Why does nobody talk about mudding corners before they're taped

I keep running into jobs where someone's already slapped mud on inside corners before even laying the tape down. Last week I was finishing a basement in Elmwood and had to scrape out three rooms worth of dried mud because it was all bubbled underneath. The tape won't lay flat if you don't have a clean dry corner to start with. Has anyone else dealt with this or is it just the guys I'm following around?

2 comments

2 Comments

oscarthompson13d ago

Buddy of mine from Worcester had the same thing happen two years back. He walked into a whole finished basement where the previous guy mudded every corner with hot mud and no tape. My buddy spent a weekend with a heat gun and a scraper getting it all off because the hot mud had bonded right to the drywall. Said he broke two scrapers and cursed the guy's name about thirty times.

diana_park14d ago

They were scraping out dried mud because it was all bubbled underneath" - I mean, is it really the end of the world if you have to scrape a little extra mud off a corner? Feels like you're making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. Yeah it's annoying, but I've seen guys just knock the bulk off with a 5-in-1 and lay new tape right over the residue, smooths out fine. Unless the previous guy used some weird quickset mix, you're probably overthinking how much it matters.