Attribute Schema Library
Attribute schemabuilding materials & lumber

Drywall (Gypsum Board) Attributes

Drywall is gypsum board — a noncombustible gypsum core faced with paper or glass mat, sold in nominal thicknesses of 1/4 to 1 in., widths of 48 or 54 in., and lengths of 8 to 16 ft. Drywall subs buy it by the truckload, GCs buy to match an architect's submittal, remodelers buy two sheets.

The category is hard for one structural reason: the field that decides whether the board is legal in the wall is not the field the catalog carries. Catalogs carry "Type X." UL fire-resistance designs cite UL Type designations — SCX, FSW-G, AR, C — and never reference trade names. That code lives on the submittal PDF and the back paper, not in the ERP.

The rest compounds it. Every manufacturer wraps the same ASTM C1396 core in its own brand language — Firecode, Fire-Shield, Fireguard — so one core type arrives spelled six ways, and thickness lands as 5/8", 0.625 in., and 15.9 mm from three suppliers of the same panel. C1629 abuse levels and D3273 mold scores sit in submittal PDFs. Thickness x width x length x edge x core is a variant count nobody maintains by hand.

Core

Every SKU needs these. Without them the record is not a product, it is a row.

Board Type
enum
Type X

Determines where the board is legal: fire-rated wall, shaft, tile substrate, or ceiling. The first filter every buyer touches.

Nominal Thickness
number · in
5/8 in (15.9 mm)

Drives fire rating, framing spacing, and whether it hangs on 16 or 24 in. o.c. Buyers filter here before anything else.

Panel Width
number · in
48 in

48 in is standard; 54 in exists to hang 9 ft walls horizontally with no butt joint. Wrong width means an extra seam per wall.

Panel Length
number · ft
12 ft

Sets sheet count, waste, and whether it fits the truck and the stairwell. 8 to 16 ft, and the long lengths are branch-specific.

Edge Profile
enum
Tapered

Tapered edges take tape and compound flush; square edges need a skim coat. Decides the finishing labor on the job.

Facing Material
enum
Glass mat

Paper vs glass mat decides whether the panel can face weather or tile. Glass mat is the whole reason to pay the premium.

Weight per Square Foot
number · lb/sq ft
1.8 lb/sq ft

Sets hanging labor, truck loads, and freight. Lightweight lines are sold on this number and nothing else.

Brand / Product Line
text
Gold Bond XP Fire-Shield

Specs are written to a named line. Without it the submittal can't be matched and the sub orders from someone else.

Manufacturer Part Number (MPN)
identifier
14113411708

The only key that survives across the manufacturer's price file, the distributor ERP, and the contractor's takeoff.

GTIN-14 / UPC
identifier
00081099032653

Required for GDSN publication and retail item setup. No GTIN, no listing.

Differentiating

What buyers actually compare on. This is where catalogs win or lose the filter.

Mold Resistance Score (ASTM D3273)
number
10

The 0-10 chamber score. 10 is the ceiling and is what mold-resistant lines are sold on. A yes/no flag doesn't survive a spec review.

Abuse & Impact Class (ASTM C1629)
text
Abrasion L3, Indent L2, Soft L3, Hard L1

Levels 1-3 across abrasion, indentation, soft body, and hard body. Corridor, school, and healthcare specs cite the level, not the brand.

Maximum Framing Spacing
number · in o.c.
24 in o.c. (sag-resistant ceiling)

Whether 1/2 in. can go on a ceiling at 24 in. o.c. without sagging. The question that generates the most counter calls.

Nail Pull Resistance (ASTM C473)
number · lbf
77 lbf (343 N)

A submittal line item architects check. Also separates lightweight cores that hit the same number at lower weight.

Compliance & identifiers

Standards, regulatory data, and the identifiers channels reject you for missing.

Product Standard Compliance
enum
ASTM C1396/C1396M

C1396 for paper-faced, C1177 for glass-mat sheathing, C1178 for coated backing panel, C1658 for glass-mat panels. Not interchangeable.

UL Type Designation
identifier
SCX

The code UL fire designs actually cite. 'Type X' is not a UL Type. Without it, nobody can verify the panel against the design.

Surface Burning (ASTM E84)
text
Flame Spread 15 / Smoke Developed 0

Flame spread and smoke developed, as required on submittals. Standard gypsum board runs 15/0, Class A.

Country of Origin
identifier
United States

Required for GDSN and retail item setup, and routinely asked on public and federally funded work.

The fields that aren't in the schema at all

What most drywall catalogs are missing.

The table above is the schema most catalogs already have. These are the attributes that usually aren't in it — each one surfaced by a signal from the live market rather than by an audit of what's already there. This is what Anglera's Schema Foundry does on a real catalog, in this category.

Supplier signal
+ UL Fire-Resistance Design Numbers

UL lists gypsum panels under category CKNX, and every fire-rated design cites a Type code, never a trade name. Distributor records stop at 'Type X' — no field ties the SKU to U419 or U305.

Inspector rejects the wall because the panel's Type isn't in the specified design. Board comes down, gets rebought, and the substitution traces back to the distributor.

Search signal
+ Facer Color (face and back paper)

Buyers search 'purple drywall', 'green board', and 'blue board' by the color they see on the jobsite. Manufacturers print face and back paper color on every submittal; catalogs carry no color field.

Zero results for the term the buyer actually types. They call the counter or buy elsewhere — and nothing stops greenboard being sold as mold-resistant board.

Competitor signal
+ Tested Assembly STC

Acoustic panel lines are sold on STC and every manufacturer publishes tested assembly numbers, yet 'sound' stays a marketing bullet in the description instead of a numeric field a buyer can filter.

Multifamily and hospitality specs are written to an STC target. With no numeric field the SKU never surfaces, and the RFQ goes to whoever can answer the number.

