By Pat Carrasco Photos and Illustrations by Pat Carrasco

Floating Butts

A sheet of drywall has two sets of paral- don’t have that recess, the mud, then rounding backing, a crown is going to lel edges. The long edges, bound with tape, then more mud, creates a small happen, and it’s often detectable under paper, are called recessed edges; the two hump that mars our perfectly flat finish. certain lighting conditions. shorter edges of the sheet are not bound with paper and are commonly called The drywall industry has various accept- This butt issue was addressed by Don- “butts.” When drywall panels are hung ed techniques to make these butt-joints ald E. Smith, CCS — Mr. Wachuwan- and meet at their recessed edges, the fin- less of a problem. Finishers feather their nano — in the February 2004 issue of isher can tape this joint with ease: The mud out from the edges of the butt- AWCI’s Construction Dimensions. His tape and mud nestle in the recess and a joint and make the hump less notice- recommendations are industry stan- perfectly flat finish is possible. This is the able. Rockers try to keep the butt-joints dards and bring about the flattest butt- ideal scene that tapers and painters hope to a minimum and make them occur in joints possible while obeying the rules. for. However, when drywall panels are areas that are less visible. Nevertheless, hung and meet at their butt edges, the as long as the butt-joint occurs on back- Here’s another solution to the crowning situation gets tricky: Since the butt edges ing that is on the same surface as the sur- problem: Floating and indenting the of the drywall. When the next sheet is hung and the joint fastened, the whole joint will be sucked inward.

This trick was particularly handy when hanging the outside of a curved -the convex side. It’s very hard to provide a finisher with a nice joint on a curved wall when you break your joints on the studs provided. We used -sticks, and it came out very nice. The radius we did this on was about 15 inches—if you try this, be careful, because as the radius tightens, the float-sticks have to get shorter.

Now here’s a possi- ble problem with floating butts: The finished joint isn’t as resistant to forces applied per- pendicularly to the face of the sheet as butt-joints. This is a very effective, and a normal joint would be. But in areas slightly questionable practice. It’s not an like ceilings and the higher rows of dry- “accepted” technique in the industry, wall on , this isn’t an issue. The dry- and anyone trying it should check with wall contractor who showed me this his local inspectors first. method of recessing joints has never had a callback with the technique. There are a couple of companies out there that manufacture floating backers My GA-216-96, Application and Fin- for this application. However, it’s cheap- ishing of Gypsum Panels, says in para- er and pretty easy to make your own graph 5.2, “All ends and edges of gyp- float-sticks: Use 1x2 stock and cut it into sum board, except treated joints 12-inch lengths. Then a little oriented at right angles to mem- (2 inches by 2 inches-ish) of bers, shall be located over framing mem- asphalt shingle to one end. bers or other solid backing.” The use of float-sticks runs counter to the “solid After hanging a sheet—making sure the backing” requested here. butt edge ends between two studs—take a number of float-sticks and screw them On the other hand, floating butt-joints to the back of the sheet, perpendicular isn’t a very different concept than the to the joint and about 6 inches in from accepted practice of floating interior the edge. The asphalt pads should all be angles. Paragraph 4.9 of that same pub- oriented the same way and face the back lication says: “The floating angle meth- od of application shall be used to mini- adjacent to wall and ceiling intersections mize the effects of truss uplift and the . . . .” I So floating interior angles is accept- possibility of fastener popping in areas able-why not butt-joints?

Check with your local authorities before floating your butt-joints— and I’d be delight- ed to hear your thoughts on this!

About the Author Pat Carrasco is a drywall hanger, trainer and writer who lives in Mon- tana.