Mold on Ceiling, bear with me please

[hoskos 0]

Hi everyone, I've read tons of posts, well not really tons but a few posts on moldy ceilings. Unfortunately I'm blitzed with the same issue of late, a moldy ceiling.

Funnily enough its in the living room which puzzles me. I can understand a moldy bathroom or somewhere wet but a living room? 

It doesn't help when according to the developer, there is a water pipe running across the living room and to the balcony. So we are in this ever constant discussion on who's fault it is.

Thoughts anyone? 

[Sim Ker Sing 0]

I have carried out one investigation at a HDB flat where the parquet around the common toilet is moldy.  We hacked the whole toilet floor to look for the leak but cannot find it.  We removed some parquet outside the toilet door and found water coming from the bedroom.  Then we trace and remove the bedroom parquet and found that the water comes from the adjoining Master bedroom toilet.  It seems that the water leaked from in between the toilet tiles, through the bottom of the brickwall and found its way to the common toilet (which is the lowest level).  There were no mold in the bedroom or master bedroom at all to indicate the source.

In the end, we recommend the Owner to redo the flooring for the entire unit instead of the living room and kitchen only.  This time, they have chosen homogeneous tiles instead.  We cleared the choked pipe, fixed the leak by replacing parts and place secondary waterproofing to the floor-wall joints before re-plastering and tiling works.

Point is: You will need to engage a contractor to carry out "controlled" destructive works to investigate the cause of the leak and be prepared that the extent and duration of investigation may be more than expected as we are unable to predict what we will find.  Then you will need to engage some professionals (which the contractor will be able to advise you depending on the type of observations made during the investigation) to come up with a professional building report before you can establish a case with who-ever you wish to take it up with.  After all that, then you will need to engage the contractor to reinstate back everything damaged during the investigation.

Hope the above helps.