Water damage should always be taken seriously. No matter how small or irrelevant it might seem right now, it is not likely to go away by itself. Instead, it is only going to get bigger in time and cause damage to the foundation and even pose danger to your health.
If you notice it early on you should take action immediately because the sooner you react, the less trouble you will put yourself through later on. We’ve asked the experts at KIC Restoration to give us a little insight on how to best deal with a water-damaged ceiling.
Find the source
After you’ve noticed a stain on your ceiling caused by none other by water, it’s time to conduct an investigation and find the source of the problem. Current weather can be one of the reasons: if you notice a leak after rain or snow, it’s quite clear that there are certain spots that might require repairs to prevent future damage.
If you can’t trace the source with the help from weather conditions, in other words, if you see big stains on your ceiling or walls during dry days, then the next suspect would be broken plumbing. Whatever the cause, there is no point repairing the structure if you hadn’t found the source, that would only be a temporary and a costly solution.
Get rid of damaged surface
After you’ve dealt with the source it’s time to start a reparation process by removing damaged ceiling. Make sure you wear safety equipment like mask and gloves. You would also need to cover the floor with an improvised plastic rug so that you can gather debris in one place.
If you noticed that a spot on the ceiling had swelled outwards then you can carefully poke it with a sharp object. If you see a whole section of the ceiling bent due to pressure of water then it would be best to just remove that whole part, as there is no point repairing it.
Drying
After you’ve made sure that leakage had been properly dealt with, and you’ve removed damaged parts of the ceiling it is time to dry the whole thing out. Depending on the size of the leak and surface affected you can use a hair dryer and fans to speed it up a bit, also you can open windows to get the air flowing.
You need to check if there was room for mold development. This is one of the direct risks to your health and needs to be handled properly.
Fixing
Depending on the size of the damaged area you would have a different approach to reparations. If you are dealing with only small spots, then you need to peel the damaged paint off, add primer and then add repaint after that whole area has been dried out.
It is worth noting that not all the damaged parts of the ceiling need to be removed in the reparation process, you can inspect them either by yourself, or contact a professional water damage company to help you out. You need to check if the water is not polluted, see to it that mold didn’t have enough time or conditions to grow, and lastly, estimate if the damaged area can still hold the structure and there is in no need for replacement.
If you’ve removed a bigger chunk of the ceiling then you need to cover it with a wallboard and tighten it up with ceiling screws. When you’ve made sure that the whole area has been covered, sealed and dried, it’s time to repaint the area, or maybe even the whole room to give it a fresh new look.
The whole idea is to react as soon as you notice a problem, the more you let it grow, the longer the reparations will last, and not to mention the costs.
