams between the sheets, the sheetrock will probably be so banged up that you're better of replacing with new.
If you're going to put new sheetrock up anyway, just tear down the old stuff (w/ hammer, pry bar, etc.). Remove the screws or nails from the studs, insulate, and then put up the new stuff.
what perswede said.......
Forget trying to save the rock..its cheap enough to replace and not only that..the seams on the factory edges have been filled with mud already so I doubt you'll respackle well enough to make it look good.
Get some beer and RIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP then ROCK and roll
Be well
andy
My life is my practice!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Actually, they could be nails. I guess I'd be better off to just rip the stuff out. Thanks!
the fastest way to locate lots of sheet-rock screws is to find your nearest kitchen cabinet installer.
That doesn't apply any more. Screws and nails are out and velcro is in. Piffen screws are no longer a hot commodity.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
oh? really?
piffen + velcro
do you call it "piffcro"?
or "velpiff" ?
piffel
god only knows how I found my way into this thread first thing after logging on.
8-).
Excellence is its own reward!
I was going thru some old FHB issues and came upon a really neat tip that I used when I demno'd my current project. Take an old sawzall blade, probably metal cutting, and snap it off real short, such that it sticks out 1/2" to 5/8" at the end of the stroke. Then just run it down the wall, stitching the sheetrock. The blade goes in far enough to cut thru the rock, but not so far as to cut wires or pipes, and maybe not even hit the studs. Then just grab the rock and pull, it comes off in big chunks. Very little mess.
Do it right, or do it twice.
Heard that trick from IMERC last week, when I was looking for a sneaky way to snake an unsnakable wire to a three-way for an add-on.
Finally used my trained mouse, though....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Well, my apologizies to Imerc, I didn't see his post and certainl;y didn't mean to plagarize his method. But the truth is I saw it in a very old (10 yrs?) FHB and I did use it in my demo. Works very well, especially for large scale demo. I would think that for small stuff a hand saw would work well.
Do it right, or do it twice.
He didn't post it here; we were doing a one-on-one trying to find a less destructive way to put a wire where it needed to be put.
I'm hanging the gyprock on the job tomorrow; I might try it for box cutouts and see if it saves us any time.Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
I can see it now:
"The Famous Piffin Self-Finding Screw Company, Ltd." !!!Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Why? That is a lot of work.
How about blowin? Then all you have to do is patch a small hole for each bay.
Can you fill an entire stud cavity with one hole? I demo'd a project with blow in in the walls about a year ago. If someone actually paid to have that done they got screwdriven! studbays were probably 45 percent filled. lots of gaps.
I am not a pro and have never had to do this. But from what I understand that you can dense pack cels from a single hole. Cut it in the middle and fill from the bottom up and then from the top down.
I think that Mike Smith and some others have mentioned doing that.
In fact I *think* that is how Mike does his energy walls on new construciton.
Take a piece of steel wool, real fine, 0000, and gently tap it at the top of the wall, as the fine steel particles fall down the wall, they will attract themselves to the still slightly magnetized(from the driver bit)screw heads. Stand back and look at the wall and the darker spots are the screws......You can back out the screws, but waht about the glue?
I have started using rare earth magnets for finding studs and nails.
A decade ago, I had a quote to insulate the walls on my stucco house with no prior wall insulation, but I left before I had it done. What they were going to do was drill holes in each stud bay, one above and one below the fire blocking. They then blew in cellulose. They then used a plug in the hole, patched the area, and repainted the house. The contractor, and some others as well, claimed that the plugged and patched holes were pretty inconspicuous. I would assume that doing the same from the inside would make the drilling and patching even easier. In any case, I would assume some additional methods would be required for corner stud areas and some other restricted areas.
I would guess (purely wild speculation) that with dry cellulose, the stuff would eventually settle a bit and give an inch or two of unprotected area near the top of the wall, but I would think that newer methods should be able to give adequate fill.