Plastering Ceiling

[spiidey]

We had a bit of water leaking from underneath the bath, which we’ve now fixed however it left water circles on the ceiling of the garden room directly underneath, which cracked resulting in some of the plasterboard coming off. I removed all plasterboard that had cracked or flaked, and tried to recover with Polyfiller, however, its left the ceiling looking as it does in the attached picture.

What’s the best way to correct this?



anonymous picture upload


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[roy c]

When you said you removed all the plasterboard that had cracked and flaked, did you cut the whole of the board out and replace with new board? If not then what ever you put on the damp board it wont dry!! If plasterboard gets wet then it has to come down and new board put back.

 

[spiidey]

When you said you removed all the plasterboard that had cracked and flaked, did you cut the whole of the board out and replace with new board? If not then what ever you put on the damp board it wont dry!! If plasterboard gets wet then it has to come down and new board put back.

I just used a bit of sandpaper to brush off the flaky bits of the plasterboard/paint.

The water originally leaked through in summer 2011, and we'd left it untouched until a couple of weeks ago. Will the plasterboard not have dried by that point, or if it has is it still unusable in terms of applying polyfiller/paint to it?

 

[roy c]

I think it proves that it is either not dry or or is unstable by the way it has flaked and there looks like a couple of water stains in your picture. You also said that you removed the plasterboard and plaster.If you put the polyfilla on too thick then painted it may have caused the flaking effect...Have you completely cured the leak? If it is under the bath, have you put the panel back on ? It may be worth taking it off and having a look..

 

[spiidey]

I think it proves that it is either not dry or or is unstable by the way it has flaked and there looks like a couple of water stains in your picture. You also said that you removed the plasterboard and plaster.If you put the polyfilla on too thick then painted it may have caused the flaking effect...Have you completely cured the leak? If it is under the bath, have you put the panel back on ? It may be worth taking it off and having a look..

We didn't actual remove any or much of the plasterboard, just sandpapered off any bits that were flaking.

Have removed the bath panel and checked under the bath again and no further leakage.

How would we "completely cure the leak"?

 

[roy c]

I think it proves that it is either not dry or or is unstable by the way it has flaked and there looks like a couple of water stains in your picture. You also said that you removed the plasterboard and plaster.If you put the polyfilla on too thick then painted it may have caused the flaking effect...Have you completely cured the leak? If it is under the bath, have you put the panel back on ? It may be worth taking it off and having a look..

We didn't actual remove any or much of the plasterboard, just sandpapered off any bits that were flaking.

Have removed the bath panel and checked under the bath again and no further leakage.

How would we "completely cure the leak"?

To completely cure the leak I would get a plumber to check it If you are not sure about it.

 

[spiidey]

To completely cure the leak I would get a plumber to check it If you are not sure about it.

Do you mean the leak that was originally under the bath, or any residual water still in the plasterboard?

If the former, we had a plumber out to check it and seal it.

If the latter, how do we cure the leak/plasterboard?

 

[cajar]

The plasterboard is knacked and needs replacing, ie pull the ceiling down till you see joists and put up new plasterboard, skim and paint it. You have only sanded away a flaking layer of paint then tried to apply polyfilla and paint to a poor surface.

 

[spiidey]

The plasterboard is knacked and needs replacing, ie pull the ceiling down till you see joists and put up new plasterboard, skim and paint it. You have only sanded away a flaking layer of paint then tried to apply polyfilla and paint to a poor surface.

How difficult is this to do - would we need to get someone in to do it?

Also, do we just cut a square of plasterboard around where the water has leaked and replace that bit with a same-shaped piece of cut plasterboard?

 

[cajar]

It can be a diy job, but I get the impression from your posts that you probably dont have the experience or tools needed.

 

[spiidey]

It can be a diy job, but I get the impression from your posts that you probably dont have the experience or tools needed.

I don't but would be willing to at least consider it if someone could point me in the right direction of tools / rough guide to removing that piece of plasterboard and putting up a new piece of plasterboard.

 

[kingandy2nd]

The plasterboard is knacked and needs replacing, ie pull the ceiling down till you see joists and put up new plasterboard, skim and paint it. You have only sanded away a flaking layer of paint then tried to apply polyfilla and paint to a poor surface.

How difficult is this to do - would we need to get someone in to do it?

Also, do we just cut a square of plasterboard around where the water has leaked and replace that bit with a same-shaped piece of cut plasterboard?

Hello there,

It's the 'skim' but which will prove difficult as this means plastering the whole ceiling with a fresh coat of plaster.

Is the ceiling already skimmed or is it just painted plasterboard?

You could start with getting yourself a plasterboard saw (which is pretty cheap) to cut away the old pb. Try and cut it square or rectangular unil you find the wooden joists in the ceiling above. Cut the pb so that some of the old pb still covers half the width of the joist and then screw those edges to the joist. Cut a new bit of pb to fill the gap in the ceiling and screw that along the edges to the other side of the exposed joists.

You can then get plasterboard joint tape and joint filler to tape the joint between the old and new pb and then to fill it. Do a fairly wide strip of filler. You could then try to sand the filler once dried and see how it looks, and whether it's worth painting and leaving at that. Sometimes you can get away with it, but the preferable option is to skim the whole ceiling rather than fill the joints.

Even if it doesn't look great and you decide to skim it or get it skimmed at a later date, providing its done properly you've done a lot ofte prep needed for the plasterer.

Cheers
Andy