Watched a basement drywall job from 2012 start cracking last month...

I drove by a house in St. Paul I did the basement on back in 2012. The owner never finished painting or priming the drywall, just left it bare. Now there's these long cracks running along the seams and a few nail pops. My own jobs from that era with proper primer and paint still look fine. Makes me wonder how much of our work actually holds up when people skip the finishing steps. Has anyone else seen old jobs come back to haunt you?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_sam18d ago

So if the owner never primed or painted, do you think the tape itself is still holding strong underneath all that cracking? I remember @shanelee pointed out that primer basically locks the mud in, and without it the whole system seems to fall apart like yours did. It makes me wonder if the bare drywall is absorbing moisture weird or if it's just the lack of vapor barrier that's causing the separation.

dianaanderson19d ago

Honestly, that line about "long cracks running along the seams" really stuck with me. My buddy did a similar job in Minneapolis back in 2011 and the owner never painted either, now the whole ceiling is spiderwebbed with cracks. It's wild how skipping primer basically undoes all the work you put into taping and mudding.

shanelee18d ago

Man, that's rough. Did your buddy's customer ever come back to blame him for the cracking even though it was clearly their call to skip the primer? I always tell people primer's not just for looks, it seals the mud so it dries right. Otherwise you get what sounds like a mess that'll never stop needing patching.