Drywall installation and taping in Toronto in winter time.

Drywall installation has no differences in winter and summer time. The delivery of materials doesn’t make a big difference either. However most drywall contractors I talk to in Toronto know that taping, mudding and sanding take way longer in the winter than usually in the summer. The best and the fastest way for the mud to dry is low humidity and high temperature. In the winter every time when doors are open the heat is running away and the mud gets colder, it takes much longer to dry. On the other hand, if windows and doors are closed the humidity rises, the mud gets more moist and it takes longer to dry again. in order to achieve the best results and the shorter time for drying the drywall contractor should be knowledgeable enough and have enough experience to balance temperature and humidity. The house needs to be heated well ventilated by the means of fans and open windows. There should be nice timing for the windows to be opened so that humidity could reduce and closed after some time before it gets too cold which will lower the temperature of the sheetrock or compound and make drying time longer.

drywall taping

When professional drywall contractor gives you a quote they can never promise or guarantee the exact amount of  time required of finishing the project, as it’s not possible because one never knows how long it will dry. From my experience I can predict with 95% accuracy how long it will take, but will never take a chance to guarantee, even though I can tell exactly how many days or even hours it will take to install drywall.

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Remember, when choosing the professional contractor pay attention to their promises. If they guarantee the exact time for the project which is shorter, than that of all the other contractors, there is a big chance that the contractor is a novice in the business. The best way to find drywall and taping contractors in Toronto is either trough your friends or on www.homestars.com this site is very reliable with all the materials and reviews they provide. Of course no one is perfect so make your decision based on your research.

Drywall Restoration after the flood in Toronto

After the recent flooding caused by a heavy rain, lots of houses and commercial building got their basements submerged under water. The rain water brought damage to interior of the houses including walls, that in most cases are made of drywall.

After the rain flood we at DrywallTaping.ca are now flooded with calls for help to repair the damaged walls. We get a lot of questions on what to do, how to prepare the damaged basement for the restoration, what steps to take before and after the drywall installations?
Drywall Restoration Toronto
These are the essential steps that you can expect to walk through:
1. Remove the water from the basement.
2. Cut the damaged drywall
3. Dry the basement
4. Sanitize the basement
6. Tape the walls
7. Paint the walls
When choosing the Drywall installation and Taping company, make sure they specialize or have extensive experience in restoration, as it requires special skills and different techniques.
We at DrywallTaping.ca specialize in wall restoration, have vast experience in dealing with flooded basements and working hard to help people restore their houses.

Soundproofing: Bringing tranquility into your life

soundproofing drywall toronto

Noise is one thing that is synonymous with urban living; more so, if you live in a city apartment block or areas that have a high level of noise from surrounding factors. High levels of noise can be quite disruptive and annoying to people who are looking to relax and have a quiet time. When faced with noise pollution, finding a way to curb the issue is a sure way to eliminate the issue easily and fast. The most viable solution there is, is to consider soundproofing your home, building or apartment. This way, you are able to keep all the unneeded noise out and bring some sort of sanity into your home or business.

Soundproofing is the process of making an object or material noise proof; generally, making it less susceptible to letting unnecessary sound waves pass through it. As such, the process of proofing a room should be considered for anyone that wishes to keep all unnecessary sounds out of a room or to keep sounds in a room lowering chances of noise disturbance.

quietrock soundproof drywall

When it comes to soundproofing, there is need to contact or get in touch with professional sound engineers for advice and proofing solutions. This is essential to ensure that you make the best in keeping all noise in or out of a room. Noise suppression professionals offers reliable services and solutions that go a long way in ensuring that noise pollution is no longer an issue to both you and your neighbors.

Sound insulation or proofing entails the use of materials that help arrest sound waves before they can become a nuisance. Most of these materials, which are in the form of special foam, glue, boards and pads, are usually placed within a room’s walls, ceiling and floors. This placement helps greatly minimize the levels of vibration, suppressing noise. To bring in sanity and quiet in your home, establishment or business, then soundproofing is an option that you need to consider.

sound drywall

Sound Insulation for Noise Movement Suppression Solutions

 Sound insulation is vital in the restriction of noise from being a disruptive and annoying force. Sound is good, but when its levels reach certain limits, it can become a nuisance to people around you or even to you. Realistically, there is a need for one to live or work in a more conducive environment.

