Drywall repair and patching

Holes, cracks, water damage, and the patch somebody else left standing proud of the wall.

One flat fee to find out what is wrong. You are told it on the phone before anyone is dispatched, and it comes off the job if you hire us. Read our Plain Terms

What the work is

A drywall repair is judged in raking light, which is the light that comes across a wall from a window or a lamp rather than straight at it. A patch that is invisible head-on and obvious from the doorway is a failed repair, and it fails for one of two reasons: the compound was built up instead of feathered out, or the texture was not matched.

Small holes get a backer and compound. Anything larger gets a cut-in piece of board fastened to solid framing or to backing we add, because a patch floating on tape moves with the wall and cracks along its edges. Then compound in stages, sanded between, feathered far wider than most people expect.

Cracks are diagnosed before they are filled. A crack running from the corner of a door or window is usually settlement, and it will come back if it is filled and nothing else changes. A crack along a joint line is usually a tape failure and stays fixed once it is properly re-taped.

Water damage is not repaired until the water is dealt with. Stained board that is still soft has to come out, and the source has to be found. We would rather send you to the roof or to the supply line first than sell you a repair that browns through again in a month.

What is included

Backing added so patches sit on something solid
Compound built in stages and feathered wide, sanded between coats
Texture matched to the surrounding wall or ceiling
Primed before paint, because bare compound and painted wall absorb differently
The repair checked in raking light before we call it done

What is not

Repairing water-damaged board while the leak is still live
Mold remediation, which is a licensed specialty and not something we will improvise
Structural crack repair. We will say when a crack is a foundation question rather than a wall one

Why the same crack keeps coming back here

Washington County sits on ground the Utah Geological Survey calls the most troublesome construction condition it maps: expansive soil and rock, clay that swells when it gets wet and shrinks when it dries. The survey illustrates the hazard with cracks in a Santa Clara house foundation, and the documented damage from the blue clay under this area includes tilted and cracked walls.

A house sitting on that does not hold still. So a crack that runs from the corner of a door or a window, and that you have filled before, is usually reporting soil movement rather than a bad patch. Filling it again will work for a season and then it will open in the same line.

The other local pattern is water. Collapsible soil settles when it gets wet, and the water is almost always a leaking irrigation line, a downspout discharging at the foundation, or a failed sewer lateral. When we see new cracking on one side of a house, the first question is what is wetting that side.

We will tell you which of the three you have. A patch is cheap; repeating it for five years is not, and neither is finding out afterwards that the wall was reporting something the yard was doing.

What to ask anyone quoting this, us included

Are you putting backing behind this patch?
How far are you feathering it?
How will you match the texture?
Are you priming the patch before painting?
Do you know why this cracked, and will it crack again?

What we can show you in writing

Every line traces to a document we read in full. The number after a sentence points to the research below.

Sherwin-Williams states it on its own product data sheet: most coating failures are due to inadequate surface preparation or application. It also warns that any surface preparation short of total removal of the old coating may compromise how long the system lasts.1
Federal law treats homes built before 1978 differently. Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, work that disturbs more than 6 square feet of painted surface in a room inside, or 20 square feet outside, must follow the rule's work practices — and sanding or scraping paint counts as disturbance. Window replacement counts at any size.1
EPA lists textured paint and patching compounds used on walls and ceilings among asbestos-containing products, and says plainly that sampling is not a homeowner job: a trained and accredited asbestos professional should take the samples, because there may be an increased health risk if fibers are released.1
The Utah Geological Survey calls expansive soil and rock “the most troublesome construction condition” in this area, and illustrates the hazard with cracks in a Santa Clara house foundation. It is clay that swells when it gets wet and shrinks when it dries, and the house moves with it.2
The blue clay under the St. George area is an expandable illite/smectite in the Chinle Formation, and the documented damage from it includes tilted and cracked walls and foundations, and homes affected in the Santa Clara area. Where a wall crack keeps coming back, the wall is usually not the problem.2

Where this comes from

Every line above traces to a document we read in full. The number after a sentence points to the research below; hover it for the section. If you find a line wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say so.

Painting research, September 2026 Compiled from Utah DOPL's contractor classification list and Utah Code § 58-55-305, the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Wood Handbook chapter on finishing, EPA's asbestos guidance, and the published technical data sheets of Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, PPG and Dunn-Edwards. 3 sections cited. Hover a number above for the section.
Environment, water and ground research, August 2026 Compiled from the cities' own water quality reports, Utah Geological Survey Special Study 127, the Utah State Hazard Mitigation Plan, Washington County GIS hazard layers, NOAA climate records, EPA radon zones and Census QuickFacts. 1 section cited. Hover a number above for the section.

The rest of walls and ceilings

Texture matching
Knockdown, orange peel or hand texture matched so the repair disappears instead of announcing itself.
Popcorn ceiling removal
Scraped, retextured and repainted. On a house of a certain age it is tested first, and that is not optional.

The quote is the number. There is no second number.

Call (801) 680-6859

7 a.m. to 5 p.m., weekdays. Emergency calls answered any hour, every day.