What to Do If There's Water Damage in Your Ceiling?
There are several steps that need to be immediately taken when you have found water damage in your ceiling.
Create A Temporary Solution
Before finding the source of the leak, it is vital to stop the water from dripping down and eventually flooding the surroundings. To do this, clear the general vicinity that the water is dripping onto, from the ceiling. Clear your furniture and nearby appliances to ensure nothing gets further damaged.
Place towels down to help drain and soak the water, and place a bucket directly down from the leak. Next, create a hole in the center of the leak, which allows more water to drip into the bucket you placed, instead of soaking the ceiling, and to give you more control over where the water goes.
Locate The Leak
Once you’ve created a temporary solution for the water to drip into, its time to track down the cause of the leak and repair it. Tracking down the leak isn’t as simple as it seems, as water can travel anywhere within the house, from the roof, to the basement and anywhere in between.
In order to help better locate the main cause of the ceiling water damage, you might need to cut a hole in the ceiling to find the path the water is coming from.
As leaks typically come from broken pipes, another way to locate the leak is by inspecting nearby pipes for damage or corrosion. Be sure to look out for cracks or holes. When doing so, equip yourself with a flashlight. The next way of finding the leak from pipes is by placing sheets of toilet paper, or any cloth along the pipes. Give it some time, and if there is a leak, the material would be moist, giving you a better understanding of where the leak might have came from.
Water damage might also have came from the roof, be on the lookout for obvious signs such as holes. Be sure to search your house as much as possible, and heavily inspect the nearby areas of the leak.
Repair/Dry
Once the source of the leak has been found, you should allow for all affected areas to thoroughly dry before starting the repairing process. Do so by giving it more open space, or utilize a fan to speed up the drying process. Once done, ensure that the source of the leak has been fully dried before continuing. If the leak is overwhelming, you may need to call a water cleanup service to help remove all of the water from the area.
Restore Your Ceiling
Now that you’ve settled the source of the leak, the last step would be to repair your ceiling. Such as replacing the affected walls/ceiling if it’s beyond repair, or repainting the ceiling if its a minor leak.
After that, you can simply replace your furniture and appliances if needed, and put them back to place, once ensured that there are no longer any water leaks.
Seek Additional Help
When having to clean up and repair your leaking ceiling it might be exceptionally hard. It’s always better to seek help a professionals like ourselves at ServiceMaster to help ensure your home will not be damaged due to the leak.