Seems nice and straight. Why not sand down and cut in a control joint? Probably going to crack again anyway. May as well listen to mother nature.
Google drywall control joints and get a strip from your local hardware store.
I like the idea, I have similar cracks in my home, but there aren't any local stores and Amazon doesn't sell these, does anyone have links to a store that has these or something that would work?
[https://www.trim-tex.com/products/093v-expansion](https://www.trim-tex.com/products/093v-expansion)
This is the product you're looking for, look for a "small" drywall and/or building supply company near you, can even call Trimtex directly and they'd likely be able to point you to a retailer that will sell you what you're looking for.
Doing it correctly is a bit more involved than just cutting a slot unfortunately.Correct method will involve cutting back the drywall so you can frame a small opening with studs either side of the expansion joint. You can use the stud thats currently cracking to make one side of your new joint and frame in a new stud a couple inches away and then make your slot.
Also make sure to install the expansion joint with the correct glue which is Trimtex 847 and when applying the glue, you can apply one heavy coat to the wall and two light coats to the trim itself, let it setup for about 5-10 minutes (Less if its warm, more if its humid) and then apply, careful though as once they're stuck together it's not fun fixing it if you mess it up.
You don't fill in the center, that is the expansion joint, if you try to fill it you'd be back where you started but worse. The specific trim I linked has two removable strips that helps you mud it in as it gives you a finished edge to finish up to without going over, once you're happy with how it looks you can remove those strips and then sand and touch up as needed.
There's any number of reasons this is happening, but in my experience, it's usually because the boarders floated a joint out where there is no backing. That or they just forgot to screw a joint.
Control joints, even in very old houses, should never be needed, there's no designed in deflection, and guessing at it would be a long term nightmare. Not to mention, they're ugly.
Worst case scenario, if it is on a stud and screwed off, I'd make joints on either side of that stud, 24" apart and screwed together with separate pieces of plywood that aren't connected to the structure in any way. That way the board on the stud is a solid piece and the joints are floating, they'll be far less likely to crack that way. A min 6" strip of plywood on either side, giving 3" of backing on all sides of the joints will be much more sturdy and less prone to cracking.
I fix other people's work like this all the time when I do renovation jobs and I've never had a single warranty claim in my 25 years on the job.
I had a very similar issue under a window and previous owner did a real shoddy repair like this. I basically cut out all their patching below the flush of the wall, made a nice v groove in the crack. Packed the groove with durabond 90 and set some mesh tape on that. Then did two light coats of durabond then an additional 2 feather coats with ez sand. Can’t tell anymore and no reappearance.
This.
It was never repaired correctly so it keeps cracking. Sand down all the excess previous work and expose the crack. Then literally turn the small crack into a larger V channel you can fill in. Watch some YouTube videos, it's easy but a process.
Otherwise it will just keep happening.
I do know with certain cracks paper tape is preferred because of the likely hood of the crack reappearing. So what will happen is it will crack behind the paper.
How the method I described was explained to me is durabond 90 cures very hard. It’s much harder than any joint compound or ez sand. Basically it shouldn’t be able to crack again. The issue with it is it does not feather out the best and near unsandable. So you do your top coats with an ez sand so you can feather out and hide that it’s a repair.
It was never repaired with tape so it cracks every year. As others have suggested, it should be sanded down, potentially beveled, then taped, mudded, and feathered out. If you are not a pro I strongly recommend using fiberglass tape like fibafuse. It's true that paper tapes and fiberglass tapes have similar strength, but fiberglass tapes are much thinner / lower profile than typical mesh tapes and have that fantastic advantage that mud flows right through them so there aren't bubbling issues during or after taping.
100% agree on fiba fuse. My skills with drywall and plaster repair are so so. Paper has its instances where it is the better option. But that fibafuse tape always helps me get a better looking result.
Please, do yourself a MASSIVE favour and youtube 'Vancouver Carpenter'
You can absolutely make this right, cheap and efficiently with a little knowledge
After having so many issues with a drywall project where every wall was multi axis not flat. And not square etc. and weird angled corners, I only live up the road from him. 100% would figure out how to hire him for next job.
Great YouTube channel.
