Why did it have to rain today?

Lemoncurd

A couple of weeks ago some roofers came to fix our roof and replace the garage roof. All fine and we'd arranged for the ceiling under a roof leak to be repaired and replastered...
Then on Sunday we discovered the roof was still leaking so called the roofers straightaway and they explained that they hadn't been able to get the materials for the main roof (we'd asked for EDPM for a flat area) as their supplier was away until this week (why couldn't they have told us that before? on the day they said they were going to do it after the garage roof). They promised to come on Thursday, I explained the situation about the plasterer waiting to do the ceiling and they assured me it would be done before it rained as it wasn't looking like rain until later in the week and said we should go ahead with the plastering. The plasterer was on site and had finished his other work there so we decided to take the risk and he did all the work.
I phoned the roofers yesterday to check what time they were coming - they were in another town and couldn't do the work until today! Light rain was forecast so we were keeping our fingers crossed but woke up at 6am to thunder and a heavy downpour - it's been tipping down ever since and of course they can't do the job in the rain!

All our own fault for taking the risk with the ceiling but we felt we had no choice as carpets are being fitted on Monday so it really needed to be done before then, what a waste of time and money! Things are never simple are they...

Lemoncurd

What I meant to ask was is there a way of minimising any damage to the ceiling?
I thought that if I made a hole in it in the right place any water could come straight out rather than damaging a wider area or causing it to bulge again. A couple of weeks ago it rained over a few days and filled half a mop bucket so there was a fair amount coming through. My husband thinks it would be better to leave it.

Rhino666

Nothing is ever simple when dealing with unpredictable things like people and the British weather.

Unfortunately, unlike a tiled roof it is very difficult to temporarily repair a flat roof. If it had been dry, that self adhesive aluminium flashing may have worked if you knew where the leak was.

I would bite the bullet and chop a hole in the plastered ceiling. You will need to chop back to the centre of joists so that adding a new piece of plasterboard and making good will be possible when the flat roof has finally been repaired. Patching a small area of ceiling is an easyish job for a plasterer - talking as one who fell through my bedroom ceiling recently whilst boarding out the loft :-)