Drywall Nightmare! Help!

My wife and I recently purchased a home. Little did we notice before purchasing and moving in that the basement drywall, which was apparently finished by Mr. Harry the Homeowner himself, has serious issues. There are a lot of butt joints on the walls, none of which were taped when hung. The butt joints were mudded up pretty thick, then given a coat of what looks to be white flat or satin paint, without even sanding the mud. Needless to say, the joints look horrible. I won't even get into the ceiling in this post (I found duct tape used as drywall tape...)

Any suggestions on how to fix this issue? I've thought about trying to sand the excessive compound off of the butt joint, put on some fiber tape, setting compound, then feather it out as far as possible with 2nd and 3rd coats of joint compound. One problem I have with this is getting it back down to bare drywall at the joint. I tried sanding with an orbital palm sander with 60 grit, and it just wasn't cutting it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

Welcome to the forums!

As you have found, it is rather hard to sand drywall after it is painted. You are better off just feathering out the existing stuff. If you actually do not have tape on the joints, use paper tape.

How odd. Paper tape is about 1/10 the cost of duct tape.

 

Ahhhh, that stinks. If the corner is straight I would just paper over it. On outside corners I wood add the corner-bead. If there is just to much crap on it I would try to cut a number of slits into it with a sheetrock knife and then attack it with a hammer and paint scraper or chisel. Just recently, I used that paper and metal corner-bead which you can use on inside or outside corners and was happy with it.

 

I got home from work and went to town on one of the joints on the wall. It turns out it was taped, with the red fiber tape seen in picture 1. I removed that tape down to the horizontal joint on the wall, and that's were the gray duct tape picked up, as seen in pictures 2 and 3. You can see in the 4th picture that the j/c over the tape is roughly 1/8" or 3/16" thick.

I should note that the inside corner at the wall/ceiling is OK, as well as the other wall inside corners and outside corners with the corner bead.

I at least have hope that I can re-tape these joints now, and attempt to make it look halfway decent. Neither the red fiber tape nor he "duct tape" seemed loose. They were just causing the j/c to crack on either side of the tape, or both (see pic).

1.) Does it make sense to tear the tape out wherever there's a crack, like I've done here?
2.) If so, once torn out, put new fiber tape down the joint, then j/c in 1/8" hole, let set, then feather 2nd and 3rd layers out as far as possible?
3.) Is there a better alternative?
4.) I also have joints that aren't cracked, but are loaded with j/c very heavy, with the paint on top, of course. Should I try to remove some of the j/c, then skim coat and feather it out, or just feather out on top of what's already there?

Once again, I thank any willing suggestions in advance, and appreciate those already spoken!

 

That just makes me want to cry!

I would remove as much of the wrong tape as you can as it looks like it is not very well stuck and reinstall some paper tape in the "valleys" with mud first, tap and then smooth out.

With a trench in the wall like that it just might be easier to use fiber tape. (Paper is stronger and resists cracking better) If you do, use a setting compound over that, then finish with some light weight/topping compound.

As mentioned before, once JC is painted it is tough to go back. You will likely be better off just feathering it out.

 

Is the drywalling job good enough to warrant this kind of work? I'm wondering if tearing it down and starting over should be considered.

 

I think I will attempt to, on the wall joints that are cracked, remove the duct tape and mud that's on top of it, push j/c into the joint (joints are definitely more than 1/8" wide), then tape the joint with paper tape. After that dries out good, I'll keep adding thin j/c until getting back to what was there before (try to prevent shrinkage cracks), then I'll try to feather it out w/ a 12" knife on each side. For the ceiling, I think I'll just fix the joints and get them halfway decent, then consider stippling (spelling?) the ceiling in the future to help hide the flaws (unless I can drum up the funding for a T&G ceiling .

I don't think there's enough bad joints to warrant tearing it out and starting over. It's a pretty big basement, and most of the basement looks like he used full sheets with tapered joints and didn't do too hateful. Maybe some light feathering to touch them up. But in the bathroom (where the pics where taken) and the hallway, I'm guessing they just used some left overs, because there's a whole lot of butt joints with way to much mud just slapped on it.

If my idea above works, the only other concern I have are the joints that have a buildup of j/c, but aren't cracked. I'd like to sand them flush as possible then feather out a new skim coat of j/c, but still am not sure on how to tackle the sanding of the paint....

Thanks again for the input! Much appreciated!