Water leak - ceiling damaged?

[mattjgalloway]

Hi all,

Just moved into our new flat and a few days down the line and we notice a plaster smell in the spare room. I finally tracked down what was causing it and the toilet upstairs was leaking during flushing. I've fixed the leak now, but I noticed just this morning that the water has started to seep through into the room downstairs. That must be what has been causing the problem!

We've been ventilating the room well (because of the plaster smell) and it's only been about 5 days of leaking (and only during flush, not all the time) and now I've pulled out as much around the toilet as I can (without taking up the floor) and have mopped up as much as I can. When I left the house this morning there was no longer any water dripping down the wall downstairs.

But, now I want to know what I should be looking for with respect to permanent damage to the ceiling and also how best to stop mould from growing. Any advice on that?

 

[cantaloup63]

Leave it to dry for a couple of weeks or so, and air the room while your in, then paint a bit of stain-stop on it before overpainting. Unless the ceiling has sagged then this will probably suffice. If it has slumped, then it could be one of several things - the easiest being the paper has come loose or at worse a bit of the ceiling needs to come down and re-boarded and patched. Not expensive or difficult for a half decent plasterer.

For such a relatively short amount of sporadic leakage, it will be highly unlikely that any structural damage has occurred or that mold will take hold.

 

[mattjgalloway]

Leave it to dry for a couple of weeks or so, and air the room while your in, then paint a bit of stain-stop on it before overpainting. Unless the ceiling has sagged then this will probably suffice. If it has slumped, then it could be one of several things - the easiest being the paper has come loose or at worse a bit of the ceiling needs to come down and re-boarded and patched. Not expensive or difficult for a half decent plasterer.

For such a relatively short amount of sporadic leakage, it will be highly unlikely that any structural damage has occurred or that mold will take hold.

Excellent! Thanks for putting my mind at ease! I've just been home for lunch and had a look and it's already drying nicely. We're also buying a fan heater and a normal fan which we'll use to give a bit of air circulation to aid drying.

The water appears to have only come in patches with one main one but it's not that wide. There's no visible sagging yet so I guess it should all be fine.

Thanks again! It's scary business this whole owning a house malarkey!

Matt

 

[NickB_99]

Just moved into our new flat and a few days down the line and we notice a plaster smell in the spare room. I finally tracked down what was causing it and the toilet upstairs was leaking during flushing.

Hi Matt.

Did your flat have previous owners/tenants or was it new build?

The nag at the back of my mind would be if there were previous owners & they knew of this and couldn't be a*sed fixing it, it may have been going on for a bit longer than you think.

If it was me, I would want a look under the floor around the offending area just to make sure.

If this is not possible or you are happy it really is a short time period - Canteloup's advice is good.

 

[cantaloup63]

Wouldn' bother too much with a fan heater - let it dry naturally (less likely to crack), especially as the weather is still quite mild.