Sound restriction or insulation comes in handy when looking to make this possible. With insulation, you restrict movement and filter sound movement through walls, floors or even ceilings; restricting sound waves into or out of a room.

Drywall Attic Toronto

Sound insulation is majorly used to handle the insulating of noise in businesses, home duplexes or apartments. Insulation applications cover a wide area of our day to day lives. Especially so, for people that work with sound like sound producers, the use of insulation comes in handy. Therefore, to ensure that noise and disturbing sounds are suppressed, finding reliable insulation solutions should be a thing to consider. Fundamentally, to reduce the levels of sound movement in or out of a room; ensuring that everyone is happy.

Drywall soundproofing

When looking for sound insulation solutions, finding professionals to handle the job for you is advised. You need people that have the skill and the knowledge to handle noise suppression and sound movement restriction to handle the job for you. The insulation process uses several types of materials and equipment to make it successful. The materials majorly used are in the form of acoustic foams, sound tapes, clips, specially formulated sound glue, noise restricting boards and specially designed pads.

When used to make a room sound proof, these materials are placed or installed within walls, floors and ceilings- objects that sound waves travel through. As such, sound insulation solutions reliably lower or cancel the noise movement from one room to another, offering considerable peace and calm to those around you.

Cancel Noise Transfer with Sound Isolation Solutions

Sound isolation is essential to any person that looks to reduce noise transfer from one room to another. As a sound producer or as a person living in a noisy surrounding, finding solutions that will help you minimize the movement of sound waves is essential to ensure that both you and the people around you have a noise-free environment. That is why there is need to consider all available options to ensure that you have favorable living and working conditions.

resilient channel sound insulation

quite rock soundproof drywall installation toronto

The good thing is that there are sound isolation solutions available that you can use to accomplish this. Sound isolation is the ability of an object, or the process of ensuring that an object suppresses the movement of sound through it. With the isolation of sound, the level of noise in or out of a room is considerably lowered, ensuring that there is calm and silence in the surrounding areas. For people that deal with the production of sound, this lets you have a better working environment without necessarily having to disturb others around you. Sound isolation, generally will use nonporous materials to handle the suppression of noise.

QuietRock ES Type X

There are plenty of sound isolation solutions that can be used to lower the levels of noise transfer within your home, business or establishment. Essentially, the process of suppressing noise is best done by professional sound suppressing engineers and professionals. The elements and materials used usually range from boards, specially made noise reduction foam and noise glue. In some instances, sound isolation can be done through the use of clips, studs and tapes. Noise cancellation is usually handled on walls, floors and ceilings.

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Nonetheless, any option used will considerably help a lot in ensuring that noise levels out or into a room or building are minimized. As such, when searching for noise cancellation solutions, the best thing is to find a professional solutions provider that will advise you on the best sound isolation options available, and who will offer the best professional services that can be afforded.

 

Drywall Installation: How to Get the Most Out of Your Investment

Drywall installation, as necessary as it is, can become so costly and so troublesome. And what defines the success or failure – and the convenience or inconvenience of achieving said success – almost always relies on the choices you make as a homeowner.drywall cost estimate

