If you own a home, you know how expensive any type of renovation or repair can be, so many homeowners try to minimize those costs with sweat equity, that is, doing the tasks themselves when possible. Trading time and effort for money is a good decision, but it can lead to horrible experiences. Take sanding drywall, for example. This task is hard work and takes time. And then there’s the dust, so much dust. That’s not a problem with new construction or a major renovation, but if you’re doing repairs on your walls, that thick layer of dust is going to get everywhere, and when alien archaeologists dig up your house a million years from now, they’re still going to find it. Even if you wrap everything in tarps and plastic, that dust is going to get everywhere and stay there.
How to Wet Sand Drywall (Less Dust = Good Stuff)
The good news is that there is a way to minimize that dust: wet sanding. It won’t necessarily make sanding your drywall any easier, but it will definitely reduce the amount of dust that turns your house into a moonscape.
When you sand drywall compound with a block of sandpaper or a power sander, you generate a metric ton of grout dust. Instead of trying to use a vacuum cleaner or tent plastic around the area, you can wet sand with a grit sponge, which reduces dust by wetting it. You dip the sponge in water, wring it out until it’s just damp, and then sand as normal. Not only does the water catch much of the dust before it can fly into the air (and your lungs), it also dissolves the grout as you go, spreading it thinly and smearing it everywhere.
This doesn’t make the job any easier, but it does definitely reduce the amount of dust. This is ideal if you’re making a repair in a finished, furnished room and you don’t want to remove all of your furniture and belongings or cover everything up just to sand a small section of wall. To be clear, there will still be dust, but it will be damp and contained to the immediate area, and much of it will be trapped in the sponge itself. If your sponge gets overloaded with drywall compound, simply rinse it out and get back to work.