Daily Home Renovation Tips

Yes, I have written before about my very strong preference for a drop ceiling vs drywall ceiling  for basements.

Can you imagine how much effort it would have been to locate and fix our shower leak with a drywall ceiling in the basement? Yikes!

Now it is important not to let such leaks fester no matter how small. If you don’t fix the leak and then repair or replace the ceiling tiles you are encouraging mold to grow on the constantly damp / wet tiles.

Here is a picture of the tiles, since replaced, which were collecting the water leaking from the shower:

What might surprise some is what is on the other, or the top, side of these tiles. You might think that the damaged tile on the left must be more wet and much more damaged than the tile on the right. Well, let’s take a look:

In the above picture the tile on the left is now showing it’s underside. Doesn’t look too bad, does it? Hard to believe that the white or visible side was so, well, visibly damaged. Now look at the picture below.

Now in this picture look at the tile on the right. Wow? It’s hard to believe how damaged the underside of the right tile has become. One would never have known how damaged it had become. And, if we had only seen this tile damaged from the leaking shower above, soon mold would have begun to grow. Yuk!

Why the difference? Different composite material used in the two different ceiling tiles. The one on the right was already in the house when we purchased it while the one on the left was installed by me about 5 months ago to replace a prior damaged tile.

So, don’t let those slightly stained ceiling tiles remain. Get rid of them. You never know what might be on the underside. This is a case where not knowing can hurt you.