Basement drywall
Basements
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Drywall in Frederick & Central MD
Moisture-resistant board
The right board in the rooms that get wet — mould-resistant on bathroom and laundry walls, cement board or a membrane behind tile, and ordinary board kept well away from the shower.
Licensed & insuredFree written estimatesFrederick-based crewClean-site guarantee
Quick answer
What does moisture-resistant drywall cost in a Maryland bathroom?
The board itself is only an 18 to 35 cent per square foot uplift over ordinary drywall, so an average bathroom boarded and finished lands at $850 to $2,100 in 2026. The larger number is the wet area: cement board in a shower surround is $450 to $1,100 and a liquid or sheet waterproofing membrane is $9 to $18 per square foot applied. We quote those separately so the choice is yours to see.
The work
What wet areas actually involves.
Ordinary drywall is gypsum wrapped in paper, and paper is food. Put it somewhere that spends an hour a day at high humidity and the paint will hold for a while, the paper behind it will not, and what grows there is why a five-year-old bathroom can smell wrong with nothing visible on the surface.
The answer is not one product but three decisions. Mould-resistant board — fibreglass-faced or treated, with no paper to feed — on bathroom and laundry walls and ceilings generally. Cement board or a proper waterproofing membrane in the wet area itself, meaning the shower and tub surround, because that surface is behind tile and will see standing water rather than humidity. And ordinary board everywhere else, because specifying the expensive option for a whole house is a way of charging you for rooms that do not need it.
What goes wrong most often is not the board choice, it is the transition. Mould-resistant board that stops two inches inside the shower, or cement board butted to gypsum with nothing sealing the joint, puts the weakest material exactly where the water goes. We set those transitions deliberately and show you where they land before the tile covers them.
Mould-resistant as standard
Cement board behind tile
Membrane where water sits
What wet areas costs in Maryland
Quoted as an uplift over standard board plus the wet-area work itself. The waterproofing in a shower is priced as its own line because it is a different material and a different trade step.
- Mould-resistant board, uplift
- $0.18 – $0.35 per sq ft
- Average bathroom, boarded and finished
- $850 – $2,100
- Cement board in a shower surround
- $450 – $1,100
- Waterproofing membrane, applied
- $9 – $18 per sq ft
- Shower niche, formed and waterproofed
- $180 – $420
- Laundry room, boarded and finished
- $600 – $1,400
Ranges, not quotes. Real numbers come from a walkthrough — access, condition, height and finish level move a price more than square footage does. Estimates are free and in writing.
Get your numberFull wet areas cost guide for MarylandPrefer to just talk?
Call and describe the job. You’ll get a straight answer on whether it’s something we do and roughly what it runs.
(301) 524-1729
Self-performed
Moisture-resistant board
What’s included
Everything the wet areas scope actually covers.
Written into the estimate, not assumed. If something on your job is not on this list, it gets priced and named before anyone starts.
Mould-resistant board in wet rooms
01Bathroom and laundry walls and ceilings as standard. The facing has no paper, which removes the food source rather than just slowing the problem down.
Cement board or membrane in the wet area
02Behind tile in showers and tub surrounds, where the surface sees liquid water rather than humidity. Gypsum of any grade does not belong there.
Transitions set past the splash zone
03The change from one board to another placed well clear of where water lands, taped and sealed properly, rather than landing at the edge of the tile.
Ceilings specified for steam
04Bathroom ceilings boarded for the humidity they actually see, and a word with you about whether the extract fan is doing its job, because the board cannot fix ventilation.
Ordinary board where it belongs
05We do not upsell moisture-resistant board for the whole house. It goes where the water is and nowhere else, and the quote shows which rooms got which.
Niches, benches and curbs detailed
06Built-in shower features treated as part of the waterproofing rather than as shapes to tile over, because that is where most shower leaks start.
On the job
Drywall work across Frederick & Central MD.
What the trade looks like at each stage. Photos of our own recent jobs come out at the walkthrough, on the actual house.
Straight answers
Wet areas questions
Not covered here? Call and ask — you’ll get a real answer, not a “depends on the job”.
No, and this is the most common mistake in a bathroom. Moisture-resistant board — the green stuff, or any of the modern paperless equivalents — is designed for humid air, not for liquid water sitting against it. Behind tile in a shower or tub surround the correct substrate is cement board or a waterproofing membrane system. Green board belongs on the rest of the bathroom walls, where it does a genuinely useful job.
In a bathroom, laundry or basement, yes, and the arithmetic is not close — a few cents a square foot against opening a wall back up. In a bedroom or a hallway, no, and we will not specify it there. The reason it works is simple: the facing is fibreglass or treated rather than paper, so even at high humidity there is nothing for mould to feed on. It is not waterproof and does not replace a membrane.
Possibly, but the usual culprit is the extract fan — either undersized, ducted into the attic instead of outside, or simply not run long enough after a shower. Mould-resistant board will stop the ceiling itself feeding the growth, and that is worth doing when the ceiling is open. But if the humidity has nowhere to go it will find the next surface, so fix the ventilation at the same time.
Same crew, same visit
The rest of the drywall work.
Most drywall jobs are two or three of these at once, which is why they are priced and scheduled together rather than as separate call-outs.
From the field
Read up before you book.
Longer answers than a quote page has room for — how the work fails, what putting it right actually involves, and when waiting is the honest call.
Sources worth your time
Check us, and check the work
None of these are ours. They are the offices and standards bodies that set the rules we work to, so you can verify what we say rather than take it.
EPA indoor air quality
Damp drywall, mould and construction dust are air-quality problems as much as cosmetic ones. Plain guidance from the EPA on both.
OpenEPA WaterSense
Flow rates for taps, showerheads and cisterns, and what the WaterSense label on a fixture actually certifies. Useful before you buy, not after.
OpenTile Council of North America
Publishes the TCNA Handbook, the installation-method standard that tells a tiler which membrane, backer and mortar a wet area actually calls for.
Open
Talk to the people doing the work
Get a straight number for the whole job.
Tell us what needs doing. We’ll walk it with you, sequence every trade it touches, put the price in writing, and leave you to decide.
Get a quote
Let’s price your project.
Two short steps. No obligation, no pressure — just a clear number and a straight answer about what the job involves.
Tick as many as you like. Most jobs are two or three of them at once, and I sort out the detail when I come and look. Nobody gets turned away for choosing the wrong box.
