Talked to a retired contractor at the hardware store, now I'm rethinking my whole approach to drywall

I was buying joint compound last Saturday and this older guy in the aisle just started chatting me up. He said he never uses paper tape for inside corners, only mesh, and I've always done the opposite. He told me about a job he did in the 90s where he had to tear out a whole ceiling because the paper tape bubbled up after a rainstorm. That stuck with me because I live in a humid area near the coast, and I've had bubbling issues before. So I tried mesh tape on a small patch job in my hallway this weekend, and I gotta say, it went on way faster and didn't lift at all. Has anyone else switched from paper to mesh and regretted it?

3 comments

3 Comments

clark.alex28d ago

Paper tape's fine until humidity hits and you're scraping it all off.

kevin_west28d ago

How long have you been using mesh for that to hold up? I switched once and had cracks show up in a year. Paper's been solid for me even in humidity. But I get it if you're near salt air like @clark.alex said, that's a different beast. My dad's a GC near the gulf and he swears by mesh for everything now after fighting paper for decades. I still stick with paper for butt joints though, mesh feels too thin there. Guess it depends on what kind of drywall work you're really doing.

harper_foster27d ago

My buddy swears by mesh tape too after a house he flipped near the coast had paper tape fail on him twice. But I've been using paper tape for 15 years in Virginia humidity and never had a bubble that wasn't my own fault for not mudding right. Honestly, that old guy's story about tearing out a ceiling sounds like a one-off nightmare that probably had bad installation or a leaky roof anyway. I've seen mesh crack out in a year on a bathroom ceiling my neighbor did, so I'm not ready to throw away what works for me. Paper tape is cheaper and stronger on butt joints, and I'd rather take an extra minute to bed it in right than worry about hairline cracks later. Maybe it's fine for small patches, but I'm not switching for whole rooms.