Submitted by DonHester on Mon, 06/15/2015 - 18:23.
World’s most expensive sheetrock. East Wenatchee Home Inspections
What do you think is the average price for ½ sheetrock? About $10 to $12 for a 4x8 sheet you would be very close. Then factor what the typical cost of installation the cost of materials and installation is around let say around $1.75 a square foot to install.
That sheetrock installation cost is going to radically change when you have to go back and install it when you have a very large obstacle in the way. Case in point.
This is how it looked from the ground
During a recent home inspection I was doing the garage inspection when I noticed that they had not sheetrocked behind the suspended Air Handler and ducting. Well this is not good because the wall in the garage is what is considered a fire separation between the garage and the home (dwelling).
The requirements are spelled out in “SECTION R302- FIRE-RESISTANT CONSTRUCTION”
Article R302.6 Dwelling/garage fire separation. Which states that “Not less than 1/2-inch gypsum board or equivalent applied to the garage side” from the residence and attics.
Yep we must have a proper separation there, and it was missed.
OSB behind duct
Typically what I see during construction is that the drywall company will come in and put up a few sheets of sheetrock where equipment such as the HVAC handler will be so the HVAC contractor can get on their way and later the drywall contractor can finish the job. Well in this case that did not happen.
Drywall installed before HVAC Air Handler
Now a lot of head scratching went on and I was getting a few phone calls on how they were to address this when I suggested that maybe you drop the HVAC air handler and rock behind it, though this was not what anyone wanted to hear. Yet in the end that actually became the final solution. So the cost of dropping the HVAC handler was around $1000. Then you have the cost of the Drywaller to come in and install the rock at a much higher rate because he is doing such a small area. With the installation cost of the drywall now being about $6 a square foot, then add the cost of the HVAC move you are at about $22 a square foot total to correct this… ouch. Now that is some expensive sheetrock.
Again, as often is the case, it is much cheaper to do it correctly in the first place.
“The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.”
Plato
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