PSA: Check your mud before you start a big job

I was taping a 14-room house in Phoenix last week and noticed the all-purpose mud felt a little off from the get-go. It wasn't mixing smooth and had these little lumps that wouldn't break up. By the third room, the tape was bubbling bad and I had to scrape it all off and start over. The batch had been sitting in the warehouse too long and went bad. Has anyone else run into bad mud straight from the bucket?

3 comments

3 Comments

morganl7116d ago

Did you check if that batch had a weird smell too? I read somewhere that bad mud can get a sour or funky odor when the preservatives break down, so maybe that's a red flag to watch for next time lol.

sanchez.ivan16d ago

Did you notice any smell at all before you started? Honestly, I had a bucket a few months back that smelled like old gym socks and it was exactly the same mess with bubbles and lumps. Ngl if it smells off at all, just toss the bucket and save yourself the headache of scraping everything later.

mason_murray816d ago

Was the bucket sealed good when you bought it? I had a similar thing happen and found out the lid on mine had a tiny crack that let air in. That's what caused the lumps and the bad reaction with the tape. Idk if that's what happened with yours but it made me real careful about checking the seal on every bucket I buy now. The preservatives breaking down from air exposure makes the mud basically useless for taping. Did the mud have a weird color to it also like a yellowish tint when you mixed it?