Question about a weird discovery I made on a job site last Tuesday

I was trimming out a window in a 1980s ranch house and noticed the previous guy used drywall screws to hold the casing, not even finish nails. My helper asked why that mattered and I had to explain how drywall screws snap under shear load from seasonal wood movement. Has anyone else run into this kind of hack job behind trim?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

david7012mo ago

Yeah, I've seen that too. Drywall screws love to snap in trim work.

3

nina_butler2mo ago

Man, that totally changed my mind about this. I always figured drywall screws were fine for trim if they held tight, but seeing all these snaps makes me think twice now.

2