Demo, Insulation, and Uneven Walls

The beginning of this semester started with some minor drywall demo. When Clayton Homes built the house they added a 1/8" thick layer of energy board on the inside wall that the two sections shared. The problem was that they energy board was only installed from the top of the wall to about four feet from the floor, instead of the full distance. This made the drywall slope inward toward the studs an eighth of an inch in the four feet that the energy board was not installed. We had to tear out the existing drywall to remove all of the energy board on the wall that faces the kitchen and some of the wall that faces into the bedroom. The next problem was the light fixture in the bathroom, which was about an inch and a half off center. This also required ripping down the ceiling and adjusting the fixture. The final bit of demo so far was the 2’ wide section of wall that separates the swing space from the other half of the house. This wall was out of plumb by I think three quarters of an inch. We had to take the drywall down to fix the problem.

After all of the demolition the insulation was sprayed on Thursday and Friday and they will be back sometime soon to finish the rest of the ceiling. It was an interesting process to watch. A layer would be sprayed on about as thick as a layer of paint from a roller but within a few seconds it would fill over half of the 12 inch cavity space between the common rafters. Although the install job was incomplete Sam managed to convince the company to send their crew back out there to fill in some of the voids.

Once the insulation was finished and we were able to get back inside without masks we were going to install OSB on the dormer wall. Once the sheet was cut to size and nailed up we realized that the top plate of the wall, that it was resting on, was not square. The wall went from a 1/4" gap between the stud to the inside face of the drywall on one side to a 1/8" gap on the other. Since this problem would not allow for the drywall to sit flush will the piece below we had to remove the OSB and add furring strips. The strips were cut to 1/8", 3/16", and 1/4" thicknesses from several 2x4's. Once cut they were attached to the studs to correct the uneven dimensions between the studs and drywall.

With all of this preparation almost complete we hope to be installing the new drywall sometime at the beginning of this week.