bathroomdrywallrepair
I've been using my shower with just dry wall up for months now (don't ask 🙂 Anyway, there's a little bit of mold, I'm guessing, on a small section of the wall. I'm finally ready to put up some tile.
Do I need to replace the dry wall since I've been abusing it with the shower before I put up new tile. Can't I just let it dry or spray something on it?
II would say you are fine (and you may have been fine before, who knows). You have replaced the screws that hold the cabinets to the studs, and those are the ones that hold the cabinets up. The ones in the face just keep the faces flush, so if one ever breaks, do the repair then. Hope this helps.
They sell magnetic vent covers at nearly all hardware stores. Buy one, and cover the vent when it's not being used. This will prevent moist air from entering the vent, though it may not stop water if it pools around the vent.
Install a properly sized exhaust fan in the bathroom. Let it run during showers, and for about 20-30 minutes after showers.
WARNING: Make sure you vent the exhaust properly.
Exhaust fans are sized using Cubic Feet Per Minute (CFM), so you'll have to first figure out how many cubic feet your bathroom is. To do this, measure the length, width, and height of the room.
- Length = 10 ft.
- Width = 8 ft.
- Height = 8 ft.
To find the cubic feet, simply multiply these numbers together.
10 ft. * 8 ft. * 8 ft. = 640 ft.3
Next we'll divide the cubic feet by 60, to figure out how many CFM is required to exchange the air one time in an hour.
640 ft.3 / 60 Minutes = 10.66 ft.3/Minute.
It's recommended that the air in a bathroom be exchanged 8 times per hour, so you'll have to multiply our CFM value by 8.
10.66 ft.3/Minute * 8 = 85.33 ft.3/Minute
So in this example, we'll need an exhaust fan with at least an 86 CFM rating.
Quick formula: (Length * Width * Height) / 7.5 = Required CFM rating.
When installing an exhaust fan in a bathroom, it's a good idea to put the fan on a timer. This allows you to run the fan for the recommended 20-30 minutes after a shower, without having to worry about remembering to turn it off.
Warning: Make sure you get a timer that is rated for motor loads.
Best Answer
Drywall shouldn't be in the shower. Take it down and replace with cement board. This will cost you $50 and will ensure the money and time you put into the tile last more than a year.
If for some odd reason you are using a Kerdi membrane or something like that (which your question leads me to think you are not) than you could keep the drywall. You would have to scrape off the mold and hit the drywall with a anti-mold spray. If the mold doesn't scrape off then you need to replace that section of drywall.