You might be freaked out to see one or a series of circular spots poking out on your wall or ceiling. It kinda looks like nails are coming out of your wall. Ummm . . . what does this mean? Should you be concerned?
At Anchor Foundation Repair, we’ve inspected thousands of Brazos Valley foundations since 1985 and have looked at all kinds of signs and symptoms for worried homeowners. We know a thing or two about how houses are put together and can help decipher the unsightly and concerning issues that pop up around your home.
In this article, we will define this *looks like nails are coming out of my walls* issue and explore and explain the typical causes. We’ll also discuss whether this issue could be related to foundation settlement and problems.
What Is This Nail Problem?
This nail problem does have a name. The circular spots protruding from your wall are an issue called *nail pop* – the name kinda makes sense now that you hear it, huh?
Nail pop can be isolated to a few random spots on a wall or ceiling, or it could appear in a series of several pops in a straight line. The reason they appear in a line is because they run along the edges of the drywall sections in your home.
The fastener – it could be a nail or could be a drywall screw – is causing an issue in relation to your sheetrock. In other words, something ain’t right between the two. We’ll go over the specific causes next.
Top 6 Causes of Nails Popping Out of Your Walls or Ceiling
Some causes of nail pop are specific to the age of your home, and some causes occur in any age of home. Here are all the causes of nail pop that we can think of. These causes are not in any order; they are just listed in the order I felt like listing them.
- Use of roofing nails instead of drywall screws
- Shrinkage of old timber
- Unequal conditions between attic space and the home’s interior
- Errors during drywall installation
- Lazy painters
- Foundation settlement
And now we will elaborate . . .
1. Use of Roofing Nails Instead of Drywall Screws
Depending on when your home was built and who did it, someone could have used roofing nails to secure your drywall. This happened a lot in older homes or when quick repairs were needed after installation.
Roofing nails will certainly do the initial job of securing drywall to wall studs and framing. But long-term, roofing nails don’t work well because they are smooth and don’t grip into the timber. Over time, nails begin to slip out due to gravity and/or timber shrinkage causing the nails to poke out of the drywall.
And that brings us to the next cause . . .
2. Shrinkage of Old Timber
Wood dries out over time. In older homes, timber has lost its moisture content and simply shrinks. The wood shrinks at a different rate than other parts of the home. When this happens, the wood pulls on things it’s attached to, like your drywall. This sizing change of the timber puts stress on the drywall and whatever fastener was used causing the nail pop symptom.
When timber shrinkage occurs, it also loosens its grip on any fasteners. So any hole in the timber actually gets bigger with the loss of moisture, shrinking away from the thing that’s poking into it.
It’s kind of confusing because you think that timber shrinking will make any holes in it smaller, but the opposite is true with this kind of age-related moisture loss.
The best example I can think of to illustrate this is a carved pumpkin. You make holes in the pumpkin for eyes and a nose and such. When the pumpkin dries out a few days after Halloween, all those holes start to droop and get bigger, not smaller. Yet the overall size of the pumpkin shrinks and shrivels due to drying out.
3. Unequal Conditions Between Attic Space and the Home’s Interior
Here lately, they’ve been building homes that are well-insulated and tight. Keeping outside air out of the interior of your home sounds like a good thing, right? Well, of course. But it has a little downside that can cause nail pop. Let me explain . . .
Your home’s interior is sealed up from the outside world to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Your attic . . . well, it’s not so well sealed, and in fact, it can’t be. Here in Central Texas especially, your attic gets quite toasty and has to be ventilated. That attic will also get cold when we happen to get *winter* weather.
Texans love their air conditioning, like a lot. Plus, we will run the heat at the drop of a hat too.
We’re always making the conditions inside of our homes very different from the outside. The differential heat conditions put stress on the timber in your framing through expansion and contraction. The more well-insulated your home, the bigger the difference there is between the attic conditions and your interior. More movement occurs in the timber when the differences are greater, making it more likely for nail pop to appear.
4. Errors During Drywall Installation
Installing drywall is hard work and attention to detail is important. I actually installed drywall as one of my first jobs and it was not that much fun. The experience level of drywall installers could vary greatly from house to house or wall to wall. There’s a lot that could go wrong.
One issue that happens a lot is over-sinking the drywall screws. If the screw is in the wall too far, it does not allow for proper binding when it gets mudded over. The mud starts to fall away and poke out of the drywall causing the appearance of nail pop, only it’s not a nail popping out, it’s the mud not staying in place.
There are a bunch of other things that can go wrong during drywall installation. For example, improper spacing or using fasteners that are simply too short for the job can also cause nail pop. Screws or nails can accidentally get installed at an angle instead of straight.
The installers could fail to use the appropriate amount of fasteners to adequately secure the drywall to the stud. They could also miss the stud entirely during construction and opt to cover the issue with mud and paint instead of fixing the error properly.
All of these examples of workmanship errors during a drywall install could be the root cause of your nail pop. It’s hard to *nail down* which one it could be . . . sorry, we throw puns around like confetti over here . . .
5. Lazy Painters
If you have many singular instances of nail pop, some lazy painters might be the cause of your current issue.
People hang things on walls for decoration and then move out leaving the nails or other wall fasteners behind. If a lazy painter was doing the job of repainting your home (I hope it wasn’t you!), they sometimes choose to pound in a nail or screw further and just paint over it. Super slacker move.
Leaving nails in walls and painting over them does not work long-term as nails wiggle out on their own with movement and time in the home. The right thing to do is to pull the nail out, patch the hole properly with spackle, and then paint over the nail holes. But alas, sometimes pure laziness could be your nail pop culprit.
6. Foundation Settlement
Yes, a moving foundation could cause nail pop in some cases. We’ve certainly seen nail pop in homes we have repaired with foundation problems. A foundation sinks and pulls framing out of place, putting stress on drywall. Sometimes drywall cracks, but it could also get pulled in a direction that causes nail pop.
With all the other probable causes of nail pop that we listed above, foundation problems are the least likely cause while the others are much more prevalent.
Nail pop is not a great indicator of foundation issues because it has SO many other common causes. Your drywall is much more likely to have diagonal cracks due to foundation settlement than nail pop.
How Can You Tell If Nail Pop Is Foundation-Related?
The best way to tell if your nail pop issue is foundation-related is to look for other foundation settlement signs. If you have a foundation issue, you’re not going to have only one problem sign like nail pop and nothing else. We look for multiple reliable signs around the home to confirm that a foundation has settled.
A foundation repair contractor will look for other telltale signs of foundation problems like:
- Diagonal cracks in drywall,
- Doors that don’t open, close, latch, or lock properly,
- Stair-step cracks in brick,
- Brick frieze separating at the corners of your home or other trim separations, or
- Built-ins, cabinetry, or other features separating from walls.
So, check your home now, inside and out. Use this picture guide of real, false, and misleading home signs to see if your nail pop could be related to foundation problems.
How To Handle Your Nail Pop Problem Now
Now that you know all about the causes of this unsightly issue, have you figured out what’s causing your nail pop yet? If you were able to rule out foundation issues, then you likely need to contact a drywall contractor to see if they can address your problem.
At Anchor Foundation Repair, we don’t fix things that don’t need fixin’, and we don’t try to sell you stuff you don’t need. After 40+ years in business, that’s what’s best for our Brazos Valley community and for exceptional homeowners like you. We’re here to help you understand the concerning signs you see around your home, not scare you into getting foundation repairs when settlement is not the issue.
If you live in the Brazos Valley area, here are a few local drywall contractors that you can check with for advice on your nail pop issue.