La Grange, KY · Member since 2016 · 2 posts · 1 vote
Have any of you seen anything like this? It is throughout the house and the dark lines seem to correspond to the attic/roof beams. The house is only 14 years old. And seller says he replaced the roof due to storm damage last year. At first we just noticed the dark lines in the living room with the fireplace and thought it could be due to using the fireplace, but it is even in the bedrooms. The owners smoke in the house, but I've been in smoker homes and never seen anything like this.
I've seen lots of smoke stained ceilings, but this would be a little unusual. It looks like a moisture issue.
If there is/was little insulation in the attic (the ceiling joists are exposed above the insulation), you would have cooler/warmer temperature along the bottom of the joists which could both cause moisture issues and may have affected how the smoke particulate stuck to the ceiling.
If you take the pointed tip of a knife or {one blade} of a pair of scissors and {gently} press into the drywall along one of those lines, is the drywall hard or does the knife tip slid in fairly easily? If it is easy to insert the knife, does the drywall have a consistency like lumpy oatmeal? {Trying to find a better word to describe drywall that has been repeatedly wet.
Investor · La Grange, KY · Member since 2016 · 44 posts · 19 votes
10y
I'd try calling a roofer to come check out the roof/attic venting situation and see if that's right. If the attic isn't vented properly it could be holding moisture and sweating onto the ceiling which bleeds through the drywall. Depending on what exactly the issue is, a roofer could add venting (maybe a few hundred dollars) or you might just get a spray foam insulation company insulate the attic (a few thousand). Oldham Co. Roofing has done a few roofs for me and I've been happy with his roof work.