I recently had my basement framed/rocked/finished, and stupidly told the contractor to leave one small wall unfished. That decision came back to bite me as I now want to finish that wall… It's a short little wall at the bottom of my stairs thats 9' long, and just under 9' high and the contractor wants $500 to do the job. That seems way high for the amount of work to be done but I understand his reasoning in that they would need to be back so many times from start to finish, etc.
So I'm going to tackle this short little wall myself.
I want to hang the few panels of 5/8" drywall on a concrete wall without framing it ahead of time (due to timing, amount of wasted space if I were to frame it out). I have some leftover pieces of RC2 Sound Channel (typically used for sound proofing but I was told would work fine here..) that I'm planning on going directly into the concrete with. And then hanging 5/8" fire-rated drywall on it.
I'm using tapcon's to hold the RC2 to the concrete. The RC2 will give a gap of 1/2" from the concrete wall. 1/2" from the RC2 plus 5/8" drywall equals 1 1/8" total distance.
I know the rule of thumb is 1/3 of screw into material, 2/3 into the backing support, but I can't go very deep due to the concrete being 1/2 away from the back of the panel. So with 5/8" drywall will the 1" screws be sufficient to hold the panels? Should I just add more screws to compensate? Good idea? Bad idea?
Thanks
Best Answer
The 1" screws will work fine. It is going in a metal stud, where the metal is less than a 1/16" thick. The screw will only need to penetrate the metal far enough to get the threaded section of the screw past the tapered point, after that, there is no improvement in holding. As mentioned in another answer, DO set the head of the screw JUST below the paper surface. DO NOT break through the paper facing. You will greatly reduce the holding power of the screw head. This type of drill bit tip will reduce that problem. It needs a firm push while driving the screws to insure they stop below the surface. The screw tip does the rest.
For a wall install you will only need the standard amount of screws, one at the top and bottom edge of each stud, and 3 spaced equally in between the top and bottom screws, 8" on the ends. If you use drywall glue, you can use less, not much less, IMO. I have seen the edges done and one in the middle with a few on the ends when glue is used. Gravity is your enemy here, not the wind from one side or the other trying to push it off the wall. If it was a ceiling install 5 or 6 screws in the center would be my recommendation, unless glue was used.