Ceiling sheetrock repair cost

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fijoy

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Dear all,

I need to replace the ceiling sheetrock in the dining room of my house in Morrisville. The room is about 12x15ft (180 sq. ft.), and the ceiling has a popcorn pattern and crown molding. I had a contractor come inspect and give me an estimate today. He noticed that one of the joists in the ceiling is very slightly bowed, and he said he can correct for that while replacing the sheetrock so that the ceiling will look perfectly flat when done. He mentioned that this correction does not cost much.

Here is his itemized quote:

Tear down and replace the ceiling sheetrock: $1600 (includes correcting for bowed joist)
Crown molding replacement: $125
Paint ceiling and trim area: $175
Haul off and clean: $250

It seems to me that this contractor's estimate is way too high, especially the first item in his list. The materials needed for sheetrock replacement are not very expensive, and he said he can get it done in a couple of days. Am I thinking correctly here?

If this estimate is too high, what would be a reasonable quote for this work?

Thank you,
Fijoy
 
You didn’t mention the area you live in and costs change quite a bit by regions. He will have to remove everything in the room? He will have to put something down to protect the rest of the room? He will also have to take measures to get the waste out of the house safely. He will have to seal up that room for dust. Buy the material and haul it to your location. Disconnect lights and such in the ceiling.
You are correct the drywall isn’t that expensive or the tape and mud that goes over it but that work takes some time to do perfectly and there are lots of wait times when things are drying.

To me the 1600 seems a little high but then again I’m a DIY guy and would be looking at my time as free to save money. Figure out what you think a fair rate per hour is and try and factor it in. if he is charging $100 per hour 10 hours is $1000.

Why are you having it all taken down. Is it in too bad of shape to repair?

Welcome to the forum
 
Is there insulation above that area or is there a second floor?
Should be getting more then just one price anyway, then you'll know if it's to high.
 
Thanks for the responses. Here is additional info:

As I mentioned, the house is in Morrisville, NC.

This is a new house that I just bought. As part of inspection, I had to have part of the ceiling sheetrock opened to check for leaks or mold (and found no leaks or mold). Now, I'd need to replace the entire ceiling sheetrock.

The house is empty, so the contractor will not have to move anything. He will however have to cover the floor and the walls while doing the work so he does not mess them up. He's charging $250 separately to haul off waste. The charge for painting and replacing crown molding also itemized separately.

There is no insulation in the ceiling. It's the ceiling between first and second floor.

Thanks,
Fijoy
 
If they needed to make a hole for inspection there should be no need to replace the whole ceiling. How big of a hole was made? It is quite common to open a ceiling and do some work and then just replace that spot.
 
I had another contractor come and give an estimate about an hour ago. He recommended that I have him scrape the existing popcorn pattern for the entire ceiling of the room, patch the hole, re-spray the popcorn pattern, and paint. He said he can feather the mud to correct for the slight bow in the joist so that the bow will not be visible in the end. He quoted $770 for labor and $100 in materials.

His quote sounds reasonable to me. However, I'm wondering if patching the hole (as opposed to replacing all of the sheetrock) will be a good thing. I mean, will the patch be visible in the end, given that this is a popcorn ceiling? The contractor said that he's been doing this for 30yrs, and the patch will not be visible when he's done, but I'd like an unbiased opinion.

Thanks,
Fijoy
 
Well my opinion was in my last reply and that is what I would do. A drywall ceiling is just a bunch of 4x8, 4x10, 4x12 patches put together in the first place. If you don’t see those seams you won’t see the new ones.

If I had someone go to all the trouble of scraping that popcorn off I would never have it put back up. My personal opinion is flat and smooth looks the best. Popcorn IMO is a shortcut to cover over all kinds of sins.

Just out of curiosity why would you let them cut a hole in the ceiling to look up in between the floors? Was there signs of water damage or something?
 
I don't have a strong preference between popcorn vs. flat, but we have to do popcorn in this case to match the rest of the house.

Yes, the owners acknowledged that there was a past leak in the ceiling, and we noticed a slight bulge in the drywall during general inspection. The bulge turned out to be from a slight bow in the ceiling, and not due to lingering moisture.
 
I'm by no means an expert, but have done a bit of drywall removal/replacement recently while working on my first house.
Is it a completely separate room (i.e. separated by doorway with clear separation between its ceiling and that of adjacent rooms/hallway)? If so you might consider having a flat texture there even if the rest of the home has popcorn. In our place only the living room and hallway have popcorn, and the bedrooms/bathrooms have flat. In my opinion it's a lot better than popcorn everywhere--less popcorn is better even at the cost of discontinuity.

Unless the rest of the ceiling is damaged, there is absolutely no reason to replace it. How big was the hole that was made? I'm guessing it only spanned one joist bay, so the amount of drywall that probably needs to be replaced is minimal. Replacing this small area will not be visible in the end product. The purpose of mudding is to obscure these seams, so they're invisible even with a completley flat texture. As bud said, no matter how you slice it, drywall is just a series of different pieces put together anyway. The more heavy the texture (popcorn on the super heavy side of things), the more hidden imperfections are.

If you decide to reapply the popcorn, consider making the patch to the drywall yourself. It's a lot more simple than I anticipated, and I think the stuff my wife and I did turned out really well. The seams between drywall patches aren't apparent to the eye at all, and when I run a straight edge over the area, our areas are flatter than those installed originally (most likely because we were working with a relatively small area and therefore gave each sq. ft more attention). Mudding drywall on a small scale is relatively simple, and doesn't take a lot of tools. It does take a few coats, which typically require a day's drying time. This ends up to where contractors have to charge you a lot of money for driving to and from the jobsite and taking up multiple days of their schedule.

Even if the actual process of mudding only takes 10 minutes of their time, you're going to pay for a lot more than 10 minutes of their time.

If you fail miserably, you're out $20 (probably less), and can then call in the contractor. If you're successful, use the leftover mud to try and flatten out the drywall over that bowed joist. This will probably be even easier. Now call in the original contractor back in to texture/paint the ceiling and rehang the crown.

You just saved like $1,200! :) Buy yourself a $200 toy and tell the spouse you're a hero--you saved $1,000!
 
Just one comment from me.Anytime you repair a hole in a ceiling ,never go from just joist to joist(one joist bay as some call it here) it will eventually sag.Always go at least two joists.That way there is some support at the center of the piece in place of the screws just holding it on each end.
 
With a inspection hole like that I save the piece I cut out and replace it. Add a scrap of plywood or some 1x4 longer than the hole screwing them to the good ceiling first so the plug has something behind it to screw to. Tape and mud then sand flush mud again and sand again. Never have had a sag.
 
I would be more concerned on how he is going to fix the sagging floor joist. If he knows what he is doing great, not to pick on anybody, but that may not be a job for a drywaller.
Is he going to re and re the crown molding or supply new or leave it and patch around the edges.
 

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