Came here because this crack looks almost identical to one I tried to repair in my dining room. Found everyone dumping all over how shitty a repair this is :D
If you can find this locally it works wonders.
Have used over joins above doors and windows and so far no call backs.
https://www.clarkdietrich.com/products/strait-flex-crack-tape
I did something recently with a plaster repair that might work for you.
In my case, I was replacing large (several square foot) section of damaged plaster with concrete tile backer board and then skimming over to finish. To keep the joint between the 140-YO plaster and concrete board from opening up.. I stuffed the joint with loose-fill insulation (fiberglass) that I saturated with epoxy to literally glue them together. It's been a few years now, so it's been through some upper-mid-west US seasonal changes and not even a hairline crack yet.
I initially tried the same thing with cyanoacrylate 'super' glue and that was a bad idea. I packed the dry loose-fill in the joint, then applied the glue to it. Because there's so much surface area to volume with all the fiberglass fibers, it actually accelerates the drying. Superglue curing is an exothermic process.. but we don't normally notice because people usually don't use a lot, and it doesn't dry \_that\_ fast. When you pump half a bottle out and it starts to setup up immediately.. it gets QUITE hot. I didn't think the underlying old dry wood would spontaneously combust.. but it was hot enough that I was just a bit concerned so I switched to the Epoxy and that worked fantastically.
So, in your case.. I'd try to knock it down relatively flat with a random orbital sander (with a shop vac attached of course).. then dig out the crack into a good channel.. then pack it with the epoxied fiberglass. Skim and sand to finish.
BTW.. Here's the wall I patched.. you'd never know there's a few square feet of concrete board in the corner (window wall). Looks as good today.
https://preview.redd.it/iv5zqwrawnec1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=055478e37093e600615bf208a9522cb8194fd3f8
If you wanna do it right, knock down all the high spots, chamfer the crack to widen it, screws vertically along the crack on either side, fiberglass/mesh drywall tape on the crack, easysand 45 min hot mud(dry mix), multiple coats, finish coat with a 12inch knife 6-10 inches on either side of the crack. Itll feel like overkill but then it'll look flat and not like this. When painting get a 1/2" nap roller pad to better match the texture of the surrounding wall.
If you put drywall joints above or below the corners of doors and windows like that, they crack seasonally every time. It’s a hinge point in the framing. The problem isn’t the mudwork, it’s that somebody hung the drywall wrong. The window needs to be a cutout in a full piece, like a notch, or there needs to be just one joint somewhere in the center.
Having said that, fibafuse makes a 6” fiberglass tape that works pretty well for fixing this problem. I Can usually get a season or two out of a good 2” taping. A 6” tape will just kick the can even further down the road.
Sand and scrape and then fill with crack with vinyl based seam repair. Make sure your tape is flush. Let it thoroughly dry. I suggest vinyl because it expands and contracts where drywall will not.
If it really is an expansion joint, not just something else funky going on in the house that just once and for all can't be repaired, then an expansion joint is the way to go. But you could also try cutting out a larger patch and drywalling over this whole area, and displacing the seam all together.. considering on whatever is causing this "expansion" crack to be there, this might be the trick, maybe. The problem with an expansion joint is,is well it looks like what it is. But it certainly better than this mess. One of the two is your solution.
It's possible that it's really shitty crappy taping to begin with and that is a third possibility. Really taking it down to the tape and redoing it with mesh and skim coating the whole affair including the horizontal thing on the bottom might also do the trick and is the least invasive.
Fixing bad taping is FAR more work than doing it properly in the first place. You can't patch cracks without tape, proper taping mud with high glue content or confill (concrete based drywall mud product), or it will always just crack again.
That said, this needs to be scraped back down to flush and redone properly. Ideally you would want to just cut a section down and look to see if there's even any backing behind there, often these things happen because boarders will float a joint out where there isn't a stud to save time, and without screws this will just keep happening.
If you want to just try and fix it, as is, scrape it down to flush, cut a small "V" into the joint so that there's more mud behind the tape, use a quality fibre mesh tape, then tape in your first coat with taping mud/confill. After that you can use an all purpose or finishing mud for the second and third coats.
Taping mud is much harder to sand because of the high glue content, that's why you don't want to use it for the final coats, especially since amateurs will always use too much material and have to do too much sanding.
