Drywall Solutions: Uplift, Arches, and Movable Joints (Building Resilience)
In this episode of Building Resilience, Michael Anschel looks at specialty drywall products from Trim-Tex that address common problems with traditional drywall finishing. Options include outside and inside corner beads that resist dents and reduce mud use, tear-away beads for clean transitions, and F-Reveal profiles for modern shadow lines.
The lineup also features movement-ready trims, such as truss uplift angles and flexible “magic” corners that prevent cracks caused by seasonal framing movement. These solutions improve durability, reduce callbacks, and deliver sharper finishes for high-performance homes.
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT:
Well, I guess you don’t see that every day; unless you do.
Welcome back to Building Resilience. A show about whole-house solutions for extreme climate, healthy homes, and sustainability. This week, we are installing drywall inside a fancy little kitchen…
Michael Anschel: “ The framers have framed, the plumbers have piped, the electricians have run their wire, the HVAC has ducted, the drywall is up. This is a pivotal moment in the project where the room starts to take form. We got, you can see the massing and the volume of the space up here. You can see we've got a tray that's gonna be going around this room.
And over here we have this very cool arch that's gonna be coming in, but something else is happening here where each of these, sheets of drywall come together: we have an intersection, we have a connection, which means we have a bunch of decisions to make about what kind of material you we want to use at each of those connections and what might be going on behind the scene that we want to mitigate.
"In the old days, we made do with what we had..."
And that's where material choices come in. You know, 30 years ago, we didn't have a whole lot of drywall solutions.
We had, you know, outside corners that were metal. Inside corners were paper. When Paper Face Metal came out, it was mind-blowing, it was pretty awesome.
Outside corner options
We're looking at a couple of solutions from Trim-Tech’s. And some of them look very similar to what we're used to. Like this one is an outside corner.
It comes in a bunch of different profiles, very crisp, sharp, one to a soft bull nose to a bigger bull nose, which is, which is a cool look. But some of the advantages that these have over metal are that they don't rust. That's a big deal. They don't dent.
If you've been in this industry for a while, you know that dented metal is a real thing.
There's also a lot less embodied energy in one of these, which I think is a bonus, and they use a lot less mud than traditional trims, which we'll get into a little bit later.
Inside corners have built-in mud-gauges
So that's the outside corner. Of course, there's flexible outside corner, like when we're doing arches and niches and fun stuff like that. The inside corner, though, is kind of next level. Traditional inside corner, you know, you flex it to get it to be the shape of your inside corner. So there I've got a nice 90 degrees, but you'll notice one of the things that they've done here is they've got this raised edge lip. And that lip means that I can set my drywall knife right in there without fear of ripping the paper as they lay my bead.
And my mud is gonna be the thickness of that lip. Which is then gonna get painted so I can have a really crisp, clean corner without worrying about ripping that paper tape. That's, that's a pretty cool solution.
Tear-away bead protects finished surfaces
There's also a whole host of aesthetic solutions. This one is a tearaway L-bead. This is gonna be used where I've got my, I want my drywall to terminate, and either I've got another material adjacent, or I want that, I want that to be a very clean, crisp, finished edge.
And what I'm able to do here, is mud right up again. There's that little ridge indicator. And then when I'm all done, this piece here. Just peels away like that, and I'm left with a very, very beautiful crisp edge.
F-Reveal adds a recessed reveal on a wall
This one is called an F Reveal Bead, and you can see it's got this shadow line here. This might be used, for example, if I wanted to have a drywall termination with no baseboard, or I wanted maybe a reveal right before a baseboard. And so I'm gonna mud this side of it, and then this will be my painted surface, and I'll get that nice shadow line in there, and I’m left with a very beautiful crisp edge, and I’ll get that nice shadow line in there.”
Drywall beads that are made for movement
“ The last category that I want to talk about. Is maybe the most exciting, which is their made for movement category. And there are a dozen products in there that do various things. The two that I'm gonna take a look at today are their truss uplift and um, their flexible corner, which is, I think called a magic corner.
Truss uplift angle hides truss movement
So this one is our truss uplift bead. So we're gonna attach this one so that. This side is nailed off to the wall, and this piece here is gonna be underneath our trusses. What we do when we install the drywall is we install the lid to this flange rather than to to the truss itself. And the first screw is like 18 inches out in the field.
And so what that means is I have a floating corner, so as. The trusses move, if I've got big spans, um, this is gonna keep that corner from cracking. And everybody hates warranty work, and that's one way that you make sure that your product stays looking good. Now this one is really cool. This is a flexible.
Corner bead that allows movement
Magic corner, you can see it's got that gasket that can move back and forth. So imagine you're doing a big vaulted ceiling. You've got that long, uh, line near the ceiling where it gets flattens out a little bit, or at the knee wall, or just a funky corner in general where the roof load is meeting wall load and there's things moving around.”
Let’s get back to truss uplift for a second because it confuses a lot of people.
How truss uplift works
DM: Insulation in the attic means the bottom chord is warmer and moister than the rest of the truss. In winter, that causes the bottom chord to swell, and because the ends are nailed in place, it can only swell upward.
When drywall is fastened to the walls and ceiling, this seasonal movement leads to cracks.
The truss backing angle aims to prevent cracks by accommodating movement. The ceiling drywall is fastened into the backing angle at the edge and into the truss about 18 inches back from the edge, where the movement is less pronounced.
Now, when the truss bows upward in the winter, the backer angle can flex, but the drywall stays put.
"Truss uplift isn’t a problem if the client doesn’t see it."
—Dr. Joe Lstiburek P. Eng.
For all the other parts of the room, we will use different accessories.
Apply spray adhesive to the corner bead and the corner
For inside corners like the ceiling-to-wall intersection, both surfaces are treated with a spray adhesive. The adjustable vinyl corner bead is placed into the adhesive and adjusted to perfection.
When the bead is where he wants it, Jose staples the end into the wall and ceiling and places the rest of the bead. He trims the ends at an angle to prevent overlap and staples another bead in place.
The arch is done with the flexible corner bead Michael showed us earlier. Because this arch dies into a flush wall, Jose trims the edge into a point and tests the fit. Looks like it’s going to work.
He applies the adhesive and slips the flexible corner bead into place. When he’s sure it’s going to work, he staples it off.
Joint compound hides the seams
Now comes the good part: mud. He feathers in the inside corners, and the outside corners…
Notice how little of the mud falls off the knife and onto the floor. I mean, I haven’t seen any pigeon drops yet.
Working his way around the tray ceiling, he returns to the arch, where he smooths the compound over the surface and tidies up the edges for a perfect first coat.