garagewallswater-damage
My garage has some water damage, which needs addressing (see photos below). I have a good attitude but no experience with this sort of repair. Does it make sense to try to do this myself? And if not, who do I call? A mason? A GC?
Here are photos of the wall material.
Taking things in reverse order:
With the large areas firstly remove any remaining loose plaster. Trying to patch without doing this is a waste of time. Then with the large areas you'll need to replaster. You can either take this as an opportunity to learn or pay someone. I won't tell you how to plaster as it's really a skill you have to be shown or practise yourself, though I do have a couple of bits of advice. Don't try to plaster the whole wall in one go. Take it in stages and make sure you dampen the wall you're plastering onto as it helps the plaster stick.
With the areas missing the top coat of plaster you will need to reskim. This should be done after fixing the base coat. You might find a plasterer willing to skim over your base coat - discuss it before you start. This will give you a good finish but should cost less than hiring a plasterer to do the whole job. Getting a good skim finish takes a lot of practice.
Finally the areas with only minor cracks and bumps should be filled and sanded before proceeding.
If you manage to get a good surface then painting is the best option. If not then paper the wall with two layers of lining paper. The first runs horizontal and the second vertical. This will smooth out most of the remaining unevenness in the wall. Before papering wash the walls with a weak glue solution this will stop all the glue from the paper being absorbed into the plaster and the paper lifting off the wall.
I should have added that you need to leave the plaster to fully dry out before painting or papering. That might have been one of the reasons why the previous repair has failed.
UPDATE
The quote you have doesn't seem unreasonable but without knowing the exact area you need replastering or your location it's difficult to say for certain. However, we shouldn't be getting into commenting on exact quotes as they are always going to be too localised (in time and space). Get another quote to compare it against - that's always going to be the best option. Also as I said above see if you can get the plasterer just to do the final skim - it should come out cheaper.
If the lock is separate from the handle and turns freely, my guess is the handle is the issue, not the lock. Overhead garage doors almost always latch by extending pins through the tracks on either side of the door. It is likely that one of these just got bound due to expansion, contraction, ice lifting, or whatnot. I'd try a couple things before doing anything with the lock itself. First, grab the handle and alternate between jerking the door up and down while you try to turn it. If this doesn't work, you may be able to carefully remove the trim on either side of the door. Usually there will be enough of a gap to slide in a flatbar or something similar to tap on the latching pins. If they're stuck, knocking them up and down a couple times will usually free them.
Best Answer
The source of the problem is that's an uninsulated duct running in unconditioned space (the garage). Every time your AC kicks in, the cold air cools the metal which then condenses the humidity in the garage. That humidity runs down the duct as water and soaks into the drywall causing the damage you're seeing.
The fix will involve:
Whether you should do it or hire it out would depend on:
this weektoday! don't ask me how I know), cut, fit, fiddle, install.If you hire it out:
rip outcut out the damaged drywall back to the nearest stud where you've got dry, undamaged material. (This will save some time for the drywaller and probably some expense. He'll adjust your cuts as he sees necessary.)The more I look at your pictures, the more convinced I become that this is concrete/block, not drywall (hence your mention of "mason", I suppose). In that case, replace all mentions above of "drywall guy" with "mason".Personally, I've done a lot of projects on my house, but I'm not certain I'd want to take on this level of masonry repair, especially as a "first house project". Others may indicate that it's a fairly straightforward masonry fix. If so, I might feel confident enough to take on, you may too...Based on the last two images added, that's definitely plaster over drywall. They drywall repairs are simple enough. Doing the plaster on top is a bit more work and skill, but you've got the fact that it's a "rough" and "random" pattern working for you - it doesn't have to be perfect to blend in well enough, and if you really don't like it, you can sand the plaster back off (making a huge mess) and try again (just don't sand through the paper of the drywall).
The most important part is finding the source of the leak and getting that fixed. Until you do that, the rest is just putting a bandaid on a sinking ship. If left unresolved for too long, you'll end up damaging framing, not just the drywall. If that happens, you're in for a fairly large repair bill. Much cheaper to track it down now, even if that means hiring someone.