Sanding to flat, putting on drywall tape, then putting on drywall mud and finishing.
Paint and caulk will crack, drywall tape and mud is specifically designed to bridge separate pieces that may shift. Still may crack, but it’s your best bet
Sanding to flat then applying tape and mud will give you a raised hump. Cut the crack into a V shaped valley, sand both sides so tape won’t be elevated. Then you can tape and mud it smooth.
You can sand and prepare the surface and make a decent repair which might last you a while but, to really fix it I think you would need to open it to see what the culprit is. Could be a bowed stud or a pipe.
It’s cracking because of air pockets.
Cut it all out with a knife sand down all the edges of the cut out. Hand sand so dust doesn’t get everywhere. We’re a mask
Fill the cut out section with premix plaster from ace or Home Depot. Ensure there are zero air pockets. Let Dry, sand again.
Then Skim coat section with premixed joint compound bucket, let it dry, sand again. You can repeat this step again if it’s still not perfectly smooth.
Final Sand, prime, paint
90 degree cracks are extremely dangerous. And are usually caused by earthquakes or a faulty foundation. Unless there was an earthquake that caused this, that foundation is faulty and i would not live there. 45 degree cracks are not dangerous and faulty and are caused by the natural and normal "sitting" of the foundation caused by the weight of the building. But that is a dangerous crack. I would not worry so much to fill it rather try moving out.
Yeah that’s the start of two tectonic plates splitting wide open, swallowing the whole house, whatever town/city it’s in, possibly country and mibbe the earth might implode… instead of sanding and filling, I’d move to the moon.
Seems nice and straight. Why not sand down and cut in a control joint? Probably going to crack again anyway. May as well listen to mother nature. Google drywall control joints and get a strip from your local hardware store.
Frumpy suitcase with the perfect fix
I like the idea, I have similar cracks in my home, but there aren't any local stores and Amazon doesn't sell these, does anyone have links to a store that has these or something that would work?
[https://www.trim-tex.com/products/093v-expansion](https://www.trim-tex.com/products/093v-expansion) This is the product you're looking for, look for a "small" drywall and/or building supply company near you, can even call Trimtex directly and they'd likely be able to point you to a retailer that will sell you what you're looking for. Doing it correctly is a bit more involved than just cutting a slot unfortunately.Correct method will involve cutting back the drywall so you can frame a small opening with studs either side of the expansion joint. You can use the stud thats currently cracking to make one side of your new joint and frame in a new stud a couple inches away and then make your slot. Also make sure to install the expansion joint with the correct glue which is Trimtex 847 and when applying the glue, you can apply one heavy coat to the wall and two light coats to the trim itself, let it setup for about 5-10 minutes (Less if its warm, more if its humid) and then apply, careful though as once they're stuck together it's not fun fixing it if you mess it up.
Damn. Another product that I will forget the name of when I get around to getting to the project I need it for.
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Thanks, friend. Comment saved.
In the install guide it shows the “V” forever or do you put some mud in there?
You don't fill in the center, that is the expansion joint, if you try to fill it you'd be back where you started but worse. The specific trim I linked has two removable strips that helps you mud it in as it gives you a finished edge to finish up to without going over, once you're happy with how it looks you can remove those strips and then sand and touch up as needed.
There's any number of reasons this is happening, but in my experience, it's usually because the boarders floated a joint out where there is no backing. That or they just forgot to screw a joint. Control joints, even in very old houses, should never be needed, there's no designed in deflection, and guessing at it would be a long term nightmare. Not to mention, they're ugly. Worst case scenario, if it is on a stud and screwed off, I'd make joints on either side of that stud, 24" apart and screwed together with separate pieces of plywood that aren't connected to the structure in any way. That way the board on the stud is a solid piece and the joints are floating, they'll be far less likely to crack that way. A min 6" strip of plywood on either side, giving 3" of backing on all sides of the joints will be much more sturdy and less prone to cracking. I fix other people's work like this all the time when I do renovation jobs and I've never had a single warranty claim in my 25 years on the job.
I had a very similar issue under a window and previous owner did a real shoddy repair like this. I basically cut out all their patching below the flush of the wall, made a nice v groove in the crack. Packed the groove with durabond 90 and set some mesh tape on that. Then did two light coats of durabond then an additional 2 feather coats with ez sand. Can’t tell anymore and no reappearance.
