DRY WALL CONCEPT

                             

                   Hello friends you have heard about walls , paintings, finishings. Have you ever heard about dry wall finishing ?  Here I’m going to present a simple overview about dry wall finishing  in this article. I’m not going  to introduce more technical terms to make you bore of reading.   

What is Drywall?

                 Drywall is a modern construction product ,namely  a wide flat board used to cover walls or partitions. It is made from plaster or wood pulp or other materials and used primarily to form the interior wall finishing of houses. Simply it is a interior covering material. In technical words, Drywalls are sheets or panels created by the pressing of gypsum plaster material between fiberglass or paper sheets.

                  Before the invention of drywall in the early 20th century, plaster and lath was the material of choice for finishing interior walls which is laborious and time consuming job. But when this miracle material drywall came along, builders could finish walls very quickly, without waiting for plasterers to do their job, and especially without waiting for the plaster to dry. Drywall gives you a smoother, cleaner surface, and it is much easier for the homeowner to install. It's also used to create many design features, including eaves, arches and other architectural specialties. It's quick and easy to install, incredibly durable, and requires only simple repairs when damaged. 

Some common names of this product include:

·         Dry wall

·         Sheet Rock

·         Gyp board

·         Gypsum board

·         Wall board

·         Plaster board

                   One of the main aspects of drywall that you should be aware of are the tapered edges. Even though you may not notice it at first, the long edges of drywall are slightly tapered so that when two sections of drywall are joined (tapered end to tapered end), it will create a slight break so that drywall tape and drywall mud, otherwise known as joint compound, can be filled into that space. That way, no joints are visible.

How it is made?

                                The primary component of drywall is the mineral gypsum. It is a light-density rock found in plentiful deposits worldwide. Each molecule of gypsum (or dihydrous calcium sulfate) is composed of two molecules of water (H 2 0) and one of calcium sulfate (CaSO 4 ). Because the water present in gypsum is in crystalline form, the material is dry. In its pure form, gypsum is white, but impurities often give it colors like gray, brown, pink, or black. Gypsum that has been crushed and heated to remove 75% of its water content is known as plaster of Paris. When water is added to this fine white powder, the resulting material is easily molded into any desired shape. Besides the newly mined material, up to 20% of the gypsum used to manufacture drywall can be recycled from waste generated at the manufacturing plant or at construction sites. Gypsum produced as a byproduct of the flue-gas desulfurization process at electric power plants provides an economical, environmentally sound raw material for making high-quality gypsum board.

       

Figure shows the manufacture of dry wall

                               Two types of paper are used in the production of most drywall, and both types are made from recycled newspaper. The ivory manila face paper, when properly primed, readily accepts most paints and other types of wall finishing products. The gray back paper can be laminated with aluminum foil to produce a special type of drywall that resists the flow of water vapor in environments like bathrooms. Fabrication of drywall consists of placing the gypsum core material between two layers of paper, drying the product, and finishing it into panels of standard size.

Why Drywall preferrable?

                                                  

                       This title gives you an idea of why drywall is preferable to wet plastering. Over the years, plaster has constituted primarily clay, gypsum coating, lime renders, cement and even Artex. There are a few problems with wet plastering though and this is related to its application. Wet plastering can only be done by a skilled plastered. Once the plastering has been done, it has to dry out. Many a times, after drying up, it has shown movement cracks and not to mention there is the problem of shrinkage as well. Apart from this, if wet plastering has not been done by a skilled plasterer then the finish will be bad and it will not be durable.

                       Due to the disadvantages of using wet plastering, more and more people have started to use plaster board in their homes and this phenomenon has risen only in the last 30 years. Today there is an ever increasing popularity for using plasterboard for walls as it can be put up quickly and can be easily finished using sandpaper, tape, and paint.

Drywall Thickness Requirements :

                              One of the most important properties of drywall is its resistance to fire due to the layer of gypsum that it has in between its sheets. This fire resistance offered by drywalls has a relation with the thickness of the installed drywall material. It is essential that one knows about standard drywall thickness and sizes when going for an installation. Although drywall thickness can vary over a range of sizes, the highly preferred thickness sizes are:

• 5/8 inch (1.59 cm)
• 1/2 inch (1.27 cm)
• 1/4 inch (0.635 cm)
• 3/8 inch (0.952 cm)              

Fire resistance property of Drywall :

                   Surfaces, walls and ceilings can become virtual death traps if they don't inherently possess fire resistance qualities. We already have cited above that gypsum in its natural state contains the water in crystalline form bound in the form of hydrates. When exposed to heat or fire, this water is vapourised, retarding heat transfer. Therefore, a fire in one room that is separated from an adjacent room by a fire-resistance rated drywall assembly will not cause this adjacent room to get any warmer than the boiling point (100°C) until the water in the gypsum is gone.

Benefits of Drywall :

·         Fire resistant

·         Can be recycled and reused

·         Resists fracturing

·         Makes home quietier because gypsum naturally resists sound transmission

Drywall with interior finishing :

        The figure given below shows dry wall with interior finishing.

By
MANOJ , III year civil
Anna univ.tech
Mail : mano.nitharson@gmail.com     

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