Hanging drywall in a basement bar made me flip on pre-filling gaps

I landed a job finishing a basement bar in Columbus last week and the owner had framed everything with 2x4s on 12-inch centers. That part was fine, but the gaps between the sheets were all over the place, some a half inch wide at the corners. I always used to just tape and mud those, figuring the paper would hold it. Watching the first coat shrink back and crack in one spot made me stop and pre-fill every gap before I even broke out the tape. Took me an extra hour and about 15 pounds of mud, but the second day's coat went on flat as a board. Anyone else pre-fill on rough framing or am I just being extra now?

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1 Comment

finleyfox10d ago

Pre-filling is the right call, but 15 pounds of mud for pre-fill sounds a bit heavy to me. That's more like a full coat on a small room. If the gaps were really that bad, I'd have stuffed some backer rod in the half-inch ones first, then mudded over it. Saves you the mud and keeps the drying shrink way down. The paper tape will still crack if the gap is wide and you don't give it something solid behind it, so you're smart to stop and fix it. Just next time, use less mud and more foam or rod for the big gaps, you'll thank yourself later.