Removing An Intact Piece of Drywall
When repairing parts of your home, such as broken pipework or faulty wiring, you sometimes have to open a section of the wall for access.
In these situations it is sometimes helpful to preserve the section of the drywall that you are having to remove and then simply putting it back on once you are done. This saves you a lot of repair work and time later on, especially if you have got texturing on your wall which is hard to replicate.
There are two scenarios that you will typically occur when attempting to remove an intact piece of drywall. The first being that the section of wall being removed will be between two studs and the second being that the section will be wider than a single stud bay.
Scenario One: Section of Wall Between Two Studs
If you are in this scenario you firstly need to locate the position of the studs and then cut the section of drywall between the studs.
To avoid the drywall falling down into the stud bay, it can be helpful to drill a screw partially into the drywall section that you are removing and using them as handles.
Ensure that you keep the cuts shallow so that you don't damage unexpected wires or pipes, about 5/8 of an inch thick will do it in the majority of cases. You can use a drywall saw or a razor knife to make sure that you don't cut too deep. A razor knife will also help keep the cut edges clean and avoid damage to wall paper.
You can cut down the center of the stud so that you have something to fasten the section back onto afterwards, but this only leave a small section for fasteners and you will find that you have to fasten the section that you did not cut as well for security.
The easier option is to nail a small section of two by four to the existing ones and then use that two by four to refasten the section instead.
Scenario Two: Section Larger Than Single Stud Bay
If you are in this scenario the best approach is to make all the initial shallow cuts and then gently flex and pry the section away from the stud bays. This will result in the screws and the nails appearing through the finish so that they can be located and removed, allowing you to preserve the section and only having small patches left for the fastenings.
There can be situations where this does not work, in these case you need to slowly and carefully pry the drywall section away to pull the fastener through the back. If this fails to work, the section that you wish to remove and preserve is just too big and instead you have to cut each section from its stud bay individually.
Once you have done this, then replace the drywall the same way as for the scenario one: section of wall between the two studs.
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