Spent last Sunday patching drywall and it turned into a 3 day mess

I cut a hole to fix a pipe leak in my bathroom wall and thought I'd slap some joint compound on it by dinner time. But the old plaster kept crumbling and I ended up redoing the tape twice because it bubbled up overnight. How do you guys handle patch jobs that just keep getting worse?

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kim.sandra2mo ago

@nathanbennett nailed it with the patience thing but I heard a tip from an old timer once that stuck with me - he said to mix a tiny splash of dish soap in your joint compound for the first coat. Something about the soap breaking the surface tension keeps the mud from shrinking and cracking while it dries. Never tried it myself cause I always forget to grab the soap. Also agreed on the irregular hole shape, made that mistake once and the straight edges peeled off every time like bad wallpaper.

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nathanbennett2mo ago

Oh man, you're supposed to just leave that first lump of mud alone and walk away for a day (the patience thing, right?). But honestly, the real trick is to never cut a square hole. Cut a weird shape like a star or something so the tape doesn't have straight edges to bubble off. Also, you're using way too much water in your mud if it's bubbling overnight, that's a classic rookie move. The old plaster crumbling means you should have glued some backer board in there first anyway, so really the whole thing was doomed from the start. Next time just call a drywall guy and save yourself the weekend.

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