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What does a general contractor need to take care of -- pay aside -- to make you happy and make the job go as smoothly as possible? OR what is your biggest pet peeve in doing a drywall job?
Drywallers' Pet Peeve?
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To follow a cross eyed framer.
Bob
Bob
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Go ahead......say it.......don't you mean the real responses?
Bob
Bob
I'm with Bob, nothing worse than hanging board behind a cross-eyed framer, I mean you'd think they could at least read a tape & a level. 
And would it be too much trouble to turn up the pressure on your nailer a bit so the nail heads are actually drove flush. Neglecting to install nailers where needed in corners, closet lids are particularly notorious for this. There's always at least one or two that are left out.
Next would be this lie in mid-Jan, (temp hovering around -15) yeah house is ready to hang and the heat's been on for 2 or 3 days. You arrive to find the front door standing open, oh yeah it snowed last night & there's a drift in the doorway. Go inside and see they stocked it before the insulators were finished so all the board is laying flat on the floor, big sheets for the lids naturally on the bottom of the pile. Oh yeah there's your mud, neatly stacked and frozen solid in place.
Let's see what else, You arrive to find the insulation inspection hasn't been done, so you call GC. He says don't worry he's on the way there now. Inspector shows up, looks around, scribbles out a punch list that reads like a Clancy novel.
Electricians that swear your hangers covered up an outlet box. Got a solution for that one though, I take digital pics of every wall & ceiling before the hanging starts. I just love the dumb looks and shuffling thru plans that start when I show them a pic of the framed wall & there's no box where they're sayin one should be. I'm always nice about it and offer to do the cut-out for them, yeah sure I am. :rolleyes While we're on the subject of electricians, make sure the boxes are mounted properly and securely, same goes for the HVAC & the vents & returns.
GC, it won't be any problem to sheetrock in behind the furnace and hot water heater in the utility room will it? You'd think they'd have thought to hang it before they set the furnace!
GC- Make sure your guys don't damage the kitchen cabinets when they're hangin & finishing the garage. They arrived early so we just stacked them in the garage, most of the time in front of your rock standing against the wall. We live for moving & storage, nothing makes our day like having to stop work & move cabinets, extra siding, interior doors out of the way, especially since it's bid at piece rate.
No hot outlets in the place, you'll have to run 150' of cord thru the mud out to the temp service at the curb.
Those are a few of the reasons I don't bid new construction drywall anymore. Give me a picky home owner any day over a disorganized GC, miss out on all that fun and get paid better. :Thumbs:
And would it be too much trouble to turn up the pressure on your nailer a bit so the nail heads are actually drove flush. Neglecting to install nailers where needed in corners, closet lids are particularly notorious for this. There's always at least one or two that are left out. Next would be this lie in mid-Jan, (temp hovering around -15) yeah house is ready to hang and the heat's been on for 2 or 3 days. You arrive to find the front door standing open, oh yeah it snowed last night & there's a drift in the doorway. Go inside and see they stocked it before the insulators were finished so all the board is laying flat on the floor, big sheets for the lids naturally on the bottom of the pile. Oh yeah there's your mud, neatly stacked and frozen solid in place.
Let's see what else, You arrive to find the insulation inspection hasn't been done, so you call GC. He says don't worry he's on the way there now. Inspector shows up, looks around, scribbles out a punch list that reads like a Clancy novel.
Electricians that swear your hangers covered up an outlet box. Got a solution for that one though, I take digital pics of every wall & ceiling before the hanging starts. I just love the dumb looks and shuffling thru plans that start when I show them a pic of the framed wall & there's no box where they're sayin one should be. I'm always nice about it and offer to do the cut-out for them, yeah sure I am. :rolleyes While we're on the subject of electricians, make sure the boxes are mounted properly and securely, same goes for the HVAC & the vents & returns.
GC, it won't be any problem to sheetrock in behind the furnace and hot water heater in the utility room will it? You'd think they'd have thought to hang it before they set the furnace!
GC- Make sure your guys don't damage the kitchen cabinets when they're hangin & finishing the garage. They arrived early so we just stacked them in the garage, most of the time in front of your rock standing against the wall. We live for moving & storage, nothing makes our day like having to stop work & move cabinets, extra siding, interior doors out of the way, especially since it's bid at piece rate.
No hot outlets in the place, you'll have to run 150' of cord thru the mud out to the temp service at the curb.
Those are a few of the reasons I don't bid new construction drywall anymore. Give me a picky home owner any day over a disorganized GC, miss out on all that fun and get paid better. :Thumbs:
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99 Posts
My biggest pet peeve on doing a drywall job, is not following crossed eyed framers, or even flat out stupid ones, but the fact that every trade in that place seems to thing that, that stack of drywall was set there specifically for tehm to load their sh*t on, even though they see me and the fellas hanging it. I don't even ask anymore, I just slide my arm across teh rock and send everything crumbling and tumbling down. No I never did get that whole playing well with others thing.
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60 Posts
Gotta be the framing. Goofy little oddball corners and angles that are the result of a screw up. Eight foot deep skylights swarming with mad bees. Tray ceilings where none of the points come together. Roller coaster peaks and off angles.....forget straightflex...lets try straight framing. And it always falls on the shoulders of the guy that touched it last. Poorly set tubs and showers...i bet you tile guys love those. Showing up that first morning to find all the things that arent quite ready for you yet and everyones junk is in your way. The boards all in one monster pile because yesterday it had to be deliverd but the exteriors where being blown in and last minute plumbing and framing was being done. Stairtreads too wide to slide the board past. No water...no power...i can't hear my radio over the generator. When you gonna be done...are you almost done...i'm trying to schedule the flooring 2 months ahead...when you gonna be done, are you done yet?? Haha..but you know, i still love it!!
