House forty years old, been here five years. Bits of drywall tape regularly dislodge and fall on the floor or car and I'm getting sick of it. I have begun scraping off the loose bits, but the middle parts of the drywall have very well adhered texture -- starting say six inches away from the joint.
Any guesses as to why this happened? And how can I tape if I can't really feather my edges due to existing texture near the joints?
That was a bad tape job and if you are in a high humidity area it was doomed to fail.
Get rid of all the paper tape. Use mesh tape. It does not require hotmud.
Apply the mesh tape and mud over it. It is sticky, but it will only stick for a few minutes when overhead, so apply maybe 10 feet of tape and mud over it and move on.
Some of the other answers have hinted at this, but let me be explicit: There's no mud behind the tape.
Paper drywall tape uses drywall mud (not to be confused with spackle) as the "glue" to hold it on. You typically skim coat the joints, then press the tape into the mud. Once it's firmed up some, you start coating over the tape. Once coated, the tape is invisible (modern drywall even tapers some into the edges for that reason).
Where your tape has come off, there's mostly nothing but clean drywall. It's impressive it stayed up there as long as it did.
And how can I tape if I can't really feather my edges due to existing texture near the joints?
Let me go in a different direction here: scrape your ceiling texture off. You can mud the taped areas with fiberglass mesh tape but the newly mudded areas will stick out like sore thumbs (the new mud/spackle will be whiter than the old textured mud). Instead, take a spray bottle with water and scrape it with a metal putty knife (which you will need to re-tape the ceiling).
Once you've removed all the texture, let it dry, sand it flat, then take your putty knife and some mud and properly tape the joints. Once dry, sand it flat and then paint it. Makes for a far easier maintenance if you every need to fix or change something.
I don't see stains, but this usually indicates a moisture issue.
Could be excessive humidity if there isn't a leak, given lack of stains. You may need more ventilation to resolve that.
Perhaps just a crappy taping job in this case, though? Looks like there was no mud under the tape in many places from the pictures. That's not how drywall tape is supposed to be done.
You'll need to scrape or sand off the texture near the joints if you want it to look nice. Then again, it's a garage, not a living room, so visible joints might not be the end of the world - your call.
It looks like only the joint tape is coming off.
It could be due to improperly mounting, or other reasons.
Anyway, replace the tape with perforated tape that will hold better.
the perforated tape is made from fiber not paper (it is stronger). The mud penetrates the holes and provides adhesion to the drywall. The paper tape needs two steps. First a mud layer then the tape then another mud layer. In you case the first layer is missing.
I'll chime in. There's a lot of wisdom and experience on display here, but I have my own theory. Some observations, to start:
The tape job may have been done properly. I see more than just the tape letting go, which counters the argument that the tape was (somehow) put up without mud behind it.
I don't see evidence of paint or anything on the drywall that would've prevented a good bond by the joint compound.
I don't see evidence of moisture, nor does this look like what I'd expect to see if moisture was the cause.
Therefore, I think the wrong product was used in the original finish job. I have no idea what that might have been, but spackle is a good suspect. Could also have been plaster, though that probably would've worked fine. The long and short of it is that whatever it is did not bond to the drywall wrapper properly.
Pull it all down. Scrape away anything that's loose or soft. Re-tape with quality joint compound and your choice of tape. I don't think it matters whether you use paper or mesh here. Scrape away some of the texture and just feather it out over 12-16" on each side of the joint. That's what a pro would do.
There are multiple reasons this happens, in order of cause.
#1. No insulation above the drywall (If applicable)
#2. Garage is not heated, if not kept 50F or above this will happen.
This happens due to movement and temperature differentials. If this was caused by poor tape application, the interior of the house would be failing in the same manner. Perhaps a high glue joint compound like taping compound instead of all purpose may have made a difference, but it likely will have failed in a similar manner.
I really don't recommend mesh tape, it will fail unless installed with setting type compound. Properly installed Drywall tape has a slight tension after it dries and it is not as weak as on would think.
Sources:
In installing drywall as a pro, I had numerous situations where the garage wasn't insulated, and in the winter it would crack before I'd left the job. Other situations where the garage wasn't heated would always crack out in a few years, so I started telling customers that if it was important they needed to keep the garage a minimum temperature.
About mesh tape, I was called to fixed enough mesh tape + joint compound jobs to realize it wasn't a good way to tape. A drywall acquaintance of mine told me of a pro that finished a house (under pressure) without any tape, only hot mud. As of some years later, the house was reasonably crack free.
A couple of comments on the comments and the answers. I will give you the full scoop.
To add on to this... This has nothing to do with insulation above the garage. So please add insulation but that's not helping your issue. Also I have finished many many a garage in the midwest where it is high humidity and freezing winters. Again the temp factors just making it happen faster.
To add more... It is very weird/uncommon that they would go to the trouble of texturing without adding a little bit of mud for the tape to stick. The idea of texturing is that you have to do little to know mudding AFTER the tape is installed - CORRECTLY. They have taken the normal half-ass garage drywall install and degraded it. It would be better with no texture - tell you later.
Further on the texture... normally this is done if the space above is finished. Since I see an attic entrance I am assuming all or most of the space above the garage is not part of the house. If there are finished areas above the garage this would not meet code in my area.
What do people with failing tape do? Add a little mud and retape. That is why I mentioned before that the texture makes it much harder on you.
What should you do? If you could care less about how this looks then just mud and tape it. If you want it to look good you probably need to get a sander and a really good mask and sand the texture off.
What would I do? I would sand off texture, mud/tape, and hit it with 2 coats of an oil based primer. The oil based paint will protect from things like this happening (yes it will stink for a month).
Use mesh tape? Mesh tape comes in a variety of thickness, get the thinnest if using it. I have two rolls in my basement and one is almost 3x as thick as the other. That being said you can use mesh tape but it inherently has issues. The first is even with the thinnest tape it will require way more mud and coats to cover. Second mesh has a propensity to "pop". In a hot garage it's not the choice. Yea if you put three layers of mud prime and oil based paint you are probably OK but nobody that does drywall and knows their job uses mesh on sheetrock on garage ceiling.
I had a similar issue in my garage. I removed all the paper tape. There wasn’t any mud under the tape. I used mesh tape and standard premixed joint compound. Primed and painted. After 3 years and it still looks great.
Most building depts require paper tape in the garage, for the same reason 5/8 drywall is code, fire prevention, consider this before using mesh tape for repairs. If you don’t ever plan on selling the house then no problem
This is common in garages. It isn't humidity nor is it chemical exposure. It is not the tape...It is the application temperature of the tape coat of the finishing process.... As is common, the tape job was put up after the house construction and when they did the job in this unconditioned space, it was below the glass transition temperature (Tg)and minimum film formation temperature (MFFT) for the homopolymer latex used in the compound and so the latex did not do its job as glue.
Rip out all lose material and finish over it. Make sure all materials and substrates are above 60 (for best results).
I formulate joint compound and various construction materials for a living.
A pro would never use mesh period. If they do, I would not hire them. Remember high ceilings are done with a bazooka. Never enough mud. Besides the lack of heat amd temp difference are the leading factors for cracks and paper falling.
