Customer Service The homeowner noticed a small water spot on the ceiling about six months ago and decided to wait to see if the spot grew larger. Over the next couple of months it did and the leak was identified on the roof at the flashing between the roof line and brick. After the flashing was repaired, the homeowner waited another couple of months to make sure the spot did not grow and the leak was fixed. Six months after the leak was identified the homeowner was ready to have the water damaged plaster repaired.
What follows was our step by step process to inspect the area for additional moisture, mold and repair:
1. Since this house was built before 1978 and with the EPA lead safe paint regulations passed in April 2010 we took the necessary precautions assuming all of the surfaces we came in contact with had lead based paint. The precautions we took to protect the homeowner and employees were as follows: 1. Removal of all furniture from the space. 2. Cover all surfaces (flooring, other walls, vents, & trim) that were not being worked on with plastic. 3. Plastic off any openings to other rooms as to keep any dust or debris encapsulated to the working space. 4. All workers wore protective EPA suits, gloves and masks to protect themselves from the lead paint and dust. 5. At the end of each work day all of the plastic was folded together to capture all of the paint debris, wrapped with tape, put in a large heavy duty garbage bag, sealed, disposed of off the job site daily and cleaning of the floors. The above process was repeated daily during the repair / preparation process.
2. Removal of the failed paint and plaster due to the water damaged by scraping the areas until we came in contact with hard (non water damage) surfaces.
3. Inspect the surfaces for additional water damage or mold. We cut out the plaster from ceiling and wall areas to check the lapboard for mold and moisture. There was no mold on the surfaces or moisture with in the wall / ceiling or lapboard. Now we could proceed forward with the restoration process.
4. We decided to install 1/2 inch Sheetrock Mold Tough Gypsum drywall (picture 4) to the areas where we removed the damaged plaster. We did this in case the areas developed water damage again so they could be more easily removed than plaster. After the drywall was installed we apply a thin skim coat of plaster (mix of USG Structo-Lite and 3M Joint Compound) to match the surrounding surfaces.
5. Once the plaster was dried the areas were dry sanded, cleaned and primed with two coats of Zinisser Cover Stain oil-based stain blocking primer. Once the primer was dried (approximately 2-3 hours) the repaired areas were checked for any imperfections, light patching and sanding to fix and ready for painting.
6. The walls were painted with two coats of Benjamin Moore Regal Select pearl finish in Moccasin (1059), ceiling was painted with two coats of Benjamin Moore Ceiling White vinyl acrylic latex flat 258 04 and the trim was painted with two coats of Benjamin Moore Advance semi-gloss White Blush (904).
7. Clean up the job site by removing all plastic, cleaning the floors with doing the EPA flooring test, putting all of the furniture back in the room and most importantly leaving the homeowner happy 🙂
