Drywall repair in Vancouver, done so you cannot find the patch

A single small hole generally runs $150 to $400 in Vancouver, and larger wall repairs $400 to $900. Ceilings sit higher, roughly $400 to $1,200, because overhead work is slower and much harder to blend.

The thing worth knowing is that a tiny hole and a fist-sized hole cost close to the same, because the price is mostly getting a person and a van to your address with dust protection and materials. If you have three or four things that need doing, put them in one visit. Two separate call-outs cost significantly more than one visit with two repairs.

On a flat painted wall, yes, and that is the standard we work to. The give-aways are a visible outline, a slight bulge where the patch sits proud, or a dull patch showing through fresh paint.

Each of those has a cause. An outline means the compound was not feathered wide enough, so we take each coat out further than the last, typically 10 to 12 inches past the repair by the final pass. A bulge means too much compound instead of three thin coats. The dull patch is flashing: bare compound is far more porous than the painted wall around it, so it drinks paint differently. We prime the repair to fix that, which is a step that gets skipped constantly.

Ceilings are harder and we will be straight with you about it. A ceiling gets raking light across its full surface all day, so a repair that would vanish on a wall can still read on a ceiling. If yours is a case where painting the full ceiling is the only way to get a truly clean result, we will tell you that up front rather than after.

Usually. Stipple, knockdown, orange peel and the heavier splatter textures common on Vancouver ceilings can all be matched, and we test the match on a scrap board rather than on your ceiling.

Matching is genuinely harder than it sounds because the original was sprayed by a particular person with a particular gun at a particular thickness. Small repairs blend well. Large ones on a heavy texture sometimes end up more convincing if the whole ceiling gets re-textured, and we will say so if that is the case.

One limit: if your ceiling is a stipple or popcorn texture that might contain asbestos, we cannot repair it until it has been tested. See the question below.

Often not, if the wall is a light flat colour and the paint is reasonably fresh. We prime the repair and you touch in with your original paint.

You will need the full wall in a few cases. Deep or saturated colours are very hard to touch in without the patch reading as a different shade. Any sheen above eggshell shows every difference in surface texture. And if the existing paint has faded or yellowed, which happens fast on south-facing walls and in kitchens, your original tin no longer matches the wall itself.

The practical rule is that you repaint corner to corner, not just the patch. Stopping mid-wall shows.

Find and fix the source before anyone repairs the drywall. If water is still getting in, a new patch will stain within weeks and you will have paid for the same repair twice.

To work out whether it is still active, mark the edge of the stain in pencil and date it. If it grows, the leak is live. Common Vancouver causes are a failed roof or deck membrane, a shower pan or tub surround in the unit above, a supply line at a toilet or dishwasher, and condensation on cold-water pipes in an unheated crawlspace.

Also worth knowing: mould can start on wet gypsum within 24 to 48 hours, and paper-faced drywall is excellent food for it. If the area is bigger than roughly one square metre, or you can smell it, or the board is soft and sagging, that needs a remediation contractor before drywall work. We are a drywall contractor, so we will tell you honestly which of those two you have. Once the space is dry and clear, we cut out the damaged board and rebuild it.

Because it is still moving, and compound does not stretch. Filling a moving crack just relocates it by an inch.

Where a crack runs tells you a lot. Short diagonal cracks from the top corners of doors and windows are the classic sign of framing movement, since those corners are the weak point in the wall. Long straight cracks along a seam are usually a taping failure. Cracks that open in winter and close in summer are seasonal: framing lumber gains and loses moisture, and Vancouver swings from roughly 80 percent relative humidity in the wet months to much drier indoor air once the heat is on.

The fix depends on the cause. Sometimes it is re-fastening the board so it moves with the framing instead of against it, sometimes cutting the seam out and re-taping properly, sometimes mesh tape and setting compound instead of paper. What it is never is another coat of filler. If a crack is wide, stepped, or paired with sticking doors and sloping floors, that is a structural question and we will tell you to get a professional engineer rather than a drywaller.

The hands-on work is usually an hour or two. The dry time is what sets the schedule.

Joint compound needs to dry between coats, and a proper repair is three coats. In good conditions that is same-day work with a return visit to sand and prime. Vancouver from October to March is not good conditions: outdoor humidity averages 76 to 82 percent in the afternoons, and drying compound slows down sharply as humidity climbs, so a coat can want 24 to 48 hours instead of overnight.

We deal with that two ways. Setting-type compound cures chemically rather than by evaporation, so it works in damp weather and comes in 20, 45 and 90 minute versions. And we ventilate and add heat where we can. On a small repair that usually means one visit plus a short second visit. Rushing coats is how you get cracked tape in six months, so we do not.

Often, for small repairs, and this is most of why people call us. We work 8AM to 8PM seven days a week, so weekends and evenings are normal booking slots rather than an emergency surcharge.

Same day depends on where we already are that day and how big the job is. A patch or two in Vancouver, frequently yes. A room to re-board, no, that gets scheduled properly. Call and ask rather than guessing, and if we cannot get to you we will say so instead of leaving you waiting.

Yes, and it is worth knowing which one you have before you get quotes, because plenty of contractors quote plaster as if it were drywall and then discover otherwise on site.

Anything built in Vancouver before roughly the 1950s is likely to have plaster over wood lath rather than drywall. Push a pin into an inconspicuous spot: drywall takes a pin easily, plaster does not. Plaster is also thicker and sounds denser when you tap it.

Plaster repair is a different job. The common failure is not a hole, it is the plaster losing its grip on the lath, so the surface flexes when you press it. Patching the visible crack without re-securing that area means the repair pops off with the plaster around it. We patch these back with board built up to match the plaster thickness and then skim the joint flat, which holds far better than trying to rebuild plaster keys.

Sometimes both, and it depends on which wall.

The City of Vancouver lists drywall repairs to fire separations in multi-unit residential buildings as work that needs a building permit. Walls between two units, corridor walls, ceilings between suites, and shaft or service room walls are likely fire separations. A hole in a partition wall inside your own suite is not, and needs nothing.

Separately, your strata may need to approve the work in writing regardless of permits, particularly if it touches anything the strata insures. That process realistically takes four to eight weeks, so start it early. Buildings often also want the freight elevator booked and common areas protected. Tell us the building when you call and we will work to its rules.

Not until it has been tested, and we will not be the ones to test it. Here is the honest version.

Asbestos was used in ceiling texture and in drywall joint compound in Canada into the late 1980s, and there is no way to identify it by looking. Under BC rules a qualified person must identify hazardous materials before renovation work disturbs them, and that duty is not tied to the age of the building, whatever you may read on other contractors' websites. WorkSafeBC has documented asbestos in buildings well newer than 1990.

We are a drywall contractor and not a licensed asbestos abatement contractor. In BC even taking a sample counts as abatement work and needs a licence we do not hold, so we will never offer to test your ceiling or to scrape a bit off to see. What we will do is explain the process, point you to a qualified person who can sample it properly, and wait for a written result. Negative, we book the repair. Positive, a licensed abatement contractor removes the material and we come back to board, tape and finish behind them.