Manchester, New Hampshire · drywall, plaster, ceilings
Drywall Repair in Manchester, NH
Find the thing that looks like yours below. Each one explains what usually caused it, what the fix involves and roughly what it runs.
Which one looks like yours?
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A hole in the wall Doorknobs, furniture, elbows -
Cracks over doors and windows Seasonal, structural, or just old tape -
A brown stain on the ceiling Usually ice, occasionally plumbing -
A ceiling that sags or bows Board pulling away, or plaster letting go -
Nail pops and screw pops The bumps that come back every winter -
Crumbling plaster and exposed lath The mill-era walls behind your paint -
A popcorn ceiling you want gone Test first, then scrape -
A patch that still shows Somebody already tried -
Damage from a frozen or burst pipe Cut it open, dry it, rebuild -
Dented and split corners Where the traffic goes -
Walls beat up after a tenant moved out Turnover work, priced by the unit -
A wall a plumber or electrician opened Somebody else made the hole
None of these quite right? Send a photo and we will tell you what you are looking at.
Why it happens here
Almost everything on that list above traces back to two facts about living in this valley. The first is that heating season runs six months and dries indoor air down to desert humidity, which shrinks framing lumber, backs screws out of studs and opens the seams they were holding. The second is ice: snow melts against a warm roof deck, refreezes at the cold eave, and the water that backs up behind that ridge finds its way into the ceiling below. A brown stain on a ceiling in February is rarely a plumbing problem in this city. Understanding which of the two you are looking at changes what gets repaired and, more to the point, whether it comes back next winter.
Older Manchester is a plaster city
The Amoskeag mills put up housing faster than almost anywhere in the country, and a great deal of it is still standing: three-storey wooden multifamilies on the West Side and through Rimmon Heights, brick and clapboard singles across the North End. Behind the paint in most of those buildings is lime plaster keyed onto wood lath, not gypsum board, and it fails in a completely different way — it lets go of the lath in sheets rather than cracking at a seam. If your walls sound solid and dead when you knock rather than hollow, read crumbling plaster before anything else, and the short guide to telling plaster from board will settle it in a minute.
What does this actually cost?
Every repair on this page with a ballpark figure beside it, and what pushes the number up.
How the repair actually goes
The order rarely changes. Somebody establishes what caused it, because closing a wall over a live leak or an unaddressed ice dam wastes your money. The damaged material comes out to something solid. New board or plaster goes in, tied to framing rather than floated on hope. Then the joints get taped and built up in stages, each wider than the last, until the repair reads flat under a light held against the wall. Texture, if the room has any, is matched last, and the fresh coat is run out to wherever the eye never finds an edge.
A photo
Text or upload a picture. Wide shot plus a close one tells us most of what we need.
A cause
We tell you what made it happen and whether anyone else needs to go first.
A number
Written, itemised, with the board or plaster method spelled out.
The work
Cut back, rebuild, tape, build up the joint, sand, prime, match, paint.
A look
You inspect it with a light held flat against the surface before we pack up.
Landlords, triple-deckers and turnover
Manchester rents. A large share of the pre-war housing has been apartments for three generations, and between the hospitals, the Millyard employers and SNHU there is a steady churn of tenants every spring and late summer. Owners who call us usually want the same thing: every hole, anchor scar and scuffed corner in a unit dealt with in one visit so the place can be listed. That is the turnover work, and it is priced by the unit rather than the hole.
When the answer is another trade
Some of what shows up on a wall is a symptom of something we do not fix. Ice damming is an insulation and ventilation problem in the attic. A crack that steps diagonally and keeps widening while the doors nearby start binding belongs to a foundation contractor first. Persistent damp along a basement wall is water management outside the house. We will say so, explain what to ask the other trade for, and come back afterwards. Repairing the surface and staying quiet about the cause is how a homeowner ends up paying twice.
Towns along the Merrimack
Outside the city we work in drywall repair in Bedford, Goffstown drywall repair calls, serving Hooksett, drywall repair for Londonderry property owners, Derry, drywall repair in Auburn, Candia drywall repair calls, serving Merrimack, drywall repair for Litchfield property owners, Bow, drywall repair in Concord and Nashua drywall repair calls, and most places within about half an hour.
Send a photo, get a number
A picture answers more than a phone call. Wide shot plus a close one, and most people have a figure back the same day.
Rather talk it through? 603-555-0118
Weekdays 7:30 to 5:30, Saturday mornings by arrangement