I keep seeing people put drywall screws way too close to the edges

Was helping a buddy finish his basement outside Denver last weekend and noticed his drywall screws were maybe half an inch from the edges in some spots. That paper tears out and the screw just spins with no grip. I had to fix a whole room in my own house after the previous owner did that and half the seams cracked within a year. The rule is 3/8 inch minimum from the edge, 1/2 inch is safer. If you go closer you're just creating work for yourself later fixing popped screws and sagging sheets. Anybody else deal with this kind of shortcut work from the last homeowner?

2 comments

2 Comments

wood.uma4d ago

Half inch from the edge on those corner seams is how you end up with a tape joint cracking by January. Did you notice if he was also skipping the screw spacing in the field like every 12 inches or was it just the edges that were bad?

theajohnson4d ago

Ha, are you sure you weren't watching me my first time hanging drywall in my own garage? I put screws so close to the edge I might as well have just leaned the sheet against the stud and called it a day. Learned that lesson the hard way when I went to tape it and the whole corner crumbled in my hand like old cheese. You're dead right about 3/8 being the minimum, I've started using a little mark on my screw gun to keep my dumb self honest. It's wild how one little habit can save you from a headache that shows up a year later.