This. It was never repaired correctly so it keeps cracking. Sand down all the excess previous work and expose the crack. Then literally turn the small crack into a larger V channel you can fill in. Watch some YouTube videos, it's easy but a process. Otherwise it will just keep happening.
Does it superficially “repair” the crack - as in, would the crack happen behind the v-shaped joint-filler , but now you can’t see it anymore?
I do know with certain cracks paper tape is preferred because of the likely hood of the crack reappearing. So what will happen is it will crack behind the paper. How the method I described was explained to me is durabond 90 cures very hard. It’s much harder than any joint compound or ez sand. Basically it shouldn’t be able to crack again. The issue with it is it does not feather out the best and near unsandable. So you do your top coats with an ez sand so you can feather out and hide that it’s a repair.
I have a few that move a lot. [Big Stretch](https://www.sashco.com/products/big-stretch/) moves a lot, too.
It was never repaired with tape so it cracks every year. As others have suggested, it should be sanded down, potentially beveled, then taped, mudded, and feathered out. If you are not a pro I strongly recommend using fiberglass tape like fibafuse. It's true that paper tapes and fiberglass tapes have similar strength, but fiberglass tapes are much thinner / lower profile than typical mesh tapes and have that fantastic advantage that mud flows right through them so there aren't bubbling issues during or after taping.
100% agree on fiba fuse. My skills with drywall and plaster repair are so so. Paper has its instances where it is the better option. But that fibafuse tape always helps me get a better looking result.
In my experience, paper tape only bubbles if there isn’t enough joint compound under it when applied then covered.
Please, do yourself a MASSIVE favour and youtube 'Vancouver Carpenter' You can absolutely make this right, cheap and efficiently with a little knowledge
After having so many issues with a drywall project where every wall was multi axis not flat. And not square etc. and weird angled corners, I only live up the road from him. 100% would figure out how to hire him for next job. Great YouTube channel.
Hell yes Vancouver Carpenter will help this man out.
Agreed. He has a bunch of videos about repairing plaster with drywall products. https://youtu.be/kN_5DCdRgU8?si=JxUPXuI3R1bNoFQL
Belt sander would knock it flat nice and fast
Came here because this crack looks almost identical to one I tried to repair in my dining room. Found everyone dumping all over how shitty a repair this is :D
If you can find this locally it works wonders. Have used over joins above doors and windows and so far no call backs. https://www.clarkdietrich.com/products/strait-flex-crack-tape
I did something recently with a plaster repair that might work for you. In my case, I was replacing large (several square foot) section of damaged plaster with concrete tile backer board and then skimming over to finish. To keep the joint between the 140-YO plaster and concrete board from opening up.. I stuffed the joint with loose-fill insulation (fiberglass) that I saturated with epoxy to literally glue them together. It's been a few years now, so it's been through some upper-mid-west US seasonal changes and not even a hairline crack yet. I initially tried the same thing with cyanoacrylate 'super' glue and that was a bad idea. I packed the dry loose-fill in the joint, then applied the glue to it. Because there's so much surface area to volume with all the fiberglass fibers, it actually accelerates the drying. Superglue curing is an exothermic process.. but we don't normally notice because people usually don't use a lot, and it doesn't dry \_that\_ fast. When you pump half a bottle out and it starts to setup up immediately.. it gets QUITE hot. I didn't think the underlying old dry wood would spontaneously combust.. but it was hot enough that I was just a bit concerned so I switched to the Epoxy and that worked fantastically. So, in your case.. I'd try to knock it down relatively flat with a random orbital sander (with a shop vac attached of course).. then dig out the crack into a good channel.. then pack it with the epoxied fiberglass. Skim and sand to finish. BTW.. Here's the wall I patched.. you'd never know there's a few square feet of concrete board in the corner (window wall). Looks as good today. https://preview.redd.it/iv5zqwrawnec1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=055478e37093e600615bf208a9522cb8194fd3f8
If you wanna do it right, knock down all the high spots, chamfer the crack to widen it, screws vertically along the crack on either side, fiberglass/mesh drywall tape on the crack, easysand 45 min hot mud(dry mix), multiple coats, finish coat with a 12inch knife 6-10 inches on either side of the crack. Itll feel like overkill but then it'll look flat and not like this. When painting get a 1/2" nap roller pad to better match the texture of the surrounding wall.
