Ceiling tapered drywall joint falls between furring strips. How do I align the edges?

Question

I was in a hurry and I did not realize that if I use an entire sheet the joint with the next piece will fall between the furring strips. This is on the ceiling.

Since the two tapered edges (the 8' edges) are not screwed to anything obviously they are not completely level. From what I am reading a solution would be to add a backer board and screw the edges to it. Is that ok?

Update: The biggest challenge with adding this backer board after the fact is that you need to keep the backer board centered on the joing so I ended up drilling two holes at each end, all of them on the median longitudinal axis and I pulled a piece of wire through them to keep the board centered and at the end to pull the board downward while putting in the screws . At the end I removed the wires

Final result

Answer 1

Yep, just float a backer of some sort. Anything that will hold a screw will do. Between the various adjacent tape joints and the rigidity of the drywall it'll finish just fine. This should be the exception, not the rule, of course. You probably wouldn't want to float the edges of all sheets across an entire ceiling.

One caveat: If you're floating an entire long edge you're losing a substantial quantity of the fasteners which would normally carry the weight of the sheet. To compensate, add more to the nearby joists you cover with that sheet and the adjacent sheet.

This is actually a legitimate technique for creating very flat ceilings (and walls). It involves using floating backing along with thin furring strips set back a few inches, resulting in a depressed butt joint similar to the tapered edge joints.

It's also how many patch repairs are done after doing work in the framing, such as plumbing or electrical.

Answer 2

your furring should be level enough that the edges do align perfectly, but even then you still need backing you can use wood or you can glue drywall strips to the back.

Answer 3

The only way I know to correct this problem is to remove some of the drywall and replace it correctly. Do it right the first time and you will not experience this problem. Furring strips are supposed to be set at 16" centers so this will not happen. I know of no other way to fix this problem.

After adding the link and picture that shows the backer board, that would be an OK fix

my 2 cents.