Bathroom Ceiling
This project tells of a disaster that turned into a less minor disaster which turned into a success. It should have been fairly simple, but became more complex than it should have. This is the case of the peeling ceiling. There were actually two problems experienced by The Crazy Engineer. The first was that the old exhaust fan had been replaced by a more modern unit with heat lamps and light – an IXL Tastic. The second was that the paint was peeling. I tried to repair the hole where the old exhast fan was located , and did an OK job. But trying to repair the paintwork did not work all that well.
To remove the paint, I tried to use Citristrip Paint Stripper. You can see the results. The end result was that I learned that Citristip does not work all that well on plasterboard, and makes things much worse. You can see how much worse in these photos.
So, how to repair the damage? Well, there is the correct solution, and there is the way I did things. The first thing to understand is that this is not a job that one person can do. Two can do it, but three is ideal. And I am not an expert, but I did a good job.
The Wrong Way
So what is the wrong way to fix this problem?
- Remove Cornices
- Remove Celing
- Screw and Glue new plasterboard to the ceiling
- Install new cornices.
- Finish the plaster work
The Right Way
- Remove Cornices
- Screw and Glue new plasterboard to the ceiling
- Install new cornices
- Finish the plasterboard
- You have to dispose of the old ceiling
- The old ceiling is very messy to remove
- You need to remove the insulation and rubish above the old ceiling before you remove it
- When you are screwing and glueing, you need to be more accurate since you only have the ceiling supports to attach to
- Cut the plasterboard to the size you want
- Put a LOT of builders glue on the top side. Buy the cheap glue ($2.50/cartridge), and use at least a cartridge per piece. Don’t go too close to the edge or you will wear the glue
- Push the plasterboard onto the existing ceiling
- Attach it with a lot of self-tapping screws. The screws will be removed later so they dont need to be countersunk.
- Repeat
- When the glue is dry, remove the screws
- Fill the screw holes and use plasterboard paper joiner to fill the gaps between the pieces of plasterboard
Seal and Paint
The last step is to seal the plasterboard with sealing paint, and to paint the roof. With some luck, the roof will look like new.