Drywall and Priming

The drywallers put in some long hours, some evenings not wrapping up until after 7 pm. There was a week where not much progress was made after everything was hung while we waited for the GC to get a trailer to haul away debris, and then for the trailer to get emptied and brought back. However, as of Thursday afternoon, everything was mudded, taped, and sanded.

The GC had advised me that we wanted to prime right away after they finished because often you don’t notice drywall imperfections until after you prime. That was certainly the case in the basement where I did a lot of my own mudding and sanding, thought it looked pretty good, and then was disappointed after we primed. As a result, he didn’t want to pay them until we had primed and inspected, which made sense. However, he also let me know that they start asking for money the moment the job is done. In this case, that started last Wednesday when he asked if the priming was done and I responded that the drywallers were still there and working. He said they were already asking for their money.

With the pressure on to get the priming done, I picked up the paint sprayer I had lent to Dean Wednesday evening. I’d already picked up two five gallons buckets of PVA primer (recommended for fresh drywall) and a hand masker, a really cool tool that lets you put up masking tape and plastic over windows at the same like a tape gun. Thursday and Friday evenings after work I masked off outlets, can lights, vents, and windows in preparation.

Saturday morning Dean arrived and we set to work using the sprayer. I’ve previously used the sprayer to paint the second floor as well as the ceiling of the basement, but it’s been over five years, so it took us a while to work out the best technique. We started in the attic, since I expected this and figured I’d rather have the mistakes happen up there. I did manage to screw up a couple of spots where it went on too thick, but we got the hang of it and made decent progress. We quickly realized that the ten gallons wasn’t going to be enough and Dean picked up three more five gallon buckets.

Unfortunately, we ran into problems as we got to back of the second floor. The gun started getting jammed, so I’d clean the nozzle and get back to it only to have it jam again on shorter and shorter intervals. We decided maybe we needed to clean the whole sprayer and pick it back up in the morning, so we got it all washed out. Sunday morning before Dean got here I set the sprayer back up and tested it, and it jammed immediately. We considered buying just a new gun for the sprayer, since the nozzles and filters aren’t available locally, but the price difference was such that Dean left to go pick up a whole new sprayer. I figured if we did get it working, we’d have two and be able to get everything done more quickly.

I did some more searching and found the solution was actually incredibly simple: you turn the nozzle around (from “fan” to “cone”) and blow the other way, which clears the obstruction. Then you flip it back and get back to it. It takes ten seconds! I called Dean back and we got back to work, quickly wrapping up the second floor while I finished masking the first floor and moving things out of the way.

With practice on our technique and better knowledge of the tool, we got the entire first floor done in record time, at least until we ran out of paint! I found a gallon can of primer in the basement that we’d been sitting on for five years and we were able to wrap up the back of the first floor. The new primer was much thicker and didn’t spray as easily, and even so there are some thin spots since we used that up. All told, we sprayed 26 gallons of primer to do the whole house!

I will say without a doubt that while the sprayer has a learning curve, it is so much faster than rolling and has such a good result (when you do it right). We’ll use the sprayer to paint the ceilings as well, and then use the roller attachment for the walls. After priming, we did find a few spots where the drywallers could have done a better job and they are supposed to come out and touch up. Actually, they were supposed to come this morning, so who knows? A big thank you to Dean for all his help this weekend!