Lots of times I get called in because a customer has a ceiling repair problem. Many times they try and attempt to repair the drywall ceiling themselves. Typically they can barely explain visually the problem they’re having with their ceiling.The problems can range from , drywall cracks to ceiling texture repairs. Ceiling repairs are usually caused by some kind of water damage almost all the time and very rarely by someone damaging it from the ground by moving furniture. Many times customers want to put in lighting or something that uses electrical connections on the ceiling or sometimes there is some plumbing work to be done or repaired. And the plumbing pipes are between the floor joists and the ceiling.
The majority of ceilings are wooden frames called joists, and this is the support for the floor above. And the bottom of this joist is the support for the drywall ceiling which will be attached to it.
If for example you have a hole that was created for some reason whether you were exploring around inside the ceiling for something or you had a damage of some kind and you cut it out making a whole there are a couple of ways of repairing this. An older method is to cut a perfectly dimensioned square or rectangle hole. Then cut a perfectly dimension replacement drywall to fit this whole. Next you insert a couple of pieces of 1’ by 2’ strips of wood which you insert into the hole and straddle the hole, then fasten the piece of wood on both ends of the hole to secure the piece’s of wood over the hole, Note and measure where the strip of wood is so when you screw the drywall in place you don’t miss the wood strip!. Once you have your two pieces of wood secured, you can now insert the drywall cutout into this hole being careful that your piece of drywall you are inserting is not oversized causing the drywall to break. The piece that you’re putting in though should not be so undersized that you’re defeating the reason for inserting a piece of drywall.
Now that you have your piece of drywall inserted and scrape away some of the spray texture from the adjacent ceiling texture you can take some fiber tape and cover all the edges of the repair. You can now plaster over the tape in a few coats of drywall mud.
Another method of repairing a hole in the ceiling is laying a metal screen over top of the hole. Make sure that the whole as clean edges nothing protruding past the baseline of the ceiling causing the metal screen to have a bump in its or even worse not laying flat to the ceiling. These metal screens should be self adhesive. You can usually buy them in the paint store or at Home Depot or Lowe’s. They come in different sizes small medium and large. When you place the screening over the whole make sure that the surrounding area of the hole is clean and flat free of ceiling texture so the screening adhesive will stick to it. Then again you can start plastering over top with a few coats of drywall mud.
Sometimes with water leaks the water travels up and down the floor joist causing the dry wall to belly in a larger area. At this time you have to analyze and inspect where the drywall ceiling is still secure to the floor joist. Then you have to mark out the bad area, all the way around. I usually do this with a tape measure and either a long straight stick or a yardstick. I square up my hole with a tape measure to make sure that the hole is square. ones I have established and marked out my cut our use the yardstick or the longer piece of straight wood to use as a guide for both marking and or cutting out the drywall.
(I have this section in detail in another part of my blog, this will explain how you do this properly. You don’t want this large piece of drywall falling down from its own weight.)
Now that you have your drywall up and repaired and plastered you can go ahead as normal. You can sand the ceiling smooths from your drywall mud and prime it.
Now depending on what the surface finish was on your ceiling you can go ahead and either paint it, or you can spray your ceiling texture onto repaired drywall ceiling.