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Well for us Tile Guys our biggest pet peve from the drywallers is a few. One they leave a mess in the tubs joint compond all over the place. Dude they made the mess cant they clean it. The other is when they do corner beads they use metal in a shower. ( last time I checked metal and water dont mix) Or they float a jamb that out that is supposed to be plumb. Looks more like a dirt road that needs the tile to stick out a 1/4 to 1/2 inch to fix it.
shower stalls are a pain to hang. most of the shower stalls in my area stick out 1/4" to 1/2" from the framing. in order to get a straight wall you have to hold the rock back from the flange and fill the space with mud. i only know of one builder that shims the wall out to match.
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My biggest gripes are windows. Do any sheetrock guys own squares? Window openings always taper from the inside wall and get smaller as they approach the window. Whazzzup?
I also agree on the mess and lack of cleanup. I'm always scraping their droppings off of the floor.
I also agree on the mess and lack of cleanup. I'm always scraping their droppings off of the floor.
Does the typical contract lingo "work area left in a broom clean condition" necessarily involve scraping? Not arguing... just wondering if perhaps the lingo should be changed so that the plop offenders are required to scrape their own plops. I saw a floor tile job on Wednesday where the tile man had grout slopped on partway up the walls and some spots on the ceiling. He must have been using a neuclear powered grout float.Teetorbilt said:
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I notice the hangers we have now are some of the most professional, productive, clean hangers I've worked with in years.
They're in the union though. Cost us about 55-60 bucks an hour.
Still, they're twice as good as the last bunch...........
They're in the union though. Cost us about 55-60 bucks an hour.
Still, they're twice as good as the last bunch...........
We include the scrape and sweep in our drywall bids, but that's someting that makes my price just a tad higher than my competitors, but I have seen some real sloppy jobs my self. We always lay out some large scrap to set up the mud mixing station, Then throw an old drop cloth over it. If we're shooting texture, I have some old blue tarps I spread out over the bulk of the floors when I'm shooting. Anybody that says they can finish board w/o getting any on the floor is feeding you a self promoting line. Some guys, the more experienced, will tend to be neater, but you're gonna get some blobs on the floor. I usually bid jobs all the way thru the finish, so to me it makes sense to cover instead of scrape.
When I'm finishing over wood subfloors especially OSB, I like roll out some 15# felt and staple it down with a hammer tacker, plywood or slabs & the scraper will knock all the lumps right off. The osb is just too pourous and makes scraping a real PIA, if I'm specifing materials for a subfloor it's gonna be plywood for sure. :Thumbs:
This thing has turned a full circle now. :cheesygri
When I'm finishing over wood subfloors especially OSB, I like roll out some 15# felt and staple it down with a hammer tacker, plywood or slabs & the scraper will knock all the lumps right off. The osb is just too pourous and makes scraping a real PIA, if I'm specifing materials for a subfloor it's gonna be plywood for sure. :Thumbs:
This thing has turned a full circle now. :cheesygri
if i must point out some of my peves aginst the drywallers in my field is are half of them blind or dont take the time to look. got to the point of having to spraypaint the floors and keep notes galore so when the electrical boxes are covered up i got a general idea of where they are . even taking pictures of the site before was pretty expensive but now with digital is not a problem
secondly learn to use the roto tool those thing eat wires for lunch
then if you are luck enough to have them cut out all the boxes ,in comes the finishers ,i understand you have to mud over the boxes but guess who gets to clean them out. usually after the flooring is in on the trim out makes a big mess and the gc has a cow.
just seems to me i know its based on a peicework and speed thing just like the rest of us but cant you guys think for a minute and clean up your own loose end so the rest of us can get back in and finish our job
secondly learn to use the roto tool those thing eat wires for lunch
then if you are luck enough to have them cut out all the boxes ,in comes the finishers ,i understand you have to mud over the boxes but guess who gets to clean them out. usually after the flooring is in on the trim out makes a big mess and the gc has a cow.
just seems to me i know its based on a peicework and speed thing just like the rest of us but cant you guys think for a minute and clean up your own loose end so the rest of us can get back in and finish our job
I'm just curious and forgive me if I'm making a grave error here, but do none of the new home construction sites that many of you work on have general labourers to go around and clean up in between trades? Or have GC's just cut out the practice to be cheap?
The reason I ask is that I worked a couple of summers during high school as a general labourer for a GC directly. One of our primary jobs was to go around to each house (30-40 house projects at a time) after each and every trade and clean it before the next trade started. We would clean up all waste inside and out after the framers, clean up all waste shingles, clean up after the plumbers/electricians, clean up all drywaller's drops & pick up their waste material, sand all the seams on sub-floors - the list goes on and on. We would clean every house at least 9-10 times before the carpet was laid.
Just curious...
The reason I ask is that I worked a couple of summers during high school as a general labourer for a GC directly. One of our primary jobs was to go around to each house (30-40 house projects at a time) after each and every trade and clean it before the next trade started. We would clean up all waste inside and out after the framers, clean up all waste shingles, clean up after the plumbers/electricians, clean up all drywaller's drops & pick up their waste material, sand all the seams on sub-floors - the list goes on and on. We would clean every house at least 9-10 times before the carpet was laid.
Just curious...
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DecksEtc said:
That day is LONG gone.
You have to mop up after youself now.
i think it is a great idea to mark boxes with paint. as with any trade there are some bums out there.
roto tools and wires? if the wires are well inside the box no problem.
mud in boxes? cover your boxes 4' off the floor with tape and get back early imo
roto tools and wires? if the wires are well inside the box no problem.
mud in boxes? cover your boxes 4' off the floor with tape and get back early imo
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