Found out drywall mud actually has a shelf life from a guy at the supply house

I was grabbing a few buckets of compound from the local lumber yard last Wednesday and the old timer behind the counter asked me when I bought my current stock. He told me that joint compound actually goes bad after about 6 months on the shelf if it's been stored in temperature swings. I had no idea. I went back to my shop and checked a bucket I'd been using on and off for probably a year. It was all grainy and had these weird hard chunks in it that I thought were just from mixing bad. Turns out I've been fighting with expired mud that whole time on a basement job over on Maple Street. Has anyone else run into this or am I the only one who didn't get the memo?

3 comments

3 Comments

webb.ben28d ago

...so I had a similar thing happen but with spackle. I bought a tub of the pink stuff maybe two years ago and it’s been sitting in my garage through three summers and two winters. Went to patch a hole in my daughter’s bedroom wall last weekend and it was like trying to spread peanut butter that had been left out in the sun. The stuff would not smooth out no matter how much water I added. I ended up just throwing the whole tub in the trash and buying a new one from the same old timer you mentioned. He probably gets a kick out of watching us learn these lessons the hard way.

gavin69228d ago

Everything has a hidden expiration date until you learn the hard way.

william_torres25d ago

Nope no way three summers and two winters in a garage? The spackle survived that long and you actually tried to use it? That sounds like something I would do honestly keep hoping it'll magically fix itself. Did it at least smell weird when you opened it?