How to Replace Rotted Walls

Scrape the section of the wall that has softened from the rot with a putty knife or paint scraper if the entire wall doesn’t need replacing. Once all of the rot has been removed, use a utility knife to cut a rectangle around the section of the wall until you cut away the area from which you removed the rot and expose the studs on either side of the hole.

Pry the cut section of the wall away. If an area of the wall sticks, sand the wall in that area until you reveal the screw that holds the drywall in place and remove the screw to free the drywall. Use this procedure of sanding away the wall to reveal the screws in the drywall if you need to replace entire panels as well.

Press into the wood studs behind the rotted sections of wall with a putty knife to see if the wood feels soft. If the wood does feel soft, chisel out the wood in that section of the stud until you hit solid wood. Continue chiseling until you remove a rectangular block from the stud.

Measure the space where you removed the wood from the stud. Cut down a piece of wood to fit into this space. Apply wood glue to the back of the piece of wood, press it into place in the wall stud and put one to two screws through the piece of wood to secure it to the rest of the stud.

Measure the section of the drywall that you removed. Cut down a piece of new drywall to this size. Secure the drywall to the space by driving two screws through the drywall and into each stud that it touches. Sink the screws in by 1/8-inch.

Spread joint compound over the screws in the new drywall piece to fill in the spaces above them. Use compound to fill in the gaps at the edges of the drywall piece as well. Wait for the compound to dry and sand the filler down to level with the rest of the wall.