How do I dry the ceiling after burst pipe???

Shiranui wrote: »

Dear All,

after slaving for half of my life we finally got a gaf of our own - a semi-detached in Dublin 15 build in early 80s.
We moved in this April.

Yesterday the disaster struck - a pipe burst damping the ceiling over the ground floor.
It was fixed after a few hours by completely draining the radiators.

(pipe burst most likely in the upstairs bathroom area, most likely the radiator... - i need to take the tiles off to confirm)

My main query: How do I dry the ceiling after burst pipe???

Water was leaking through it for few hours - not massively, just dripping through. The water was leaking in a few places through the ceiling unfortunately.

Photos:

Big leak:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35828110/biggest%20leak1.JPG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35828110/biggest%20leak2.JPG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35828110/biggest%20leak3.JPG



Smaller leaks:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35828110/smaller%20leaks.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35828110/smaller%20leaks2.jpg




Thanks all in advance.

Probably won't be as bad as you think. We bought a house that had the cylinder robbed with the mains water on. As you can imagine there was a lot of water through the ceiling. By the time we bought it, it was dry but had a lot of stains. But its fine now after a couple of coats of paint. To dry it out you can use a heater with a window slightly open to remove moisture or you could use a dehumidifier. After drying there may be stains so you'll probably have to paint the ceiling. Id also get an electrician to test the circuits as well just in case (if it was a big leak)

Edit: Sorry just saw the pic with the plaster falling off, you'll obviously have some plastering to do too.

Shiranui wrote: »

tks for suggestions!

Yeah we tore plaster in this point because we initially suspected it could be in this particular place, but it was not.

I was wondering if there is a heater i could place between the ceiling and floor - i do have a hole after all..

BTW how long ago was your ceiling flooded?

Just heating the house in general to normal room temp should do it, just open a window a little to let moisture out. The house was un occupied when we bought it and was broken into during the sale process. The pipe feeding the cylinder was leaking for a good 6 hours before a neighbour noticed it and switched off the mains. This was in may. We got the keys two weeks later and it had already dried out itself. We just had to paint over the stains. So far I've noticed no problems with the plastering or mould. I had to get an electrical cert for the house anyway and just mentioned it to the electrician but he said everything seemed fine.

Not wanting to add to your troubles, but that looks like an Artex ceiling, which may well contain asbestos.

The safest and best way to deal with that is to re-slab and skim the ceiling when everything is dry.

You just need to be careful not to disturb the artex. If you can patch the hole without chipping away any more then you would be ok.