For as long as I’ve owned my house, there’s been a spot on my bathroom wall where the drywall was bulging out and cracked (about a 6 in square). I finally bashed out the area a little, and discovered that plumbers who installed a new shower stall off the master bedroom as a condition of sale probably caused the bulge. There’s a cast-iron seeming collar of some sort on the plumbing for the shower, and the stupid thing is actually flush with the surface of the bathroom drywall, so I can’t patch in a new piece. How am I supposed to fix this?
Sounds like you’re going to have to move something to get the fitting inside the finished wall. Either the wall, or the shower, possibly both.
Alternatively, you could use some other kind of wall finish (other than dry wall) which would be flexible and pass over the fitting without cracking. Something like paper, or fabric.
Or you could make a nice pretty casing and a little door over it. Call it an ‘inspection port’.
Check at your local plumbing supply house or big box store (plumbing section) for access panels. The are available with frames which one glues in place, and I’ve seen some with spring loaded fingers to hold them in place against the sides of the drywall opening. Should be under $20. They can be painted, papered, or left their stock white color.
It’s flush with the interior side of the drywall? If so, you should be able to carve out a bit of the inside portion of the drywall so it doesn’t bulge out.
There are a number of ways to patch the drywall. Home Depot, etc., have bracket-like devices for holding a patch in place before you mud and tape, but you don’t necessarily need those for a small piece.
i would cut a piece to fit the hole, carve out a portion on the back so it doesn’t bulge, and then apply two, perhaps 3 layers of mud and tape, sanding in between each, and then paint the wall.
Put a decorative panel over it like any other plumbing access point.
OK, a “plumbing access panel” it is. I figured I was going to have to slap something over it, and try to make it look like it belonged there.
(and, no, it’s not flush with the interior of the drywall, but the exterior - if I lay a straightedge across the hole I made, it barely clears the collar.)
Hang a picture or mirror over the hole.
And as I look at it, I think it’s actually the vent pipe that goes to the roof.
I wouldn’t be happy doing that. There must be a better way. Does the collar need to be there? Can it be filed down? Can it be tied back to an interior stud using a plumbing strap? It sounds like you only need about a quarter inch or so of additional clearance and then you could gouge out a spot on the back of the drywall.
If it is a flange on the vent stack, it’s probably original to the house. Back in the lath-and-plaster days they didn’t bother to frame the wall thick enough to clear the stack; they just buried the flanges in the plaster. Sometimes this worked OK if the stack were centered in the wall, sometimes it didn’t and one wound up with bumps in the wall - there’s an example of this about twelve feet from where I sit.
If the flange doesn’t jut out beyond the finish surface of the wall, you can do like they did in the old days and just fill the area where the flange “violates” the drywall with joint compound (given how much the stuff shrinks when it dries, it’ll take several thin coats).
Plan B - You could add a sheet of drywall over the entire wall. It doesn’t have to be 1/2 inch since there is alread a wall there. You could use 1/4 inch to save money and space.
It sounds like a joint in a cast iron waste line.
You might be able to do a lot of expensive work on the waste line so that the joint is closer to the floor or ceiling and less noticeable or you might be able to replace the cast iron with plastic but if either of those were easy options the plumber probably would have done that when she put in the new shower.
The normal fix is a “chase” which is like a box attached to the wall from floor to ceiling that allows space for floor-toceiling pipes that can’t fit within the wall.
Can you just hang a picture in front of it?
I vote for the somewhat kludgy suggestion of taking an ordinary drywall patch, removing enough material from the back to accommodate the intruding pipe – even if you find yourself leaving nothing but the paper facing – and putting a couple coats of joint compound over the whole thing. You may build up the area higher than the plane of the surrounding wall, but if you do it artfully, it won’t be as noticeable as the current bump.
Or put in a new drywall patch with a hole just as big as the collar, and then use setting-type joint compound to patch the hole, leaving you with a thin layer of plaster over the pipe itself.
I find it’s easier to put in sheets of drywall than patch holes. When I had to replace the upstair sewer pipes in the downstairs ceiling I just cut a larger hole to match a sheet of drywall instead of chasing an irregular shape. WAY less time involved. In this case it would be really easy to put up 1/4 drywall and cover the whole wall. Done. spackle the screw holes and paint. Also, if a spackled patch touches the pipe it will not shift with the wall. Any house movement will crack at the patch because that cast iron pipe isn’t going anywhere.
FYI, I’ve seen people use hinged cabinet doors as access ports in an effort to hide the problem in plain sight. You could make little shelves next to the pipe to store soap bars or other small items. Paint the pipe so it looks pretty or cover it with masonite as part of the frame for the cabinet. Lemonade from lemons as it were.