The original post: /r/diy by /u/eoJmIiH on 2024-11-11 17:01:30.
Hi All - We bought this house about 2 months ago and when we did the inspection the textured paint in the bathroom ceiling (outside the shower) was clearly separating from the drywall ceiling a little. It was only in this one spot and was the size of a golfball give or take.
The seller said there was a small roof leak which they had fixed and that is where it was patched/repainted. We went into the walk up attic and saw some water stains on 2 adjoining pieces of the plywood flooring right above where the issue was and the inspector said it looked like they caught the leak quickly because the plywood was in very good shape and there were no other signs of leaking from the roof. The plywood is nailed down so we were unable to pull it up and investigate further.
That gets us to today, I think with the increased use of the shower we started seeing the sagging/separating was becoming larger and more noticeable. So I poked it with my finger to see how soft it was, my finger went right though it fairly easily. Spouse, upon seeing new ceiling hole, wasn’t super enthused. We put a new roof on a few weeks ago and verified there was no new leaks anywhere. There are no signs of plumbing being in this area.
I ended up manually removing parts of the surrounding area to see how extensive the softness was. The size of the hole is basically everything I was able to easily pull apart and you can clearly see some wet insulation just hanging out touching the wood. The wood itself feels fine when I poked it with a screwdriver. Didn’t easily peel apart and wasn’t mushy at any level. I’m working under an assumption that the insulation get wet and the humidity just got trapped with nowhere to go. I can’t tell what might be mold vs wet insulation vs drywall.
In 6-9 months we are going to be renovating this entire floor (completely changing the layout and increasing the size of this bathroom) so I’m trying to find a good balance of resolving the immediate issue and not putting a ton of money into something that will end up getting ripped out soon.
This is my plan of attack - I’m looking for any feedback on items I might be missing or what to look do better.
- Tape some plastic over the hole in the ceiling to prevent insulation/junk from getting into the bathroom
- Go go into the attic to remove the plywood floorboard(s) above the hole/wet spot and pull out any wet insulation
- Inspect the area to any wood/drywall/other types of damage or growth
- Spray the area with a bleach/water solution to treat any mold looking items I might find (it looks to be crazy might call someone in to do mold remediation)
- let the area completely dry out and install new insulation
- put back the plywood floorboards.
- In the bathroom cut out the area in red around the hole and patch with new drywall (I won’t bother texturing it since we are going to remodel next year).
- make sure to tell contractor doing the future reno of patch work in case there is anything they need/want to do to clean it up down the road.
It doesn’t look like fiberglass insulation so I’m planning on getting a few M95 masks and wearing gloves/long sleeves.
Thoughts/feedback/suggestions?