So I'm finally nearing the drywall stage of my total bath refurb.

Framing is now a mix of new and old. My new work has been painstakingly put in as close to plumb and square as an old house will allow. It's all quite good. However, there are still small discrepancies here and there. So my question:

How much forgiveness, if any, is there in the drywall stage for studs that aren't perfectly in the same geometric plane? If there's say a 1/16-1/8" difference will the wall look wavy?

How do the pros take care of these small differences? The books say to plane this one and shim that one, but when I see new houses being thrown up lickety split around here I never see any evidence of shimming and such to make sure the natural variations in studs are evened out.

I definitely want it to be great quality, but just want to know how close to fine furniture tolerances my studs should be before putting up the drywall.

What are some tips or tricks to help even stuff out? Would adhesive work to minimize small differences?

 

Bottom line - the face of the wall should be flat. No bowed or out of line studs or ones with raised knots -- they are firewood stock. If all studs are flush with the front of the upper and lower plate everything should be flat. Otherwise don't exactly know what you are asking.

 

I don't think you'll notice 1/16". If you put all the studs so the crown (if any) is in the same direction, you should be fine.

Many new houses use textured wall finishes of one sort or another. That conceals many problems.

 

Framers typically use the delicate technique of "wacking it with a hammer" to align studs. And if that doesn't work they get a bigger hammer. Unless you are in a tiled area I wouldn't worry too much about 1/16-1/8" anomalies.

 

One of the reasons it is usually preferable to hang the drywall horizontally is it helps to minimize any discepancies in the framing. You also want to stagger your joints if the wall is longer than the drywall.

 

I gave up on trying to perfect wood studs. In our climate, within a couple of days being stored they already start to change shape. Once you get everything all assembled, you'll still be getting bows, cracks, and nail pops for a couple of years....

This is one of the main reasons I prefer steel studs now.

 

Ok - but that doesn't really address my question of what kind of tolerances can be lived with if I do have wood studs - which I do.

 

well.. dhamblet said.."Unless you are in a tiled area I wouldn't worry too much about 1/16-1/8" anomalies". Neither would I, even in a tiled area for walls. That can be compensated for.

You have what you have. Unless you have a huge difference between one stud to the next, don't sweat it. Putting up the drywall will sorta even things out.

Old contractor buddy of mine said.."It's wood framing, not a car engine"...things will shift and move over time.

 

What I'm saying is that even if you nit pick it, over time they're gonna shift anyways. As for the exact number of what variance you can have, I don't think its written in stone anywhere. The last wood studded wall I framed had an 1/8" of gap in certain spots and once it was drywalled you cannot tell.

I did a wall recently where a stair case resides. I could not adjust the studs very much where there were some 1/2" variances and you could definitely see some slight waves when staring at it on an angle if you focused hard enough. But ultimately when its all said and done, can you tell? As for houses being thrown up so fast, they could care less of a slight variance. As
dhamblet mentioned, throw the junky ones away and carry on. If if you feel the need, shim and plane where required.

 

This is very helpful. Thanks. Just the type of feedback I was looking for. So it sounds like when I'm running my 4' level down the stud faces, if I'm seeing very small gaps in places, I can proceed with drywall and not look back.

Wonderful - this should save me some time in some areas.

 

cakins....from the things I've seen and read...the main thing you wouldn't want is all the crowns of yer studs being back and forth from one to the next. Keep them as straight as you can of course, but if the entire wall bows in slightly on one side and out on the other, it won't be noticable.

I saw a show one time where the guys job was just to come in and correct problems with studs. Planing, shimming, and replacing as required. Must have been a high end home I guess.