Commonly, homeowners choose to do it themselves, relying on whatever knowledge they have about construction drywalls and the DIY instruction pack that comes with it, to save on drywall installation cost of a contractor. Oftentimes, however, because of the limited knowledge most homeowners have on proper drywall installation, and maybe the lack of all the necessary tools, it becomes more costly on repairs, back jobs, and short lifespan of an improperly done drywall.
Others leave the job in the hands of the professionals of the industry. And quite frankly, having it done by people who do it every day, and not having to do anything else but monitor the progress of the installation and pay for all the costs is much easier than doing the backbreaking job yourself. However, this choice has its own loopholes. Choosing the wrong contractor could lead to more costs of all sorts – job delays, hidden costs, surprise charges, or poor quality of work.
These days, it is hard to find a drywall installation contractor that exudes ideal qualities like professionalism, expertise, and reliability. How do you ensure that you get what you’re paying for, considering that the drywall installation prices Toronto are getting higher? How do you know that you are getting a quality that is made to last you ages and not something that needs to be repaired every half year?
Here are some things that could help you find the right contractor for you:
• Referral – First-hand experience and word-of-mouth have always been more reliable than the biggest billboards and the fanciest yellow pages ad. Ask around from your close circle of friends and family about their own experience with drywall contractors Toronto – who they relied on, the quality of work they got, how satisfied they are with the end result of the job. And, if you can, see the result for yourself. Check how well it was done, how much it cost and decide for yourself if it is well worth the price you would have to pay for it.
• Price Comparison – Most contractors offer free price quotes. Do not hesitate to make a few calls to the drywall installers in your short list and schedule an on-site quotation. Having the professional installers right at your home to check up on what you need and how much their services on drywall taping cost per square foot would give you not only a better comparison of their service costs. It will also help give you a chance to evaluate the people who will likely do the job. And remember, ‘cheapest’ never equates to the ‘best’. A good deal and an affordable service are when you the quality of the result that is well worth the price tag it comes with.
• Services Offered – One good indicator of a reliable drywall installer is the variety of related services they can offer. Though not true for all, their ability to do the more complicated types of services like Quietrock Toronto (sound insulation) would likely tell you they have trained for efficiency and expertise in the business.
• Materials Used – another ideal gauge for the quality of drywall installer would be the kind of materials they use for their services. A good contractor uses only standard quality materials and tools for all their services. What kind of d300 drywall trim do they use? Does it confer with industry standards? How well will it work for your drywall taping Toronto needs?
• Time Frame – one very important deciding factor in choosing the right contractor for you is how soon they can get the job done. In any construction project, especially in existing homes, time is of the essence. You would not want your daily home routine to be too disturbed by existing construction. Ask how much time they need for the size of the project to be done and assess whether or not the time frame they offer is humanly possible. Oftentimes, contractors lie about the time frame, shortening it to impossible lengths, just to win a client’s trust. The results are either haphazardly done, so-so jobs, or delays you would otherwise have avoided. The professionalism of a contractor can well be measured by how honest they can be about the price they put on the quotation and the time frame. This is why you need to take the time to compare contractors.

Do not get ahead of yourself and look for the job to get done. Always look for the job to get done well enough to last you decades and not a few years.

Soundproofing made easy: Get the right materials, products and professionals for the best proofing job

