"The sky is falling...the sky is falling," said the Angeleno. Of course, what we really meant was we got some much needed rain this past week, which was a sight for sore eyes and parched land. It was all welcome until I came home to discover our ceiling was peeling large pieces of paint, all dropping faster than the value of the dollar. The deluge seeped through a small opening ontop our apartment building roof, resulting in an unpleasant musty odour and the threat of water dripping onto our floor. So I had to react quickly, since our slightly concerned landlord said he could not get someone over till the following morning...
What I did was gerry rig a simple contraption using some cooking twine, a drill with a drill bit, and a large plastic container that would give me a few extra hours of managing a leak until help could arrive the next morning. Basically, what I wanted to create was a directional flow for the water, rather than having it soak through and dripping willy-nilly all over our wood floors.
First we removed all the excess peeling bits of paint, trying careful not to let too much dust fly (it was damp and we also had two air purifiers operating while cleaning up). Then I drilled a small hole into the center of the damp patch, just large enough for me to poke some cooking twine through using a long thin nail. Fortunately the leak up above must have been fairly small, since there wasn't a waterfall awaiting us when I drilled through the ceiling. With the string placed into the ceiling, I placed a plastic receptacle below; the string works in the same way those rain chains work, giving the water a path to follow.
Luck shined on us a few hours later when the rain let up and the following morning a handyman was able to patch up the small holes where the water had seeped through. We still have a stained ceiling which will be replaced this week, and we're hoping there won't be any mold growth (only an inspection and sample will tell). In the following days I'll post a follow-up with the ceiling repairs, hopefully resulting a brand new ceiling without too much recognizable damage...hopefully (our landlord seems to hire very unskilled, albeit nice, gents for these sort of repairs). At the least, our cats have a new cat toy to play with with the string still hanging from our ceiling.
Clever damage control.
view rhonda vanderbeek's profile
yea you. i used to live a place where a week of steady downpour and some newspaper clogging the roof drains caused me a leak that turned into a fountain one Saturday morning.
the leak reappeared about a year later after the ceiling had been patched and all that. so glad I moved.
view Lady J's profile
Clever.
view Alana in Canada's profile
Great idea and good luck getting the landlord to repair it!
Mine leaked so bad and they blew me off about fixing it for a week that I decided it was best to move. It smelled and the carpet and dry wall were soaked through.
Here is the damage.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurar/sets/72157602125252370/
view Laura's profile
get ready to have a ugly patch on ur ceiling!
it's almost impossible not to notice the patch and the same color paint will just be a hint off.. just wait i have been looking at mine patch ceiling for months.
it bugs me!
view benja-dena's profile
molds!!!!
DO THIS RIGHT AWAY.... use clear packing-tape tape over (if it doesnt stick, repeat the process and throw out the mold infested tape in a bag) the dark and yellow marks of the ceiling so the moles won't fly off until your landlord fixes it!!!
very important DO IT NOW!
view benja-dena's profile
I'm going through waiting for building repair to come through as well. Good Luck!
But i just wanted to say i LOVE your wall cover and the red chair-stool
view sanna's profile
Sorry about th damage guys but at least it will give you guys a chance to paint that ceiling and wall over.
view orangejuce's profile
Patching just the ceiling is just a temporary fix. You really need to get to the roof and find out where the real leak is. I really like the string trick. Really neat!!!
view gallupgirrl's profile
I had a leak in my sitting room ceiling and although I think its been fixed we could never find where it was coming in. No matter what I did it was impossible to find, there was just the stain on the ceiling which felt damp; on the outside the roof was fine. I was told that water could be coming in a long way from where it appeared on my ceiling. Numerous repairs plus a paint job on the roof later, I can only hope for the best.
I think the string trick was neat and wish I had known about it, when I looked at the ceiling and saw the drip. (I found putting a towel in the bowl underneath stopped splashing, btw.)
view Battling Betty's profile