How to Build in Protection for Garage Walls

Drywall is too brittle a product to handle the rough going in a garage. It’s also unable to withstand moisture. Coatings, metal liners, and wall bumpers can offer a measure of garage wall protection, but the best solution is to cover garage walls with a PVC-based product, one like Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard. It resists impact and also delivers dependable protection from moisture and water.

Walk into any garage that has drywall on the walls, and you’ll most likely find evidence of damage. Holes. Cracks. Dents. Blemishes. And if the garage is damp, or has leaked in the past, then swelling, mold and mildew will almost certainly be present, too

Drywall simply doesn’t deliver durability in a garage space.

It’s hardly surprising. Drywall is brittle. It wasn’t designed to withstand impact of any kind, and the garage in most households is an unusually busy place, one that’s put under industrial-strength stress.

Vehicles. Lawn mowers. Ladders. Garden and lawn implements. Sports equipment and storage boxes. All of them are being moved in and out of the garage, some daily. The walls suffer the raw effects of all that activity in the form of incidental impact. Boiled down, the daily demands placed on most garages are not drywall friendly. Bottom line? Drywall is the wrong product for the space.

Garage wall protection solutions

But what’s the right product? How do you protect garage walls?

Some homeowners install protective bumpers over their garage drywall. Most bumpers are designed to prevent car doors from making contact with walls when the door is opened. The bumpers are made of dense foam, plastic, or rubber.

Bumpers work — to a point. Their limitation is they don’t cover the entire wall and therefore don’t provide complete protection. And bumpers won’t protect from water damage.

Similarly, there’s no reason that sheet metal cladding couldn’t be applied overtop garage drywall to serve as a form of armor plating, one that would theoretically prevent damage from a sharp impact. But sheet metal would add considerable expense and wouldn’t prevent water damage.

Brushed-on coatings can provide a measure of garage waterproofing to help protect a garage wall. Waterproof paint and primer, for instance, will provide a measure of protection from light moisture and make cleaning somewhat easier, but paint of course will not prevent even light impact from breaking through the drywall.

The better answer is to install a wall cladding product that isn’t drywall – one that is built to withstand repeated impact. One that won’t swell or discolor when it gets wet. One that won’t act as a growth medium for mold or mildew.

The garage wall protection panel that wins

PVC paneling, like Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard, is just such a product.

Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard is a garage wall protection panel designed to be impact resistant and to last decades. It’s the very definition of durable, thanks to its internal truss design. It not only can withstand repeated impact, but it won’t be harmed by water or moisture and, unlike drywall, won’t serve as a growth medium for mold and mildew. It can be installed over studs or directly over drywall, giving drywall the tough layer of protection it sorrily needs.

Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard is a garage drywall alternative that’s lightweight, installs quickly, and perhaps best of all, it seamlessly pairs with Trusscore SlatWall to create wall-based storage, storage that lets a homeowner get the most utility possible from their garage space. Hooks, baskets, and shelves quickly snap into the garage SlatWall, providing storage that can be easily reconfigured as needs change.

Drywall isn’t designed for the rough-and-tumble of a garage. And yes, there are add-on aftermarket products and coatings that can help drywall do a better job. Still, they’ll never produce the kind of robust strength and durability of Trusscore Wall&CeilingBoard, and they’ll never deliver the home utility of Trusscore SlatWall.

For the best garage durability and the best garage protection, Trusscore products are the answer.