Supplier signal
+ Water Vapor Permeance (ASTM E96)

Foil-back board exists solely to act as a vapor retarder, and the perm rating is the entire reason to buy it. Records list it as 'foil back' with the perm value left inside the submittal PDF.

The buyer can't confirm the board meets the vapor-retarder requirement in the wall detail, so it gets specified out in favor of a separate membrane.

Supplier signal
+ Pieces per Bundle / Panels per Lift

Gypsum ships two panels per bundle, banded face-to-face, and by the lift on a truck. Pricing runs per piece or per MSF while freight runs per lift; most records carry neither count.

Order quantities get entered in the wrong unit and trucks are loaded against a guess. Short shipments come back as credits and re-deliveries on a low-margin commodity.

How Schema Foundry finds these

Messy in, governed out.

The same value, spelled every way building materials & lumber suppliers spell it. A filter only works once they agree.

Nominal Thickness
5/8"0.625 in5/8 in.15.9 mm5/8inFive-Eighths
0.625 in (15.9 mm)

Fractions, decimals and the SI equivalent all appear, often on one submittal. Unnormalized, the thickness filter returns partial stock.

Board Type
Type XType-XTYPE XFirecode XFire-ShieldFireguard X
Type X

Firecode, Fire-Shield and Fireguard are brand lines, not core types. Collapse them to Type X and keep the brand in its own field.

Edge Profile
TaperedTETapered EdgeSquare EdgeSERounded (SW)
Tapered

Edge decides the finish method. Square edge needs a skim coat; tapered does not. A blank or free-text edge field makes the filter useless.

Mold / Moisture Feature
GreenboardMold ResistantMR BoardMold & Moisture Res.Moisture Resistant
Mold Resistant (ASTM D3273 score 10)

Greenboard is water-resistant backing board, not a D3273-scored panel. Merging the two puts the wrong board behind tile.

What buyers ask

Every one of these should be answerable from the attributes above. If it isn't, that's a gap.

  • Is this the 5/8 Type X listed in UL U419, or just a Type X core?
  • Will 1/2 in. work on a ceiling framed 24 in. o.c., or do I need sag-resistant board?
  • What does a 4x12 sheet weigh, and how many bundles fit on the truck?
  • Is greenboard OK behind tile in a shower, or do I need glass-mat?
  • What's the difference between Type X and Type C, and can I substitute?
  • Does this carry ASTM C1629 Level 3 abrasion for the corridor spec?
  • Are the long edges tapered? I'm not skim-coating this.
  • Is it 48 in. or 54 in. wide? The walls are 9 ft.

What channels require

The same SKU, different mandatory fields per destination.

Distributor webstore filter rail
Board TypeNominal ThicknessPanel WidthPanel LengthEdge ProfileWeight per Square Foot
Lowe's / Home Depot item setup via GDSN
GTIN-14Brand / Product LineNominal ThicknessPanel Width and LengthWeight per Square FootCountry of Origin
Spec syndication (ARCAT, BuildSite)
Product Standard ComplianceUL Type DesignationSurface Burning (ASTM E84)Mold Resistance ScoreAbuse & Impact ClassBrand / Product Line
LBM ERP order entry (BisTrack, Spruce)
Manufacturer Part NumberBoard TypeNominal ThicknessPanel Width and LengthWeight per Square Foot

Drywall data, in practice

Is 'Type X' enough for a fire-rated assembly?

No. Type X is an ASTM C1396 core performance definition — broadly, a 5/8 in. board that achieves a 1-hour rating in a tested assembly. UL classifies the actual panels under category CKNX and assigns each formulation a Type designation: SCX, FSW-G, C, AR and others. UL fire-resistance designs list those codes and never reference trade names, so a panel is only legal in a given design if its Type code appears in that design. Two 5/8 in. Type X boards from different manufacturers can carry different UL Types and are not interchangeable. Carry the UL Type designation as its own field, and carry the design numbers the panel is listed in.

What's the difference between Type X and Type C?

Both are fire-resistive cores under ASTM C1396. Type X adds glass fiber to hold the core together as the gypsum calcines. Type C adds more glass fiber plus vermiculite, which expands as it heats and offsets core shrinkage — so Type C outperforms Type X in the same assembly, and it is available in 1/2 in. and 5/8 in. Type C is not a marketing upgrade applied at will: it is specified because a particular design requires it, most often in area separation walls and shaft walls. Type C can substitute up for Type X where the design permits it; Type X never substitutes for Type C.

How many drywall SKUs should we expect after normalization?

Multiply the axes: nominal thickness (1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, 1 in.), width (48 or 54 in.), length (8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16 ft), edge profile, core type (regular, Type X, Type C, shaftliner, sag-resistant ceiling), facer (paper or glass mat), and features (mold, abuse, impact, foil back, acoustic). One manufacturer's wallboard line alone produces hundreds of orderable items, and any given branch stocks a fraction of them. The point of the schema is not to reduce the SKU count — it is to make every axis a filterable field instead of a phrase buried in the product title.

Which ASTM standard applies to a given panel?

It depends on the facer and the use. Paper-faced interior board — wallboard, backing board, coreboard, shaftliner, water-resistant backing board, sheathing, ceiling board, veneer base — falls under ASTM C1396/C1396M. Glass-mat exterior sheathing is ASTM C1177. Coated glass-mat water-resistant backing panel is ASTM C1178. Glass-mat gypsum panels are ASTM C1658. Surface burning is ASTM E84; standard gypsum board runs Flame Spread 15 / Smoke Developed 0, Class A. Physical properties — nail pull, flexural strength, core hardness, humidified deflection — are all measured per ASTM C473. Store the product standard as an enum, not free text.

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