Painting Out Water Stains

If your roof leaked during one of those winter gales or downpours and left ugly stains on your ceilings, there are a couple of tasks that will need to be done to restore the area back to normal.

After the leak has been located and fixed, the wet ceiling panel will have to be dry before repainting can begin. Check in the roof space to see if the insulation is still wet. If so, lift it off the ceiling to allow air to circulate in order to help dry the ceiling and the insulation.

Once the surface to be repainted is dry, use fine sandpaper to help remove grease, dirt or loose paint and then dust the area clean. You should now be ready to apply paint.

In most situations an undercoat of oil based sealer-binder will be required to prevent the stain appearing on the newly painted ceiling.

If an ordinary water-based ceiling paint is used, the water stain will often continue to be drawn from the ceiling and through the paint.

This may not always appear as soon as the paint is applied but will tend to worsen as the paint dries. Follow the drying time instructions on the paint tin and check to see what type of top coat is compatible with the sealer-binder. You can then apply a suitable top coat to match the rest of the ceiling or re-paint the whole area.

The last task will be to replace insulation which may have been moved when drying the ceiling panel.

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