Sound is a powerful energy that can be a major nuisance to people. Be it sound from our homes or offices, or sound from the external sources, it can be a major headache if not handled appropriately. As such, there is a need to ensure that you find a good way to have the problem covered and handled for an improved, more silent living environment. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to soundproof a specific room, office or even your whole house. Soundproofing works by withholding excess decibels of sound from travelling into or out of a room. This lets you and others around you an easier time without excess sound or noise disturbance- ultimately lowering chances of calling the police on you.
QuietGlue
When looking for the ultimate soundproofing experience for your home or office, then going for the best soundproofing option available is the best thing that you can do. Soundproof classes come in different levels and each stands on its own pedestal on how well it delays, absorbs or restricts noise transmission. STC- sound transmission class is the standard at which noise reduction levels are measured on. The higher the STC level- above 60- the lower the sound transmission in or out of a room, house or building .This means that for you to block the most amount of sound from travelling out or in to a room, you need a good and powerful soundproof solution that will hold off all the noise. QuietRock ES Type X
Soundproofing mostly relies on installing a soundproof drywall and adding layers of necessary soundproof material that will keep off vibration and sound waves. There are several options available in sound proofing and which range from; adding a new layer of drywall to the existing drywall effectively lowering sound transmission; adding a sound deadening soft, fibrous board on to the wall which essentially absorbs sound; the other option is adding mass loaded vinyl on your drywall, this is one of the most effective soundproofing options; adding green glue on to your wall and drywall, which boosts an effect known as damping, where sound vibration is converted into energy, effectively cutting noise transmission; and the last, most effective option available is where channel, green glue, resilient clips and drywall are all used to sound proof a room for the best soundproofing experience.
The latter option requires a professional installer to have it installed. This option calls for removing of your existing drywall and have another put in place. This option capitalizes on all four elements for effective soundproofing; that is absorption, mass, decoupling and damping. This option offers 61 and 66 STC and comes in two options of insulation. The 61 STC has two 5/8 inch layers of drywall and 7/8 inches of drywall furring channel held in place with 24” OC stud spacing and a whisper clip on one 5/8 inch drywall layer. The 66 STC soundproofing option has two 5/8 inch drywall layers plus 2 tubes of 4×8 sheet of green glue plus a 7/8 inch drywall furring channel at 24” on center spacing and a whisperclip on one 5/8 inch drywall layer.
With this soundproofing option you have the best sound elimination option installed in place for a working noise reduction solution. However, this option is the most labor intensive and requires experienced and well trained soundproofing experts to handle its installation. That is why when looking to have the ultimate soundproofing tasks done for you, take time and find a good soundproofing company in Toronto to handle the soundproof drywall task. It may seem rather costly, but the overall job will leave you to enjoy the best experience in sound quality and noise reduction.
Make sure that the company you go for will use to some of the best quality materials for the job. Quiet Rock is a soundproofing product manufacturing company that offers the best materials and products for the ultimate soundproof task. While the channel, green glue, resilient clips and drywall combination with last soundproofing option does wonders and offers insulation of up to 66 STC, you still can push this level up to 80+ STC with Quiet Rock soundproofing, high quality materials. QuietSeal
Quiet Rock has the best seals found as QuietSeal, green glue in the form of QuietGlue, studs, clips, furring strips and QuietPutty for improved sealing of penetrations and openings within your walls. These products used together, and installed by a professional, promise to raise the levels of soundproofing to over 80 STC. Quiet Rock soundproofing products are the best for noise insulation in many different areas- from home and office buildings to single production rooms for the ultimate sound absorption and improved sound quality.
QuietRock offers professional services for installation; however, if you have an external soundproofing company Toronto is handing the task, they can get installation instructions and product Datasheets from them for ease soundproofing. You can get QuietRock products directly to them via their online page or from soundproofing product vendors found all over the country. For the ultimate soundproof installation, get the best products in the market to handle the job.

Custom Home 101: Perks Of Drywall Installation for Your Home

There is more to having a dream home; especially one that is custom made, which simply beats buying one. Though people may say that the overall cost of building a custom home may be overwhelming, at the end of the day, you as a custom home owner will be living within the comforts of your own making. You simply forget the many issues that may arise about various missed details of the house. The walls of a home are a common issue with; the materials used and thickness, how it they were installed, and the finishing details seem to be wrong. Such dilemmas seize to exist when you decide to go the custom home way.drywall(11)custom home taping

One way to curb the issue of cost while still achieving chic interior details for your home is by using drywalls. These are quick to set up thus a great option when it comes building your home in a jiffy. In addition to a fast home construction, a drywall installation has great advantages that will touch on issues of heat within your home, privacy when you need to have silence, it is simple to pull down when you wish to remodel, and will be ideal when you want to put up additional installations and décor.

To identify with the perks of drywall installation, you need to be abreast with the various aspects that touch on the wall, how it is installed and the various tools used.

Granted the drywall panels sound like the core element in having that dream custom home, in reality, the supports materials and tools are very important in the installation of these panels. These include, the drywall taps, drywall mud, a utility knife and good screwdriver (electric is preferable).

