LESLIE: Now we’re going to talk to Olga in Wisconsin who has got something going on with the ceiling at her money pit. What can we do for you?
OLGA: Yes. I’m 85 years old and my house is about as rickety as I am, I guess.
TOM: (laughs) OK, Olga. So …
OLGA: Anyway, I had fallen within a nursing home and the heat went out in our place and now, when I’ve come back, it seems all of the ceilings – the paint is just hanging like in ribbons.
TOM: Right.
OLGA: Now, what can I do about this?
TOM: Well, what happens is when your heat goes out you get a lot of moisture inside the house and the moisture can cause the paint to separate or delaminate. Now, unfortunately, you can’t put good paint over bad paint, so that old paint has to be stripped off first; scraped off, stripped off so that you’re down to a solid surface.
The next step is to prime it; have a primer applied. That’s going to help make sure that the final coat of paint – which will happen after that – will stick. And that’s really the steps that have to be followed: first, you need to strip off the old, loose paint; then apply a primer and then put the finished coat on top of that.
Now, Olga, if this happened while you were not home – your heat kicked out – it sounds to me like it’s something that might be covered by homeowners insurance. Are you insured?
OLGA: Yes, I’m insured, yeah.
TOM: Well then, what I would do is I would contact an independent insurance adjuster or your homeowners insurance company. And if this happened because the heat went out, well, that’s a covered – that’s a covered defect and you may get them to come in and do this for you.
OLGA: Oh, bless your heart. That would be nice.
TOM: Alright, Olga. Well, you get on top of them – those guys – and make sure that they get this job done because that’s why you’re paying insurance.
Leave a Reply