Plumber screwup leads to stained ceiling

[Mike]

I had a plumber in a few weeks ago working on some of our toilets. He re-installed the toilet in the master bathroom and all was well. The next day I noticed the ceiling in the laundry room (directly below the master bathroom) had a stain on it that indicated a leak from above it. I called the plumber back out and he said the flange was cracked and would need to be replaced. That's all taken care of now, but the stain on the ceiling is what I'm here to ask about. Some time after I initially noticed the stain on the ceiling, I looked at it again and there were little brown drops all over it, kinda looked like pancake syrup. None of them dripped to the floor. I left it there so I could show the plumber upon his return. I looked at the ceiling again a couple hours later, and the drips were gone. They seem to have gone back into the ceiling (well, they weren't on the floor).

Now what? Repaint the ceiling and forget about it?

Thanks a lot....

Mike

[bob haller]

sandpaper to remove everything loose, seal with oil based kilz or bin, then repaint with whatever you usually use

[DerbyDad03]

The browns drips might have been nothing more than dirt that the water picked up as it travelled over the joists on it's way down. When ice dams caused leaks into my house a number of years back, the water was pretty dirty by the time it dripped out of the casing above the windows and doors.

Consider yourself lucky that you caught your minor leak in time.

A young couple bought a house down the street from me. They were doing a lot of remodeling so they were living at Mom's house during the week and working on the house all weekend. They had a plumber do some work in the upstairs bathroom on Wednesday. When they came back Friday night there was water flowing out of the back door. They ended up having to gut the kitchen and dining room, including the hardwood floors, but they had to wait while the insurance companies fought it out before they could hire contractors to do the work.

[HeyBub]

Yeah, it's probably a one-hour job for you and not worth creating an uproar.

Glad you caught the symptom early.