A drywall panel lift is just what its name implies: It lifts heavy sheets of drywall paneling up to heights ranging from 4 to 11 feet. By using a lift, you will save endless hours of heavy work that might very well injure your back, neck and other muscles. A drywall lift is a wonderful piece of equipment that will make your drywall project go much faster.
Professional people who install drywall almost always use a drywall lift to help them with their work. A lift is the key element that keeps them pain free most of the time. They use lifts especially when they are putting drywall up on a ceiling because this involves putting heavy pieces of drywall up over their heads. The lift holds the weight of the drywall sheet while they easily nail or screw it into place.
For your drywall project, you might be better off to rent a drywall lift rather than buying one. They are available from rental companies for about 50.00 per day. This amount will more than pay for itself in the long run because you will get the job done much faster by using a lift. A lift makes tricky vertical ceiling drywall installation very easy for you to do. And, if you use drywall stilts along with your lift, the job will be even easier for you.
For smaller jobs like rooms you’ll have to figure out how you’re going to place the drywall panels and the sizes you’re going to buy. ( Quick note ) estimate the amount of Drywall Contractor you will be using not accounting for doors and windows just a straight room with none of these openings. Wallboard panels ( drywall ) come in eight and 12 foot lengths by 4 feet wide. The 12 foot length is more expensive but it covers more area so you’ll have to do less taping. Of course the 12 foot length is a little harder to handle than a 8 foot one.
If your designing your drywall layout on your ceiling for example, let’s say you have a 16′ x 10′ ceiling. This will allow you to have two pieces — 4′ x 12′ panels, two pieces 4′ x 4′ panels, and two pieces of 2′ x 8′ panels. This will give you the least amount of joints hence less screws, less drywall tape, less drywall compound, hence less time spent. So it is important that you lay out the drywall sheet arrangement on a piece of paper to figure out how to place your drywall cost-effectively.
Estimating drywall screws
Screws are typically placed at 16 inches center to center This would be the way your ceiling joists are put in. Therefore a 4′ x 8′ panel will use up 28 screws
Determining how much drywall tape to use
Drywall tape usually comes in 100 foot rolls, since you know how many boards you will be putting up and their sizes you can tackle it by adding up all the sum of the edges, this will give you the amount of tape you need. About 400 linear feet of drywall tape is usually used up on 1000 ft.² of drywall
Calculating your corner beads
Corner beads are used outside corners and they are made of metal. Use full lengths for corners, don’t make the corners out of pieces of corner bead this won’t work very well.
Calculating how much joint compound to use
Joint compound is sold in various ways, plastic pales, cardboard boxes with bags inside them filled full of compound. Buying the box is the cheapest way just a little less convenient. To tape 1000 ft.² would take approximately about 150 pounds of compound to get it finished wall using standard all-purpose premix if you want to use lightweight all-purpose ill be less than half of that for 1000 ft.²