How House Construction Works

Drywall

by Marshall Brain


On the outside, the house now looks complete; but inside, it won't look "like a house" until the drywall goes up. Drywall (also known as "plaster board" and by the trade name "Sheetrock") is a half-inch layer of plaster or gypsum sandwiched between two thick sheets of paper. It is remarkably solid, and also remarkably heavy.

To finish this house, 134 sheets of drywall measuring 4 feet wide by 12 feet tall were delivered to the site and stacked in the living room:



A 4x12 sheet of drywall weighs about 50 pounds (23 kg). So this room has about 6,700 pounds (about 3,000 kg) of drywall stacked in it!

The drywallers put up all of the drywall in a day and taped it the next day:





To "tape" the drywall means to cover all of the cracks and nails with drywall mud (spackling compound) so that the walls are completely smooth. You can see that the cracks and nails are all covered in the pictures above.