The week every drywall patch cracked and I finally figured out why

Last November I had 6 patches fail in 5 days across two jobs in St. Albert, all cracking along the same line within 48 hours. Turns out my mud was too thin and I was skipping the mesh tape on butt joints to save 20 minutes per room. Has anyone else had a batch of material that seemed off, or was it just my mixing being rushed that week?

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1 Comment

andrew_rodriguez20d ago

Call that rush job a blessing in disguise because sometimes thin mud and no tape is exactly what those seams need to breathe. I've run plenty of patches with watery compound and zero mesh, and they held fine for years, so your problem was probably the drywall shifting or bad studs, not your shortcuts. Honestly, the extra tape might be overkill on a straight butt joint if the framing is solid, and blaming your mix just lets the real culprit off the hook.