In my experience, you will get cracking unless you tape them. You're probably not going to be able to put in a patch so perfectly that you could only apply mud to the crack; you'll have to mud over the whole thing, so why wouldn't you want to use tape?

A hole that size will need some kind of backing to repair properly.

A 2" wide piece of wood that is at least 1/2" thick and 6"+ long is put up on the back side of the sheet rock and secured with a couple sheet rock screws on either end to the sheet rock ceiling. Then the patch is screwed to that wood to secure it in place.

That will hold the patch securely in place. Taping a circular hole is not easy, but by installing the patch as I described, taping is usually not necessary.

I'm with handymac. If you're cutting the holes with a hole saw, you can even use the same pieces. Clean the drywall edges with a sharp utility knife before you mud. Gently pull a sharp blade on a 45 degree angle and they'll clean up nicely.

If the plugs are proud of the wall surface, shim the wood backing with something to recess it a bit.

A hoe large enough to use drywall as part of the patch needs tape.

mesh tape and setting compound is easier to feather out.

Expect to feather out at least 2-3 times the size of the hole.

Hi, I have done that before with no tape.
Example.... 3" hole
Piece of sheetrock about 6" square. Thickness doesn't matter if there isn't anyting like a rafter above the hole.
On the face side of the sheetrock find the center. ( x from corner to corner) with a stick maybe a paint stick put in one screw in the stick near the end about 1" away.Now put another screw in the stick about
2 1/2" away from the first screw let about 1/4" stick out the back of the stick. put the first screw in the center ot the rock and turn the stick to cut the sheetrock turning the second screw untill you cut the sheetrock through.You should have a 5" circle.
Now turn the sheetrock over. With the stick move the screw so they are about 1 7/16 apart cut the back side of the sheet rock like before but DO NOT CUT THE FACE OF SHEET ROCK
go bout 3/4 way through then break and peel off the sheet rock off the face paper. When done the part should be 5" on front and a little less than 3" on the rear.
Fit the patch to the hole and adjust as needed. Mud the back edges and the paper of the patch and place in the hole. If needed hold up the patch across the front with a stick across the patch.Remove any excess mud fron the surface. You will finish the patch when it dries place
Good Luck Woodbutcher

If you have Sheetrock record splitting from your walls, it is best to take down the shedding record and set up new record. Here is how to do this. You will need Sheetrock record and Spackle or comparative paste.

There seems to be a slight difference of opinion as to whether tape is needed on a job of this size or not. I was hoping to avoid taping, so as to also avoid a hump and extensive feathering. But let's say I decide to play it safe and use the tape. Do I have to try and tape the circumference of the circle, or can I just place three or four pieces across the patch, effectively turning the circle into a square? As always, thanks for your advice.

If you go with tape, two parallel pieces would do it. It doesn't have to cover every bit of the joint to lock everything in place. If you tape, an alternative would be to use extra thin mesh tape, which is thinner than paper tape.

Follow-up: I bought a cheap but extremely effective hole saw kit from Amazon. There were about a dozen sizes, up to 5." I cut out the holes, backed them with wood where necessary, filled with drywall cut from scrap with the same size hole saw, taped, mudded, and painted. So far, so good. Thanks for everyone's advice. This is a wonderful site!!

You do not need to tape unless the hole lies on a seam. A small hole, in the middle of a sheet, will not crack if the patch is sufficiently backed. Cracking is caused by movement, but on an inside (small) hole there can not be any movement. Put in plywood strips behind the patch, as shown in the link below. I have used this method without tape with no cracking.

Here is a link that might be useful: Repair a Small Drywall Hole

"there can not be any movement."

Right up till someone leans on the wall.

I've had hairline cracking a couple of times when I didn't use tape, even though the patch was properly backed. It could have been a result of the location (ceiling patch with attic on other side, and wall patch on a poorly insulated exterior wall), but I've since just decided to always tape. I also do two things to minimize the hump and how large the feathering with joint compound needs to be:

1) I use a razor blade to slightly bevel the paper edges of the hole and the front and back edges of the patching piece. This insures that there is nothing sitting high around the edges, and that there is no roughness on the back side of the patching piece to cause the patch to sit proud.

2) I sometimes use a very thin cardboard shim so the wood backing is set slightly deeper. This allows the patching piece to sit a small bit lower than the surrounding surface; this helps with avoiding a hump while mudding. I have also found that new wallboard and old wallboard might not be precisely the same thickness, so you can adjust by shimming if you need to.

In this case, the person is patching a ceiling, so nothing is even going to touch that patch. And if you put in well secured plywood in back with screws in through the surrounding perimeter, the patch will stay put and no cracking will occur even without tape, provided it is a small doorknob type hole that is patched. But if it is an edge, or where two sheets meet, then tape. Also, a very large patch should probably be taped, although usually you would want to extend a large patch over to a stud, and then for sure you would tape.

No tape and you will get a crack in time.

Size doesn't really matter.

What's the big deal about using tape?

It adds structual intregrity and is nothing to apply.

I guess we all have to worry about something in this life.

I guess saving no money and no time is worth it to some.

Glad I have a life.

In my experience drywall_diy_guy is correct. His link is exactly how I do it as well. Often when you tape, you have to feather out way further. Taping adds work and not necessary when there is no chance of shifting.

Dan, do you realize this is a 4&1/2 year old thread?

Thanks, Dan. Now, HandyMac is correct about the age of the post, so let me update the results. I cut out and filled about 20 holes of various sizes. I did tape the big plugs, but not the small ones. With a fresh coat of paint, it all looked good. I only owned the house for another 11 months, but nothing failed or looked odd either way I did it.

Good for you, bshanley for the update!!!---will let folks know what happened.

Who cares if this is a 10+ year old thread? Did drywalling change in the last decade? People still find this thread via Google and come here to dialogue.

Interesting by the way that the opinion is split 50/50, with each side absolutely certain that tape is/is not needed. Maybe it doesn't matter that much?

Many of us care... why do you think it is an issue to start a new thread?

I agree on starting new threads. Some of these older threads get so long that people don't want to have to slog through them.

The length means a greater mass of data. A new thread fragments the information, necessitating looking in more than one place. I don't really think a couple of pages of text is too much to read through. Why do you think it's an issue to have more information available?

Actually, don't answer that. One of the few problems with long threads is they turn into bickering matches about something other than the original topic. Let's not do that. Right?

McFixit-

It wouldn't be a problem if people kept on target, but I've been on these forums over 10 years and these long threads almost inevitably start veering as people piggyback their slightly different questions on them, get into arguments and/or start sniping, or post redundant info prefaced by: "I didn't have time to read the other posts because this thread is so long, but here's what I think." Frankly, most questions can be answered with several responses, and it's more efficient for me to look through those than wade through the swamp. Each to his own....

I guess you have a point. A mod should be able to close the thread, no?

Although, leaving the thread open did allow bshanley to give an update to a previous post. Sometimes drywall cracks take years to show, and it's nice to know how things turn out.

Pros and cons.