Field Register Drywall Insider

Drywall Insider

What a gypsum house stocks (FBM as the map)

A gypsum house is not a box store. The counter is built for the drywall sub: credit, scatter, will-call, and floor stock on the families a bid actually names. This page uses Foundation Building Materials (FBM) as a category map of those families — what a specialty interiors distributor publicly offers — not as a catalog reprint and not as a promise that every yard holds every line.

Official site: myfbm.com. Editorial stub: FBM (may not be live yet). Yard layer: Distribution. What mills make: Products.

Do not treat a national brochure as a takeoff. Confirm the mill, the thickness, and the floor stock with the counter that will load the truck. Find that counter on FBM’s own branch finder at myfbm.com. Drywall Insider does not publish a yard list, branch addresses, or phones.

Commercial wall-and-ceiling trailers and residential production trailers both buy here. The mix is not the same.

How to read this map

FBM’s public catalog and location pages list interiors families: drywall board, steel framing (interior non-load-bearing and structural), acoustic ceilings, insulation, EIFS, stucco / lath / plaster, cornerbead and trims, tape and finishing, access doors, fasteners, power tools, safety gear, jobsite storage, and related lines. Sister brands on the official offerings page cover insulation distribution, Hawaii-facing building materials, and doors / frames / hardware. Those names are a map. They are not SKUs, prices, or a substitution license for a listed fire design.

This publication does not copy catalog numbers, list prices, or marketing claims. It does not invent which pallet is on which floor.

Drywall board

Interior gypsum, fire-rated cores, moisture-resistant faces, shaftliner, glass-mat, abuse / impact, tile backer, and exterior gypsum sheathing. Paper-faced interiors are generally ASTM C1396. The listed UL / GA-600 design names the product; “5/8 firecode” is not a swap.

Commercial defaults to 5/8 Type X even on some non-rated walls because one thickness simplifies the floor. Shaftliner is a 1-inch liner, not ripped wallboard. Residential production lives on 1/2-inch regular and sag-resistant ceiling board. 54-inch stock is a market habit, not a national guarantee.

Steel framing

Interior light-gauge drywall stud and track, plus structural / exterior cold-formed members. Same mills, different ASTM families, different bid. Interior nonstructural members are ASTM C645 / AISI S220; structural members are ASTM C955 / AISI S240. EQ drywall stud is not a silent upgrade to structural 20-ga.

Public category language splits interior non-load-bearing (drywall stud, track, shaftwall, area-separation) from load-bearing / structural stud, track, headers, and jambs, plus clips, channel, and deflection track. Confirm gauge (mils) and coating at the counter. A commercial corridor and a wood-frame house are not the same stick count.

Acoustic ceilings

Grid, tile, wall molding, hanger wire, and the seismic accessories the drawings actually named. This is ACT (acoustical ceiling tile), not a gypsum lid with a different finish. Drywall-suspension tees that take board are a different family sitting next to lay-in grid on the same reflected ceiling plan.

A gypsum house stocks this family because commercial wall-and-ceiling shops bid it. Residential production rarely does. Confirm mill, edge (square vs tegular), grid width, and fire / humidity rating on the pallet — the national aisle is not the floor.

Insulation

Fiberglass batt, sound-attenuation blanket, mineral wool, and foam board that ride with interiors work — plus a sister insulation-distribution brand in the same family (see below). Thermal batt, SAFB, and mineral wool often sit in the commercial drywall number. Spray foam usually does not. Residential production typically lets an insulation contractor fill wood cavities before hang.

Do not copy an R-value or an STC from memory onto a bid. Pull the data sheet and the listed design.

EIFS

Exterior insulation and finish systems: foam, mesh, base coat, finish coat, flashings, and the tracks the system mill names. EIFS is a cladding system, not gypsum, and not the same as hanging rigid continuous insulation behind another skin.

Some wall-and-ceiling shops sell it. Many only hang the sheathing and leave the lamina to a specialty contractor. Read the invitation. Continuous insulation without an EIFS finish is a different page.

Stucco, lath, and plaster

Metal plaster base, weep and casing beads, corner aid, portland-cement plaster, and interior gypsum / veneer plaster. Three-coat stucco is ASTM C926 application and ASTM C1063 lath — not drywall tape on the elevation. Veneer plaster is a finish system on gypsum, not a stucco substitute.

