Sheetrocking a mobile home

[Nichodemus]

When I sheetrocked some rooms in mine, I left the paneling up. it was about 1/8 in thick, and glued to most of the studs, meaning if you pulled at it, it ripped into strips and was impossible to scrape.

The biggest problem I had was several interior non-load bearing walls that were not attached to another wall (in a corner) in a way that left a stud for the sheetrock edge to attach to. Usually you frame your exterior walls so that the interior perpendicular wall attaches to it, but there is still stud left over for the sheetrock. With mine, I had nothing to attach to so I had to rip out the paneling in the corner and frame in a new 2x4 there, leaving it out about 1/8" into the room to make up for the fact there was no paneling on it (or find a strip of paneling somewhere to attach to it).

At the interior doors, where I wasn't replacing with a standard door, paneling had been used like a door jamb, so it stopped about 3/8" short once I applied sheetrock to the wall. I found some flat molding and tacked it around the door to cover up the edge of the sheetrock. Looks ok. Painted it all to match the sheetrock.

Finally, since I left the paneling up behind the sheetrock, I have a problem in that you can never find a stud to hang a picture on, because my studfinder can't penetrate the sheetrock and paneling. And if you screw into it, thinking it will just spin if there is no stud, it grabs the paneling behind it and screws in pretty good, and if you don't realize it, you've hung something on a screw that is just screwed into 1/8" paneling. And doing hollow wall anchors, the toggle type, is also more difficult, because when you drill the hole through the sheetrock and paneling, the paneling splinters behind it, making it hard to get the toggle into the wall. Still, I'd rather face all that than deal with that glue. It was bad enough on the particleboard floors where I had to scrape it off....

[steve]

I have had good luck with drywall "clips" for blind corners and as for the glue...comes off easy with a power planer. My only concern would be that I would need to see whats behind the paneling (insulation, water damage, vapor barrier). As for the door jambs...just rip a filler strip of matching jamb material and reinstall casing or better yet, install a new "solid wood" jamb

[peachlizzard]

I am planning on also sheet rocking the entire home. Did you at all worry about the weight involved? I know sheet rock is heavier especially if you use a thicker sheet than the wallboard. We are not planning on ever moving our home and we are on a permanent foundation (post and pier). Is it best just to use the same thickness as the wallboard?

[laurig99]

The weight from the sheetrock was not really something we were too worried about. We don't plan on moving this home any time soon and if we do, it will be to trade it in for a newer one on our own property. We used sheetrock a little thicker than the wallboard for the extra insulation. While you are at it, don't forget to replace the insulation and double check the moisture barrier. Mice had chewed thru ours and had nested in the insulation. Bees nests too.