Walls and Ceilings - Drywall Preparation for Texturing and Painting

I am in the process of adding an addition to my house. The drywall is now up and they will be mudding and texturing the walls soon. I decided to have them go ahead and texture an adjacent hallway and the original living room and I stripped the popcorn off the ceiling and mudded the ceiling and walls and sanded.

My contractor advised me to use "Prepcoat" on all the walls to be textured prior to his people coming in and texturing. He said it was necessary as the drywall was a recycled material and may show through if not prepcoated. My wife asked if he meant using a primer like Kilz, he said no, this was a total different step. I havent seen anyone else do this and thought all you had to so was use a primer on the walls after texturing and then paint. Could someone give a how to step guide on the steps you do to prepare new and old walls and ceilings from installation of the drywall to texturing and painting?

I am in the process of adding an addition to my house. The drywall is now up and they will be mudding and texturing the walls soon. I decided to have them go ahead and texture an adjacent hallway and the original living room and I stripped the popcorn off the ceiling and mudded the ceiling and walls and sanded.

My contractor advised me to use "Prepcoat" on all the walls to be textured prior to his people coming in and texturing. He said it was necessary as the drywall was a recycled material and may show through if not prepcoated. My wife asked if he meant using a primer like Kilz, he said no, this was a total different step. I havent seen anyone else do this and thought all you had to so was use a primer on the walls after texturing and then paint. Could someone give a how to step guide on the steps you do to prepare new and old walls and ceilings from installation of the drywall to texturing and painting?

Use a PVA primer. Its a drywall sealer.

The reason you need to use an actual drywall sealer is that plaster is very wet when applied, and the water will soak into the drywall, causing potentially serious damage to it.

Blueboard and greenboard drywall are pre-coated to resist this, but normal drywall you must seal first, then plaster, then paint. If you are not plastering, then you still must seal first, then paint.

What kind of texture are they doing?

I dont know what drywall you have so its hard to comment on your contractors recommendation. What does he want you to do (what is prepcoat)? When I sheet rock, the process is - screw in the sheetrock, mud then tape then mud the joint, let it dry, mud again, let it dry, sand the mud, blow down the dust, spray dilluted mud with an air powered texture gun, just before dry, knock down with a 10" mud putty knife (orange peel is sprayed fine and left), prime with pva or 123 or kilz, then paint. I have never sealed the sheetrock before applying the texture (mud) and I would think the mud would have better adhesion to the paper (as it is rough) although when patching I texture over the adjacent painted surface and have never had a problem. They apply a watered down mud with a paint roller over the whole surface as a "primer" sometimes to give a more even appearance because paint will soak into the different materials differently (if you are putting on gloss, some areas would shine more than others).

Once you have all the drywall hung, you would then generally use a quickset mud to do any prefill which is needed, like in corners, butt joints, and where new board meets old is usually where these areas are, however, if the hangers did a poor job or were either rough on the board or used damaged sheets when hanging, sometimes quite alot of prefill is needed. I use either 45 or 90 min mud for this step, depending on how much is required. Once all the large gaps are filled, you run a drywall blade over the surfaces that were prefilled to knock any humps & bumps, sand if necessary, but if you're good it's not needed.

Next I do the taping, start on the lids & work your way down. Tape all butt joints first, then the recessed seams, then all the corners. I start in each room and work clockwise around it to make sure I don't miss anything. I use a banjo to run tape and hit all fastener heads with the first coat while I am embedding the tape. I normally use an 8" knife for this. I like the lite mud for all phases of the finish work myself, but other will have different opinions on this point. The mud is mixed with just enough water to make it creamy, I use a 1/2" drive drill and a large mixer paddle for this purpose.

The tape coat is allowed to dry and light sanding is done. Then 2 successive coats of fill mud are applied, the first is usually applied with a 10" knife and the second with a 12" knife. Light sanding will need to be done between the coats and when the mudding is finished. You know you're done with the mudding & sanding when you run your hand flat over the seams & joints and not be able to distinguish them from the rest of the board.

At this point newly hung board needs to be primered with a PVA primer, in remodel jobs I apply this to all the board both new & old. What your contractor is calling "prepcoat" I think is an acryllic sealer. Using a good quality PVA primer will seal the fresh board along with the exposed mud. I always prime everything, both new board and old.

At this point your are ready to apply your texture. There are alot of methods for appling texture, I use the spray method as JeffK described in his post. Once the texture is applied, I do a second coat of primer prior to putting on the finish coats of paint.

Hope that helps you out. ;)

I've merged this thread with the dupe post in P&P.