VIDEO SERIES: How to Hang Airtight Drywall
Stopping air leaks is the single most important part of making a house more energy efficient
You can stop air on the outside with plywood, house-wrap, and tape, but the best air barrier is more of a system that incorporates all the components of a wall or roof assembly. Longtime Fine Homebuilding contributor Myron R. Ferguson, shows how drywall can make your house more energy-efficient when installed with caulks, sealants, canned foam, and gaskets.
All Videos in This Series
- Introduction
- How to hang airtight drywall on ceilings
- How to hang airtight drywall on exterior walls
We decided to drywall the garage shop in Fine Homebuilding’s project house using the airtight drywall approach. Partly to show our readers how to do it and partly so that we could make Myron Ferguson do our dirty work for us.
The outside of the house will eventually be covered with house wrap and foam sheathing, so the drywall is not the primary air barrier; it is part of a larger system.
The other main materials Myron uses in this project are pretty common on most job sites – construction adhesive, latex caulk, and canned foam. Some other materials are a little less common on jobsites, mainly foam boxes for sealing electrical outlets.
This garage has a 2×6 bottom plate, but 2×4 studs. Before Myron came out, we placed blocks in each stud cavity because without blocks to glue the bottom of the drywall sheets to, a considerable amount of air could flow through the wall assembly.
If not already done at the pre-construction walk-through, seal all of the gaps between framing members.
Around windows, around doors, at the gaps between king stud and trimmer, between header and top plate, and between the double—or triple, in the case of this shop, triple top plates.
View Comments
What specific type of caulk is being used for sealing the framing members? Silicon? Latex? Only instruction was "flexible."
He is using Big Stretch brand water-based caulk, made by Sashco. It's a 100% acrylic, elastomeric sealant. You can pick it up at your local Lowe's or order it online through Amazon and others.
If you even approach a 100% perfect seal job on the outside and then another fantastic craftsman's like sealing of the drywall installation, won't that lead to moisture trapped in the wall cavity and all the terrible problems associated with that?
Sorry to nitpick but the electrical boxes aren't set to the correct depth according to the NEC. They are supposed to be (nearly - I don't remember the exact depth from the finished edge and nat's ass didn't seem very code like) flush with the finish edge of the drywall. I think I remember that right.