W&C shops that still plaster will pull lath and plaster from the same interiors house that stocks Type X. Production residential hang crews usually do not.

Cornerbead and trims

Metal, vinyl, and paper-faced corner bead; J, L, and U trims; bullnose; and control-joint profiles. This is how a GA-216 gap and a board edge become a finished wall. Commercial Level 4 corridors and residential texture jobs buy overlapping profiles and different counts.

Control-joint trims are not corner bead with a different label. Price them.

Tape and finishing

Paper and mesh tape, ready-mix and setting-type compound, texture materials, primers, and the Level 5 / skim systems the mill publishes. Finish level is GA-214. Tape class is ASTM C475.

A commercial Level 4 corridor and a residential knockdown over Level 3 are different compound counts. Glass-mat faces have their own skim or primer-surfacer — follow the board manufacturer.

Access doors

Wall and ceiling access panels: gypsum-bead flange for taping in, exposed flange for tile / masonry / some ACT, fire-rated listed doors where the wall or ceiling is rated, attic and crawl-space hatches on the residential side. This is a missed bid line when the RCP is silent and the gypsum lid still has valves above it.

A plastic residential hatch is not a 1-hour corridor door. Fire-rated access is a listing, not a hole with a lid.

Fasteners

Board-to-steel, board-to-wood, gypsum-to-gypsum, lath, metal-to-metal, self-drill, collated coils. ASTM C1002 (Type S / W / G / A) and ASTM C954 (Type S-12 class) are the language. Collation is packaging.

Commercial hang defaults to Type S into light-gauge. Residential production defaults to Type W into wood. Do not send the wrong coil because that is what was on the last truck.

Power tools

Screw guns, collated systems, mixers, sanders, hoppers, snips, cutout tools — production gear, not a consumer kit wall. Board and stud still come from the gypsum house; this is the other cart. Mix differs: residential stilts and Type W coils vs commercial lifts, ATF, and Type S.

Safety gear

Hard hats, glasses, gloves, respirators, hearing protection, and related PPE the yard sells next to the fastener aisle. This page is not an OSHA manual. Commercial jobs will name a site requirement; residential production still owes silica and dust control to the crew. Confirm what the GC or the shop safety program actually requires before the will-call run is only “a box of screws.”

Related: Production tools (PPE sits with the tool mix), How to hang drywall.

Jobsite storage

Jobsite and tool storage boxes the interiors house sells as a family. Gang boxes and job chests are not drywall SKUs, but they ride on the same ticket as guns and coils. Commercial floors want lockable storage the GC will accept on the deck; residential production more often lives on the trailer. Confirm size and lock hardware with the counter — do not invent a model.

Related: Gypsum-house will-call, Production tools.

Doors, frames, and hardware (Unified Door brand family)

Hollow metal, wood doors, frames, and hardware. On FBM’s official offerings page this sits as a sister brand family — Unified Door and Hardware Group — not as a silent extra on every Type X pallet. Some W&C shops buy DFH from that counter; some never touch hardware.

Interior metal stud usually is in the drywall number. Frames, doors, and hardware are a separate yes/no on every bid. Residential production is prehung in wood, not this package.

Insulation distribution, PacSource, and RIS

FBM’s public offerings page lists a family of brands, not one aisle:

Those names are public brand families. They are not a license to assume every product is at the branch nearest the job.

Commercial vs residential mix

Commercial wall and ceiling. 5/8 Type X, shaftliner, light-gauge stud, ACT, mineral wool, deflection track, fire-rated access doors, hollow-metal coordination. Scatter onto the deck.

Residential production. 1/2-inch regular and sag-resistant ceilings, texture, Type W fasteners, wood-frame habits. Trailer drop, not a boom onto a high-rise floor.

One national house can feed both. Ask the yard you use what is on the floor this week.

Will-call, scatter, and the finder

Stock-and-scatter is the commercial default: the house booms or carts board onto the deck. Will-call is the short pallet, the specialty bead, the box of Type S coils, the access door that was not on the original load. Will-call only works if that counter actually stocks the SKU — confirm before the crew is standing around.

How to run it: Gypsum-house will-call.

Branch location is FBM’s job, not ours. Use the branch finder on myfbm.com. Do not call a box-store aisle a gypsum house, even when the parent company is in the same corporate family; the contractor counter remains the interiors yard.

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