Ceiling repairs can be required in many situations. If the upper neighbors are flooded in an apartment building of tenants, the cladding will swell, and the paint coating will go with stains. Whitewashing tends to crumble with use, paints and wallpaper coverings also lose their fresh appearance over time.
Ceiling repair options
Before you repair the ceiling in an apartment, you need to determine the required depth of restoration work. It depends on the degree of wear of the finishing layer and the surface of the base itself.
Wet
Such renovation of the ceiling always presupposes a serious amount of work and sufficient skill of the performer. Among the pluses, there is not so much dust and pollution as with a dry repair.
Dry
This method is faster than an equivalent depth wet repair. Can be performed by a person without special skills. It gives a lot of debris, so furniture and floors must be protected with plastic wrap. The more items you can take out of the room before work, the better. Eyes and respiratory tract must be protected with construction goggles and a respirator.
Deep
This category involves a thorough restoration of the ceiling, the need for which is caused by dampness, leakage, serious damage to the previous coating. They can be dry or wet.
Surface
Such methods are only dry. They are used to renew an even dry base. This includes, for example, shallow cleaning of the plane, followed by pasting with wallpaper material or painting with a special compound.
Precautions
Before repairing the ceiling, you need to assess what substances and chemical compounds can act on the body during the work. Almost always this includes construction dust, sometimes in large quantities. Eyes and respiratory tract must be protected from it with special devices.
If there has been a flood of sewage water, residents will need to remove the characteristic reddish stains. For this, aggressive compositions are used that contain substances harmful to health, some of which are volatile. When using such products, you should follow the step-by-step technology of work shown on the package and adhere to the manufacturer's recommendations.
It is important to select a reliable and stable ladder for repair operations. Shoes, in which you will have to stand on it, should not slip on the surface. Hair is pre-cleaned under the headdress. Clothes are selected from dense fabrics so as not to let construction dust to the skin.
Required tools and materials
- a grinder for at least 600 W and a wire brush;
- mesh and even timber;
- a nozzle and a container for the preparation of building compounds;
- roller and brushes;
- a vacuum cleaner;
- a set of spatulas with small working surfaces;
- polyurethane foam;
- level and pencil for marks.
It is desirable that building compounds (primer, paint, etc.) were produced by the same company.
In the past, a method of eliminating irregularities in the ceiling plane using a chain-link mesh was common. It was mounted on anchors, and a cement plaster with water-repellent additives was applied on top. Now this method is not worth using. During operation, the mesh begins to form red spots on the surface. The modern alternative to the chain-link made of polymers does not possess this property. If there are no serious differences, you can level the surface with special plaster compounds without using a mesh.
Work order
First you need to inspect the surface and decide what kind it should have at the end of all work. This includes the topcoat. When arranging a false ceiling, you do not need to spend time plastering the surface or making the base perfectly flat. Sometimes the plane subsides in the middle - then you need to examine the beams and determine what caused the subsidence. If cracks occur between the floors, they are cleaned and plastered. Alignment after this will need to be carried out around the entire perimeter. In case of flooding, the surface must first be allowed to dry completely. Then the condition of the plaster layer is examined. In the absence of peeling, putty is produced, having processed before this composition, preventing the formation of mold colonies.
The condition of the ceiling must be recorded with a photograph. This will help in identifying the cause of surface defects that may appear during the work process. Sometimes, in the midst of repairs, stains that were not visible at the beginning make themselves felt. This often happens when former homeowners used oil paint for the ceiling, and later it was covered with plaster. The fat is absorbed deeply into the concrete and can show itself in similar situations.
With deep repairs, the plane is cleaned to overlap, and then dried with a construction hairdryer. Using the building level, the flatness of the plane is assessed. If the differences are small (up to 0.5 cm), you can fix it yourself. With significant jumps (from 1.5 cm), you will need to invite a master plasterer. In this case, it is better not for homeowners to undertake repairs if there is not enough experience in leveling ceiling planes.
Ceiling repair methods
There is a large selection of ceiling finishes. They are represented by dyes and materials for pasting and sheathing.
Whitewash
This is a budget method that was popular in the old days. Now it is rarely used and mainly in utility rooms. This is due to the large number of attractive alternatives, as well as the tendency of the whitewash to peel off.
Finishing plaster
This method is also not associated with large financial costs, but it is not suitable for a bedroom or a nursery because of some tendency of such compounds to "dust", which irritates the respiratory tract. The method is simple in execution, but it places high demands on the surface evenness. If paint is applied over the plaster, the method is also valid for use in the bedroom.
Ceiling painting
Since it is carried out on plaster, the evenness of the surface is not necessary. But to complete the drawing, you will need to hire a professional artist.
Wallpaper
The budget option, easy to implement, allows you to choose a pattern that is in harmony with the design of the room. But the surface must be flat - the pasting highlights the defects.
Dropped ceilings
The good thing about this method is that the homeowner does not have to worry about leveling the floor. Communications can be hidden in the structure, and the final ceiling can be made of different materials and in any design solution.The only negative is a decrease in the height of the room by 0.1-0.2 m.
Stretch ceiling
Leveling is not required, "eating" of the height is less than in the previous method (0.05-0.1 m). But there is also a minus: communications will not work.
Overhead ceilings
Here, the ceiling is sheathed with plasterboard, plastic panels, clapboard or other material. It is mounted on a pre-arranged frame made of wooden blocks or metal.
