Painting ceiling after water leak

[Dipak]

I had a small water leak in my house as one of the upstairs heaters pipe's was not connected properly and water over time changed my ceil colour to a gone-off yellowish colour in the corner which is directly below the upstairs radiheater. I have had this repaired and thought that by painting the ceil white i'll be able to get rid of the mark.....but suprise suprise its still there. I have given it 2 coats of white paint and when i paint it, it seems to have gone but when the paint drys you can still see it....Any ideas on how to overcome this? Someone suggested use oil paint on it, will that make it worst?

Please HELP!!!!!

Dipak

[Mrs Arkwright]

We had a bit of a stain on our ceiling, Mr A glossed over it first, then painted over the gloss with ordinary emulsionny stuff, two coats. Seems to have covered it up.

[hex2]

We had a similar problem last year. I bought some special paint for covering damp. My lovely OH ignored it and used an oil based white paint. Once that had dried we covered it with normal white paint. Year on it is fine.
You need to use something where you need to clean the brush with white spirits rather than water

[santana-mx3]

As stated above, you could try gloss and then go over it with emulsion afterwards.

If you want to use a proprietary product marketed specifically for the purpose, you could use Polycell Stain Stop or Thompson's Stain Block or even Thompson's Damp Seal (though that's intended for "damp" rather than water) from B&Q.

[lostfarmer]

We had the same problem and bought a specialist 'cover up water marks' spray can of paint (from B&Q can't remember the name). I was pretty dubious TBH, but a quick spray of the paint across the general area was all it needed- it just disappeared!! Brilliant! No brushes to wash either!

[amboy]

cheapest method is using gloss as a first coat and then emulsion it. The principle being that the water mark will not show through oil based paint.

[Davidboy]

Originally Posted by lostfarmer

We had the same problem and bought a specialist 'cover up water marks' spray can of paint (from B&Q can't remember the name). I was pretty dubious TBH, but a quick spray of the paint across the general area was all it needed- it just disappeared!! Brilliant! No brushes to wash either!

Yes I agree, used the same stuff, spray in a can, easy to emulsion afterwards. That was about 4 years ago, stain has not come back yet!


D

[PoorDave]

Spray on stuff works a treat!

Used it when we had a stain appear on our living room ceiling days before we put our old house on the market, and it slowed our pulse rates back down nicely!

Since it's a spray, you just need to be a bit careful to cover things up before you do it, or you get tiny white specks everywhere.

Ours was matt white, so we got away without having to paint over it, as it was the same finish as the rest of the ceiling

[nickj]

use a solvent based undercoat , the emulsion will stick to it much better than gloss

[Kelman_s]

Originally Posted by PoorDave

Spray on stuff works a treat!

Used it when we had a stain appear on our living room ceiling days before we put our old house on the market, and it slowed our pulse rates back down nicely!

Since it's a spray, you just need to be a bit careful to cover things up before you do it, or you get tiny white specks everywhere.

Ours was matt white, so we got away without having to paint over it, as it was the same finish as the rest of the ceiling

Bit of an old thread to pull back up, but I'm looking for this spray on 'cover up water marks' paint. Can't seem to see it online anywhere. Any ideas?

Thanks

[LandyAndy]

Originally Posted by santana-mx3

As stated above, you could try gloss and then go over it with emulsion afterwards.

If you want to use a proprietary product marketed specifically for the purpose, you could use Polycell Stain Stop or Thompson's Stain Block or even Thompson's Damp Seal (though that's intended for "damp" rather than water) from B&Q.

Originally Posted by nickj

use a solvent based undercoat , the emulsion will stick to it much better than gloss

I have used both of these techniques at different times.

Undercoat hid the stain but the emulsion had a subtly different look to it where it covered the undercoat even after several coats.

The Stain Stop worked perfectly but it is quite expensive given that you are unlikely to use much of it.

[keith969]

I've used PVA glue before - thin it down with water and paint on, wait to dry. Then paint the emulsion over it, it acts like a barrier.

[jenhug]

we used zinsser i think it was called on our ceiling after the porch leaked, it hasn't shown through.

[not_loaded]

I've used Dulux 1Step Primer Sealer Undercoat to great success.

PVA would probably do it though.

B&Q for both.

[besonders1]

Funny this thread appearing as I have just removed polystyrene ceiling tiles in the kitchen and emulsioned over the dirty ceiling. Once painted, the ceiling came up lovely but then an hour later, brown stain marks appeared in the same pattern as the old ceiling tiles were, (brown squares) I have tried painting over these 3 times with white emulsion but they still just re-appear. I wonder whether I should try using gloss spray paint as my back is starting to hurt, don't wanna paint the ceiling from scratch again!

[googler]

"Undercoat hid the stain but the emulsion had a subtly different look to it where it covered the undercoat even after several coats"

... to which I'd suggest - paint the whole ceiling with the undercoat, then emulsion the whole ceiling over the top of it.

[not_loaded]

It’s easy to get a bit obsessed with something like the finish on a ceiling.

In reality nobody looks that closely.

Chill.

[googler]

Surveyors look that closely.

Nobody wants the phrase "water staining to living room ceiling" in their HIP or Home Report......

[not_loaded]

They’ll look for the stains, not ‘a subtly different look’.

[LandyAndy]

Didn't mean to start an argument.

All I meant was that Stain Stop gave a perfect result but you have to buy it specially whereas undercoat gives a slightly less than perfect result (IME) but you are likely to have it to hand.