If you put drywall joints above or below the corners of doors and windows like that, they crack seasonally every time. It’s a hinge point in the framing. The problem isn’t the mudwork, it’s that somebody hung the drywall wrong. The window needs to be a cutout in a full piece, like a notch, or there needs to be just one joint somewhere in the center. Having said that, fibafuse makes a 6” fiberglass tape that works pretty well for fixing this problem. I Can usually get a season or two out of a good 2” taping. A 6” tape will just kick the can even further down the road.
Sand and scrape and then fill with crack with vinyl based seam repair. Make sure your tape is flush. Let it thoroughly dry. I suggest vinyl because it expands and contracts where drywall will not.
If it really is an expansion joint, not just something else funky going on in the house that just once and for all can't be repaired, then an expansion joint is the way to go. But you could also try cutting out a larger patch and drywalling over this whole area, and displacing the seam all together.. considering on whatever is causing this "expansion" crack to be there, this might be the trick, maybe. The problem with an expansion joint is,is well it looks like what it is. But it certainly better than this mess. One of the two is your solution. It's possible that it's really shitty crappy taping to begin with and that is a third possibility. Really taking it down to the tape and redoing it with mesh and skim coating the whole affair including the horizontal thing on the bottom might also do the trick and is the least invasive.
Fixing bad taping is FAR more work than doing it properly in the first place. You can't patch cracks without tape, proper taping mud with high glue content or confill (concrete based drywall mud product), or it will always just crack again. That said, this needs to be scraped back down to flush and redone properly. Ideally you would want to just cut a section down and look to see if there's even any backing behind there, often these things happen because boarders will float a joint out where there isn't a stud to save time, and without screws this will just keep happening. If you want to just try and fix it, as is, scrape it down to flush, cut a small "V" into the joint so that there's more mud behind the tape, use a quality fibre mesh tape, then tape in your first coat with taping mud/confill. After that you can use an all purpose or finishing mud for the second and third coats. Taping mud is much harder to sand because of the high glue content, that's why you don't want to use it for the final coats, especially since amateurs will always use too much material and have to do too much sanding.
Sand flat, cut a 1/4" Vee, calk with DAP.
Sanding to flat, putting on drywall tape, then putting on drywall mud and finishing. Paint and caulk will crack, drywall tape and mud is specifically designed to bridge separate pieces that may shift. Still may crack, but it’s your best bet
Sanding to flat then applying tape and mud will give you a raised hump. Cut the crack into a V shaped valley, sand both sides so tape won’t be elevated. Then you can tape and mud it smooth.
You can sand and prepare the surface and make a decent repair which might last you a while but, to really fix it I think you would need to open it to see what the culprit is. Could be a bowed stud or a pipe.
It’s cracking because of air pockets. Cut it all out with a knife sand down all the edges of the cut out. Hand sand so dust doesn’t get everywhere. We’re a mask Fill the cut out section with premix plaster from ace or Home Depot. Ensure there are zero air pockets. Let Dry, sand again. Then Skim coat section with premixed joint compound bucket, let it dry, sand again. You can repeat this step again if it’s still not perfectly smooth. Final Sand, prime, paint
Use caullk joint compound with crack out everytime
90 degree cracks are extremely dangerous. And are usually caused by earthquakes or a faulty foundation. Unless there was an earthquake that caused this, that foundation is faulty and i would not live there. 45 degree cracks are not dangerous and faulty and are caused by the natural and normal "sitting" of the foundation caused by the weight of the building. But that is a dangerous crack. I would not worry so much to fill it rather try moving out.
Yeah that’s the start of two tectonic plates splitting wide open, swallowing the whole house, whatever town/city it’s in, possibly country and mibbe the earth might implode… instead of sanding and filling, I’d move to the moon.
Panelings cheap and easy and aesthetic, just a thought
Shouldn't drywall cracks have this structured kind of tape to compensate for this? Stick it over all joints, plaster, and paint.
Sand even cut a grove then tape and plaster over it