Today we began a small garage ceiling repair in West Seneca NY. There were missing drywall panels, and an area where the homeowner stepped through the ceiling. Its a lot easier to step through a ceiling than most people realize.
Its important to note that this ceiling is in rough shape. The drywall tape was not installed properly, or even finished, the ceiling is bowing in many areas, and overall, very wavy and deformed. This made drywall patching a bit more challenging.
This is a quick fix, for an ugly problem – per the homeowner.
Initially we were going to use the drywall lift to make our lives easier, however due to the rails for the overhead garage doors, it wasn’t going to work. So, instead of man-handling a 4×8′ sheet, in a confined space, we decided to cut the drywall into easier to manage pieces.
We always use moisture resistant drywall for all of our drywall work. Because we do a lot of water damage repairs, if it leaked once-.. Plus the cost difference between regular drywall, and moisture resistant drywall is only a couple dollars per sheet. We feel its worth the extra cost.
We squared off the hole from where the homeowner stepped through the ceiling, to make patching it easier.
We are not repairing the rest of the ceiling, we are only filling in the holes, and then priming our patchwork. The homeowners are moving, so they just wanted the garage ceiling to look somewhat presentable. Otherwise we would have repaired the poorly installed drywall tape from another contractor.
Day 2:
So we are back to prime our patchwork. As you can see the ceiling developed water stains as the result of the new drywall mud. This was expected. The moisture in the wet compound, mixes with the dust and dirt on the ceiling, and creates this ugly stain.
This is where most people make a mistake when this happens. Often, people will reach for the shellac or oil primer to block the water stain (waterborne primers will not seal a water stain). In our experience, they get overzealous and prime everything with the solvent-based primer.
The problem is that solvent-based primers raise the hairs in the bare drywall, creating a texture you cant get rid of. Not really a problem here but thats the wrong way to handle this.
The correct steps are waterborne primer > oil primer > waterborne paint. The stain will bleed through the waterborne primer, but will seal the bare drywall. The oil primer seals the water stain, and then we top coated with ceiling paint, so that the ceiling is some what more uniform in color.
Patches Painted
Before and After Ceiling Repair
