Removing sheetrock
The electricians will need access into the walls to wire 240v. The new power wires will have to run up from the panel, horizontally over the ceiling (in the garage’s attic), and down the final wall. From there, I mine as well send some more power down to the basement – we can refinish that in a year or three. Anyway, for the task at hand, getting power into the garage for big table saws and welders, I needed to remove some sheetrock and provide access into the wall.
Task one: find the studs. If we remove the sheetrock over the studs, it should be easier to replace them later. No need to buy more rock, cut it to fit, and mud it back up. That’s the theory anyway.
Finding the studs on the panel was easy: they sit on each side of it. That’s a little bit surprising, because the panel’s narrower than the typical 18″ stud gap. Finding the studs in the second wall was harder. My cheap electric stud finder gave unpredictable results. There were a few preexisting holes. I could push a screwdriver into each hole, but not in between the holes. Maybe the holes were on each side of the stud which was sort of confirmed by the audio tap test. And 18″ from that it sounds… less hollow. More poking and I think I’ve found our studs.
Task two: remove sheetrock. Over the panel, I used hammer and chisel. Results were decent. Found two screws along the cuts and removed them. Easy removal!
The other wall I did two ways: knife/drywall saw/knife; the knife to cut the paperboard facing on each side. This method took about 45 minutes to work a 4′ line. It’s a lot of work but it doesn’t aerosolize the drywall into freefloaing particulate dust. With another 12 feet of cutting to do, I gave up, grabbed the circular saw, respirator, goggles, and finished the main cuts in three minutes. And had dust on everything and in the air. A few fans cleared the air in 30 minutes though. Not too bad…
These panels didn’t want to come off. After poking around, looking for screws, I had an idea: magnet. Kitchen magnet wasn’t strong enough. But I have a stronger one. In a dead hard drive. The magnets sit around the arm. Pulled the pair of magnets out and wow, these things are ridiculously strong! An hour later, every screw was in the trash. A few stray nails; too. Done.
Removed the sheetrock and… and now I know why my stud finder was behaving so erratically – there aren’t any studs right below the rock – it’s all plywood.
Another contractor arrives on Wednesday to give me a quote on the work.