How to deal with the consequences of a ceiling flood
Today we will answer Angel's question, who wrote to us with a question for #AskMana
Some of you may have encountered this problem due to a leaking roof or an accident caused by neighbors. Today we will talk about how we can repair the ceiling from the traces and the steps we need to take.
Eliminating the cause of the flood
The first and main step towards repairing the consequences of a flood is to ensure that we have prevented it from happening again. The cause of the flood has been eliminated. If we ignore or underestimate the problem, we risk it repeating many times and making the repair you are about to do meaningless.
After that, we need to wait for everything to dry thoroughly.
The following effects of the flood may occur:
- Yellowish-brown discoloration
- White discoloration
- Appearance of moss
- Peeling of paint or plaster.
It is possible for the paint or plaster to fall off down to the render.
Preparing the area
Once you are sure that everything has dried well and the problem has been eliminated, we begin to remove all areas that are a weak base. Swelling of the paint or plaster may occur. The appearance of blisters or even its falling off. We need to scrape off everything that is loosely attached.
This can be done with a professional scraping trowel such as the LEVEL 5 painter's trowel 9 in 1 which you can order here
Or if you have to improvise with the available materials, you can do it with an old trowel. However, we recommend that it is not one you use for plastering, as you will damage it during scraping.
You can watch these videos to learn how to maintain your tools
Or if you have problems with rust, this video.
Strengthening the base
After you have removed all weak areas and the base is sound, you should prime the surfaces with a deep penetrating primer, which you can order from here. Soak the area well and be careful not to splash adjacent walls. Then let it dry thoroughly.
Plastering the area
The next step is plastering the area. Here there are basically 2 options depending on the depth we need to achieve.
For deeper holes, we need to use hardening materials such as gypsum-based ones.
If we only need to plaster a few millimeters, we can use drying materials like those in buckets. They are drying and if we try to apply a thick layer of them, only the superficial one will dry. They do not fully harden, but dry from atmospheric conditions.
You can see the difference between these materials in this video
If the problematic area has cracks and is too weak. If anything worries us, we can reinforce it with glass fiber veil, which you can order here.
But if you don't have glass fiber veil, you can compromise and use thermal insulation mesh, which is applied with gypsum material and embedded in the screed. It cannot be applied with ready-made drying putties.
Whichever material you choose to use must be embedded in the plaster. That is, the material is applied, the glass fiber material or mesh is placed, and then more material is applied on top. Then we level with a trowel like OX ULTRA FLEXIBLE, which you can order here, or a knife like the OX SPEEDSKIM, which you can order here. For greater leveling, we can use a larger size.
Sanding the finished plaster
After plastering, wait the necessary technological time for the material to dry. After that, you can apply a second and third coat of plaster. Between the different coats of plaster, you can sand off any irregularities that have occurred and wipe with a damp cloth. However, it is important to wait for the plaster layers to dry completely, otherwise you risk them separating and not adhering well to each other.
Then you should sand the area. You can check out the different offers we have here
Priming before painting
After that, you need to prime, you can do it again with deep penetrating primer.
Be careful not to have drips and runs of the primer, this is very important. If we allow drips and runs, this can prevent the paint from covering the area. A relief can also be created from them.
After you have plastered and if there are no visible stains left, you can paint with ordinary paint.
But if you still have visible marks, you need to paint with stain paint, which you can order from here. When painting stains with ordinary paint, they penetrate through the paint and show through. Stains of this type are very stubborn and often bleed through the paint and remain visible.
Repainting the entire ceiling
The last step is to paint the entire ceiling to unify it, otherwise you will have a visible patch where you made the repair.