Quizzes & Puzzles2 mins ago
Water Stained Ceiling
Can one ever make a badly water stained white ceiliing (actual brown edges) ever look good again without reskimming/plastering? Does even that work?
Answers
Oil based undercoat painted over the stain before painting it with emulsion or whatever the ceiling is painted with, really works.
We've had three different episodes of water stained ceilings and have used this method each time, you really wouldn't know there had ever been a problem. Has to be oil based undercoat though.
The leak is now found and fixed. You've never seen such a mess of a ceiling. Required a 40 cm square of the plasterboard removed to fix the pipe above. Now filled with a new piece of board and very roughly filled with grey filler. Needs sanding down but the water stain extends around it and I don't know how it can be made to look good.
We have used those special paints on a much smaller stain, they are OK but not if the light catches it.
Hi Prudie, one of the best stain blockers is Zinsser Cover Stain Primer Paint White. A smallish tin would do for the amount you need, give a couple of coats and cover an area a bit larger than the stain. After it dries just give couple of coats of whatever you were going to repaint it with. Failing that in the past I have used oil based undercoat and gloss mixed together 50-50 and painted that on and left it to dry did the job just as well. Must be oil based though as anything water based will just bleed back through. Good luck.
For what it's worth, Prudie, I'm with 'shedman'. I'm always going on about 'Zinsser'.
However........... if it were me, I would simply remove the 40cm plasterboard patch, and cut out the stained bit completely.
If you're going to patch, then it makes sense to extend the repair to take in the whole stain. Very quick and simple job, then skim (plaster) over the new board and 'feather' the edges in to the existing surround.