noticed the tape on my bathroom ceiling is starting to bubble in a couple spots near the vent fan. house is only like 8 years old and this bathroom was redone 3 years ago. the bubbles are small maybe 2-3 inches each but theyre getting worse. is this a moisture thing or did whoever finished it just do a bad job? im worried ill have to redo the whole ceiling
6 Comments
almost definitely moisture. bathrooms are brutal on tape joints especially ceilings where all the steam rises. does your vent fan actually work? like does it pull air or just make noise? ive seen so many bathroom fans that are either undersized or ducted wrong so they dont actually vent anything outside
honestly i never checked if it actually vents outside. it makes noise and i can feel some air pull when i hold my hand up to it. how would i check?
go in the attic and follow the duct. you want to see it going all the way to a roof cap or soffit vent. ive found 3 in my own house over the years that just dump into the attic lol. all that steam goes right into the insulation and drips back down onto the drywall
Could be moisture but could also be a taping issue from the original job. If they used mesh tape on the ceiling flat joints thats a common failure point. Mesh tape doesnt bond as well as paper tape and ceilings get the most stress from seasonal expansion. If its only near the vent fan though id lean toward moisture being the main cause.
you dont have to redo the whole ceiling. just cut the bubbled tape out with a utility knife, scrape the area clean, retape with paper tape and good all purpose mud. let it cure, sand, prime, paint. maybe an hour of actual work plus drying time. ive done this a dozen times in my house, its annoying but not a big project
had the exact same thing happen in our master bath. turned out the exhaust fan was only 50 CFM which is basically useless for anything bigger than a closet. replaced it with a 110 CFM panasonic and havent had any new bubbling in the 2 years since. definitely check your fan rating before you bother fixing the tape, otherwise itll just happen again