Drywall patch repair
Drywall patch repair is the work of making damage disappear rather than making it smaller. A patch that shows is a patch that failed, and most of them show because of the finish rather than the filling. This page covers holes, cracks, pops and stains in walls and ceilings that already exist, priced as a visit, inside our drywall repair service.
Service family Drywall repair
Scheduling Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Service area Six counties across Southeast Michigan
Phone (734) 540-0347
What this page covers and what the other one does
Small damage in existing walls and ceilings is here. Hanging and finishing new board, whole room work, a ceiling being replaced and drywall that comes as part of a renovation all belong on our drywall installation and finishing page. If you are not sure which one you need, the rule is simple: if a wall is coming down or going up, it is the other page.
The five kinds of hole
A nail hole gets filled. A dent up to about an inch gets filled and finished. A hole up to the width of your hand needs backing behind it before anything goes on top. A hole wider than that needs a piece of board cut in and screwed to framing. Anything bigger than a shoebox stops being a patch and becomes a section of wall.
Doorknob holes and the backing behind them
The classic doorknob hole is just past the size where filling alone works. Filler with nothing behind it cracks out the first time the door slams, because there is nothing to carry the load. We either fit a backer inside the cavity or cut the opening square and let in a piece of board. Either way the repair is mechanical rather than cosmetic.
What gets checked before we patch
- Whether the damage is dry, and what made it wet if not
- Wall construction, drywall over studs or plaster and lath
- Existing texture, and whether it can be matched
- Paint sheen, since flat hides and satin reveals
- Whether the crack is seasonal movement or structural
Nail pops and screw pops
A row of small round blisters in a wall or ceiling is a fastener working loose as the framing behind it dries and moves. Filling them alone brings them back within a year. The repair is to set a new screw an inch or two away, into solid framing, then remove or re seat the old fastener and finish both. That stops it permanently.
Cracks at the corner of a door or window
A diagonal crack running up from a door or window corner is the most common crack in any house, and it is usually the building moving rather than anything alarming. The corner is a weak point where the board is notched around an opening. We cut the crack out, tape it properly rather than filling it, and finish wide. Filler alone always reopens.
Tape joints that have lifted
A long straight bubble or a line of loose paper across a wall is a tape joint that never bonded. Cutting the failed tape out, re bedding new tape in compound and feathering the joint is the only repair that holds. It is more work than it looks because the new joint has to be wider than the old one to disappear.
Plaster walls, and the patch that is not drywall
Older houses across Ann Arbor and the surrounding towns have plaster over wood lath, and it behaves nothing like drywall. Plaster cracks in long curves, keys away from the lath in whole sections and cannot be screwed back. Those repairs use a bonding plaster and a setting compound, built in layers, and they are a different skill from taping board.
Water stains, and finding the source first
A brown ring on a ceiling is a report rather than a defect. We will not patch it until the leak above it has been found and stopped, because a patch over active water fails within weeks and hides the evidence. Where the source is a roof or a supply line, that gets dealt with first, often through our water damage prevention work.
Texture, and the reason a flat patch shows
Most ceilings and many walls in houses built here since the seventies carry a sprayed or trowelled texture. A perfectly smooth patch in the middle of texture is more visible than the damage was. Matching it is its own skill and it is the reason we keep a separate page for drywall texture matching rather than treating it as part of the filling.
Three coats, sanding and dust control
- Compound built in three thin coats rather than one thick one
- Each coat wider than the last, feathered to nothing
- Sanding with a vacuum sander rather than a pole and a dust sheet
- Doorways sealed and floors covered before anything is sanded
- A light held flat to the wall to check the finish before primer
Priming a patch before paint
Bare compound drinks paint at a different rate from the wall around it, so a patch painted straight out shows as a dull halo even in the right colour. Every patch gets primed first. Where the original paint has faded, the honest answer is painting the whole wall corner to corner rather than spot painting, and our interior painting crew handles that.
Why a patch shows in side light
Look at a wall along its length with the light raking across it and every imperfection appears. That is how patches get judged and it is why the width of the feather matters more than the filling. A good patch on a flat wall is invisible head on and nearly invisible in raking light. A patch that is proud of the wall by a sixteenth of an inch is visible from the doorway.
Ceilings, and why they are harder than walls
Gravity works against you, the compound wants to fall off, and a ceiling gets side light from every window in the room. Ceilings also usually carry texture. They take longer per square foot than walls and they are worth paying for properly, which is why the larger ceiling jobs sit on our ceiling repair page.
Paint and lead in houses built before the late seventies
Federal rules require work that disturbs paint in a home built before nineteen seventy eight to be carried out by a certified firm following specific work practices. Sanding drywall compound over old paint is exactly that kind of work. Where a house is that age, the job gets scoped with those rules in mind and the arrangement is confirmed in writing before any sanding begins.
Patches that come with other small work
Patching rarely arrives alone. Holes left by light fixture replacement, openings cut for recessed lighting installation, damage behind removed trim and gaps around window casing all get filled in the same visit.
How long a patch visit takes
Because compound needs to dry between coats, almost every patch job is two visits: one to fill and one to finish and prime. A dozen small holes across a house is a morning then a short second call. Landlords running rental turnover repairs and sellers running pre listing home repairs schedule both up front.
Book drywall patch repair with our crew
Walk your hallway with a lamp held against the wall and you will find more than you expect. We patch, prime and leave the wall ready for paint, and an annual home check catches the rest before it multiplies. View our Portfolio, then contact us now for a free quote.
