Most torn drywall scenarios occur after the removal of wallpaper. Torn drywall can occur with other demolition like the removal of a wall, or even with less destructive tasks like removing an object that was glued to the wall.
Torn drywall requires special treatment in terms of drywall repair. Don’t just skim over the area with drywall compound or spackle, or the torn areas will likely blister.
Preparing the drywall
The first thing you do with torn drywall is to remove any loose hanging drywall paper by scraping off with a spackle knife. Once the loose hanging paper is removed, you need to prime the area with a problem surface sealer like Zinsser’s Gardz. Gardz will penetrate through the torn paper and glue it down to the underlying surface.
Apply Gardz liberally
You can roll on the Gardz primer on large areas, or if you have just one small area, you can brush it on. Apply the Gardz liberally, this will allow it to wet the paper facing thoroughly and penetrate through it. After priming all torn areas, back track and check for any runs or drips and roll or brush them out.
You don’t need to prime the entire wall if the paper tearing is isolated. If the whole wall is randomly torn (as in the case of a difficult wallpaper removal), then you should just go ahead and prime the whole wall(s).
Speed up the process using quick drying drywall mud. See Quick Setting Drywall Compounds. Chemically setting drywall compound will allow you to do all the mudding in one day, otherwise you will need to wait overnight for each coat of drywall compound to dry - as with standard compound.
Tip: If you only have a few spots to repair, you can speed up the fast drying compound set time by using a hair dryer on the area. You can blow dry the quick set compounds in a matter of minutes.
Sanding
Once re-surfaced with drywall compound, you will need to sand the drywall smooth. If you had to skim coat an entire wall or room you will have a LOT of sanding dust to deal with. Sanding dust is lighter than air and will float throughout the house. The heating / central air system will draw it in and deposit the dust in every room in the house. Always cover over the heating ducts and cold air returns in the room before sanding. AND USE A SANDING ATTACHMENT with a Hepa filtered shop vacuum for sanding in an occupied home. This will virtually eliminate dust altogether. See Dust Free Drywall Sanding.
Priming
After sanding is complete, you will need to prime the new drywall compound. Vacuum off any dust clinging to the drywall (with a HEPA filtered shop vacuum),prior to priming with a standard PVA drywall primer. Drywall primers will seal the drywall compound, preventing the finish paint from soaking into it.
Painting
If you’ve done a good job on the skimming and smoothing , you should have an undetectable repair. If you have repaired an isolated spot on a wall with a lot of heavy roller stipple, the repair may look smooth next to the previously painted roller stipple. The isolated smooth repair will not be noticeable if painted with flat paint in most lighting.
Skim coating
Allow the Gardz to dry, then “skim coat” over the affected areas. Skim coating is the term used for smoothing out and resurfacing a whole wall using drywall compound. If you have just a few isolated spots of torn drywall, you don’t need to skim the whole wall, just the areas affected. See Skim Coating.
Smooth over the torn area using a drywall broad knife or spackle knife. It will take a couple of coats of drywall compound. - maybe three depending on how deep or badly the drywall is damaged.
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Repairing Torn Drywall
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