Over to the core element in for your home wall; the drywall, which is a gypsum panel that is made in varied length dimensions to suit various home construction plans and with a width that is commonly of 48” and 54”.  The panels give you the leeway to have a wall thickness that you desire, meaning you can easily have a solution for sound transmission within your home. In addition, you get a wall that has superb heat control qualities. This wall will play an important part in the regulation of heat within your home and is exceptional in retarding fire.  You can have several drywall panels to achieve a desired wall thickness depending on the issues that you would love to address.drywall(10)custom home taping

A drywall installation requires you to consider the issue of detail based on the décor you wish to have. If you do not know the kind of décor to use, you can leave the wall at a certain stage that lets you do the décor later on, commonly referred to as level 0. The levels go from this to level 5, which is a wall that is completely done, having all the paint coats needed in relation to the various décor plans one has in mind for a custom home. The beauty of using drywall panels is that you still have a firm and detailed wall that will suffice to give your home a good look regardless of the level of installation and finish you decide to go with.

Though these wall panels make cheap and lasting walls, they can prove to be a tricky affair especially the corners and when doing the drywall taping. It may sound like a challenge that will leave a mark, but if done well, the finished job will be flawless leaving little to no evidence of any tapping done with the drywall.

One way of achieving that fine detail and finish is in using long  panels, which means you will do very little drywall taping on the stubborn corners, especially when you consider that mudding of the wall is also necessary.

The installation of a drywall will see you screw the wall panels directly to the wall frames of the house with special screws. It is best to work with specific measurements to avoid cutting the drywall panels, but if you need to cut them, you will have to use a knife or saw. Ensure that the panels are closely joint living no gaps between them. Thereafter, you will do some mudding to cover the holes created by the screws and also to cover any gaps especially at the corners.drywall(9)custom home taping

The mudding and drywall tapping will be the area of special focus if you desire to have that chic finish and detail for your custom home. Screwing the panels firmly on the wall frame is well called for, but then if your wall mudding and taping is not good, you will have rough edges and poorly filled gaps, which will portray a poorly constructed custom home. The drywall mudding is usually done with two or three layers and each layer given time to dry, sanded down if it was rough then the next layer is applied. However, if you do a smooth layer of mud before leaving it to dry, work becomes easy and with no sanding.

Drywall taping will be the final chapter in the installation of drywalls for your custom home, which is done as soon as the mud dries up. If this is also done with care to ensure that the tape is smooth and straight, then the finish will be clean living no evidence of any tapping on the drywall. If you have excess mud under the tape you can squeeze these out using the utility knife while ensuring that you leave a smooth finish. And there you have it, a dream custom home that has superb walls all at a cheap cost.

Types of Drywall. Part I. Moisture and Mold Resistant Drywall

You started your big project – house renovation, basement or addition building. You have already dived deeply into the world that until now seemed so far away and mysterious – the world of construction. You have started to easily operate such terms as drywall studs, blow insulation and corner beads. But still sometimes you feel your head is going to explode trying to digest and make sense of all this new info.

In this series of articles we will try to cover the basics of various drywall types, help you understand the difference between them and figure out which to use for your particular project. We will start with moisture and mold resistant varieties of this product.

What is Drywall?

First things first, let’s get an understanding of what drywall is. Drywall is a panel made of gypsum plaster sandwiched between two thick sheets of paper and used to finish interior wall and ceilings. Drywall also goes by such names as plasterboard, wallboard or gypsum board.

 

There are different types of drywall with different characteristics and which type of drywall to use will mainly depend on your needs, requirements and area of application.

We have already touched up on sound proofing types of drywall in this article and will continue the conversation with moisture and mild resistant interior panels varieties.

Greenboard

Greenboard is drywall covered with water resistant paper, the paper is green in color and hence the name of the product. Greeboard is to be used in areas with damp and humid conditions like bathrooms and basements. Important thing here is not to confuse water resistant with water proof and keep in mind that Greenwood cannot be used for wet conditions like shower stalls, for example. Greenboard comes in two sizes – 1/2″ and 5/8″ and is slightly more expensive than regular drywall.

