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Hi....I had this issue over a year ago and yay! it's back. I have combed the internet and cannot seem to find my exact issue. They have had nail pops, put in a screw above and below the nail pop and pulled the old one out and voila, issue completely solved.
My Facts:
House is 11 years old.
~30 nail heads only on vaulted ceilings were starting to pop out.
- Had ~20 fixed last March 2015. Drywaller put in screws. Everything looked great.
Today, July 1, 2016. All are showing their popping again. Same locations. I pulled 3 nails out and put in a screw for one of them. I expect to see it popping out soon enough.
Is this a rafter issue? A bad drywall issue? I can't fathom fixing these every year and not truly fixing the actual issue. Do we need to get the drywall ripped out in these areas, dry the rafters and put new drywall in? I don't want to spend more than we have to in order to come up with a game plan.
~30 nail heads only on vaulted ceilings
...last March 2015. Drywaller put in screws.
Everything looked great.
Is this a rafter issue?
It sure sounds like there aren't enough screws (or nails) overall.
That could boil down 24"C/L framing vs 16"C/L or just not enough cross blocking.
All in all it seems you have 30 screws doing the work of 60.
Vaulted ceilings are notorious for this because the "ceiling" is directly attached to the roof. With a "conventional" roof system the ceiling drywall is attached to "joists", the roof material to "rafters". Rafters go through a tremendous amount of expansion and contraction- hence the reason for the nail pops.
Another general consensus for nail pops on vaulted ceilings is wind loads. Depending on the direction of the vault versus the direction of prevailing winds, it's possible that it could be getting "pushed around" by the wind- moving the rafters enough to cause nail pops. The usual "fix" for this is "collar ties".
This is what I am finding online, too. No one knows precisely what it is because it could be a very simple fix (many more screws needed) or collar ties or something else.
Are collar ties installed by taking the drywall down?
Same issue here....14 year old home. I have them in my vaulted ceiling as well as rooms with a traditional flat ceiling. I am slowly going through the process of placing screws in the drywall. However I am not interested in going through this process yearly.
In addition to "wind load" I have unfortunately had to deal with vaulted ceilings that were subjected to deformation from "snow load" as well as those that were so heat damaged that they were sagging to the point where their deflection put torque on the finished ceiling and walls.
Worst case, if there are trusses involved and they were impropertly spec'd or installed by unskilled framers the entire structure might be compromised -- this is one of those things that does happen and it is not something to "just live with" as it could suffer a total collapse: Myers Construction Company
Interestingly, in our current 27 year old house, I don't encounter nail/screw pop issues. In our former new construction 10 year old house, nail/screw pops were a frequent issue that was annoying.
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