Step by step
- Photograph the whole ceiling from the door, then the stain close up with the rim in focus.
- Touch it (damp board is cold and soft), meter it if you carry one, and pencil a dated line round the edge.
- Where there are fixtures above, run them for five minutes with someone watching.
- Grade: dry and explained → medium; wet, spreading or unexplained → high; sagging or at a light → critical.
- Action: find and fix the source first; stain-block primer and repaint is the last line, not the first.
On the re-inspection, photograph the same ceiling against your pencil line and close the item with the after photo the Before/After page is what settles "was the leak actually fixed".
Related questions
Can I just paint over a ceiling stain?
Only once it is dry and the source is fixed, and then with a stain-blocking primer; emulsion alone lets the tannins back through in weeks.
Is a brown ring always a leak?
Almost always water, once or repeatedly. The colour comes from what the water carried, tannin from timber, dirt from the void, so brown means it passed through something on the way.
Try it on your next walk
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