 

Blueboard

Blueboard is a plaster base board with blue coating made specifically to be finished with veneer plaster. It has high water and mold resistance. Its advantages are those that it is faster to finish walls with veneer plastering as there are less steps involved as opposed to traditional mudding and taping. Plastering however requires a very skilled professional to do it as veneer plaster sets much faster than regular compound and is less forgiving to flaws. Similarly to Greenboard it is used in areas of dampness, like bathrooms and laundry rooms. Pricewise it is a more expensive option than Greenboard

DensArmor Paperless Drywall

DensArmor is a brand name for a new mold and water resistant type of drywall. It is made without paper. Instead, gypsum panel is covered with a fiberglass mat. Since no paper is used, the mold will have nothing to feed on – that’s the idea behind this product. The core of this high-performance interior panel is moisture resistant, however DensArmor does not have water-stopping acrylic coating and similarly to Greenboard and Blueboard is not for wet application. The concern with DensArmor is the rougher surface of the panel as compared to regular drywall, therefore it requires skim coat of joint compound to achieve a smooth finish.

 

Also, since it is made of fiberglass, some precautions need to be taken when working with this material – wear long sleeves, pants that cover your legs, dust mask, gloves and goggles during installation and after finishing the work rinse off with cool water.

Hope this mini guide to different types of water and mold resistant drywall panels will help you get a better idea of what you need for your particular project.

Will continue this series with the articles on fire-rated panels and different thicknesses of drywall. Stay tuned.

In the meantime feel free to contact DryWallTaping.ca for a professional advice and estimate of your project.

Soundproofing Toronto

Continuing our topic of soundproofing started with this post here, we would like now to talk about the project we finished a couple of weeks ago.

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We were renovating a townhouse built back in the 70’s for new owners. What we faced there was something quite common for Toronto old houses built using plaster. As we know although being a great material with pretty good sound and thermal insulating properties, it tends to age with unsightly cracks and crumbles. And once it starts to crack the problem becomes literally interminable – door slammed, heavy truck passed by – all results in more cracks. Thus repairing and patching these walls makes no sense and removing the existing plaster and replacing it with new is a very pricey option accompanied by the difficulty of finding a right contractor willing to do the job. Having said that, what are the options that house owners not willing to compromise on sound insulation have when deciding to embark on the renovating project?

 

You can definitely build a layer of drywall over the plaster. This way you keep the benefits of the plaster and get nice smooth walls. It’s a good option if you have some extra space you can sacrifice by loosing couple of inches to drywall. Also building drywall over plaster changes the relief between the wall and the window and door trim, and skirting boards. This will result in an unattractive change in proportion.

Another difficulty is when you have a stairwell adjacent to your neighbors’ wall. In this case you cannot afford to lose any of the stairwell’s width to an extra layer of drywall as you cannot make your stairs narrower than 36″ required by the construction code. Simple and logical replacement of the old plaster with regular drywall is not a solution either as in this case you will be losing all of the so much needed sound proofing.

That was exactly the case we had with our recent project when we were required to remove the old plaster from the stairwell wall and build the wall with excellent sound insulating properties instead as the owners were concerned about the noise coming from 4 guys in their 20’s living next door. Therefore they asked us for the maximum noise reduction. What did we do?

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QuietRock and Green Glue

For this project we decided to go the tried and tested route – remove the plaster and then install one layer of QuietRock. QuietRock is a sound damped panel that offers outstanding sound proofing and sound reduction performance. We have used this product in a number of projects and got very encouraging results. We especially recommend it in the instances when the space and time are very sensitive factors.

We used QuietRock ES type X – an easy to install 5/8″ panel with acoustic rating of up to STC 55 and one hour fire rating – it ideally fitted our requirements.

Significant sound reduction cannot be achieved by using only one product, it is always a combination of methods that provides positive results. Therefore we decided to back up the QuietRock with Green Glue – high performance damping compound.

Normally we would also suggest decoupling the wall to stop the noise from traveling but this time it was impossible to do because our owners’ and neighbours’ staircases shared the same wall. To compensate for that we used two layers of Green Glue (2 tubes per 4’x8′ sheet) instead of regular one layer.

This approach allowed us to keep the staircase space and save on labour and time. The result we got in the end was not only comparable to the sound reducing capabilities of the plaster but even excedeed it.

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If you are in the process of building, remodeling or renovating your house and consider increasing its value by something the price tag cannot put on – Quiet – contact us today for a quote and sound proofing solutions.