Estimate Drywall Cost
When you are remodeling your home, you might find it necessary to add walls or redo existing ones. In order to do this, you will need drywall. Drywall, or gypsum board, came into use after World War II and became especially widespread in the 1960s. If your home's construction took place after this time, your walls are likely made of drywall. To get a rough idea of how much the drywall you need for your remodeling project will cost, there are several factors you must consider.
Instructions
1. Determine the type of drywall. This depends on the type of room and your local building code. There are three main types of drywall.
Use regular drywall for most rooms. Use 1/2-inch-thick drywall for walls and ceilings with stud spacing of 16 inches on center, and 5/8-inch-thick drywall for stud spacing of 24 inches on center, unless local codes specify otherwise. Sheets that are 4 feet by 8 feet are best for homeowners, as they are not too large to be unwieldy.
Water-resistant drywall is best for bathrooms. Other names for waterresistant drywall include moisture-resistant, WR, MR and green board. Water-resistant drywall is available in 1/4-inch or 3/8-inch-thick sheets.
Fire-resistant, or type X, drywall, is common for walls between apartments. Your local building code also might require its use between an attached garage and your home. Type X drywall is 5/8 inch thick.
2. Measure your room carefully. Draw out your measurements on graph paper, including spaces that do not need drywall, like doors and windows. Draw the ceiling layout to reflect installation perpendicular to the ceiling joists, to calculate the correct amount of drywall. If your ceiling is less than 8 feet high, plan for horizontal drywall placement on the walls. This means you'll place the drywall with the longer (8-foot) side parallel to the floor. Vertical drywall installation, with the shorter side of the drywall parallel to the floor, is best for rooms with higher ceilings.
3. To estimate the square footage of drywall you need, add all the lengths of the room's walls together. Round up to the next whole foot for ease of estimation. Multiply this figure by the ceiling height rounded up to the next whole foot. This is the total square footage of the walls in your room. Calculate the square footage of each window and door opening, and add them all together, rounding up to the next whole foot. Subtract the surface area of the doors and windows from the total square footage of the walls in your room to get the final square footage of drywall you need. You can divide your total by 32 to calculate how many 4-by-8-foot drywall panels you will require. You can also use an online calculator, such as the one at www.bobvila.com. Add about 10 percent to your calculations for waste and cuts.
4. Calculate installation accessories. These items include nails, drywall tape and joint compound. The online calculator at www.bobvila.com will calculate these items, but you can also make an estimate. Count on needing approximately one gallon of joint compound for every 200 square feet of drywall and five and a quarter pounds of nails for every 1,000 square feet of drywall. You will need at least 120 feet of drywall tape for a 200-square-foot drywall job and 500 feet for a 1,000-square-foot job.
5. Contact your local home improvement store for price quotes on the drywall and accessories. Multiply each item's cost by the number of that item you'll need. Figure in sales tax, and you have a fairly accurate estimate of the cost of a do-it-yourself drywall project. If you have a contractor install your drywall, get a labor estimate from him. A typical drywall labor cost is about $1 per square foot but can vary.
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