Ceiling-water stains

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Peregrine

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 10, 2010
Posts
81
Location
Asheboro, NC
Morning all-my sightseer has the material type ceiling throughout and it sustained some water damage stains where the living room slideout touches the coach body when fully extended.I have retracted the sideout and plan to search for the cause of the leak when the weather improves.
Meanwhile I would like to clean up the stain as best that I can.Have tried Woolite Oxy Deep with some promising results but was wondering if there are any better ways to clean up the stains ?
Thanks for any help that you may offer.
Jeff
 
    The two ways that we found worked best, depending on the size of the stain are the Woolite Carpet spray cleaner, used with a brush, and the second was when the seal around the roof A/C's were not tight, and that was a "Little Green Machine" carpet cleaner.  As with the stick home, we find it best to do it once or twice with the cleaning solution then rinse wish warm water two or three times.  Each time the ceiling turned out looking like new.

Ed
 
Successfully used "Spot Shot" carpet cleaner with lots of paper towels and/or Little Green  machine
 
Resolve with Oxi carpet stain remover. Use with a soft bristle brush and brush with the grain of the carpet when possible then blot with a paper towel. Depending on the size and depth of the stain it may require two or three applications. Let it dry in between.

I would be fearful of bleach. Although it all else failed, I might try it after testing a small hidden spot first.

Good luck!
 
    The problem with bleach and me is that there is no way that i could work over my head and not drip and or splatter the bleach everywhere.  The white spots on the carpet or furniture would lead to a divorse, and that's just too expensive.

Ed
 
Hfx_Cdn said:
The problem with bleach and me is that there is no way that i could work over my head and not drip and or splatter the bleach everywhere.

I have had great success with OxiClean laundry powder. I mix it as a paste so it can be spread or brushed onto the ceiling with a stiff brush, and left there for at least a half hour to do it's work. Then I clean it off with the upholstery nozzle on my Hoover 'steam' cleaner. Sometimes it needs more than one application to get everything, sometimes 3 or 4 hours! OxiClean works slowly, and giving it enough time is essential.
 
The people at sky harbor turned me onto a solution that works wonders.  i had some roof leaks that left the rust colored stains.  I used their solution and it works wonders.  the solution is  1/2 bleach, 1/4 white viniger,1/4 water.  put in a spray bottle and spry the area and then dab with a white cotton towel.  It may take a time or two.  Some of mine went away right away, a larger one took two treatments.  No staining left what so ever.  Just be sure to put a little plastic down over everything else so you do not bleach out what you do not want bleached out.  No scrubbing needed just spray and dab.
 
I have little brown grease flecks on the ceiling carpet above the stove (what idiot thought putting carpet on the ceiling was a good idea ?). What would work for this ? I can actually pinch them off with my fingers, but that's a pain in the neck (literally).

Wendy
 
Was wondering if calling in a carpet cleaning company would help.  I am shopping for a carpet cleaning (can't afford a wood floor as yet) - and was going to ask about the stains I have on the ceiling. Not sure how they would do it without turning my RV upside down. But they do advertise upholstery cleaning as well so guess they have attachments as such.

Wendy, I agree about the carpet type ceiling of the stove area. I had an unintentional flamb? happen a year so ago the didn't do well with my ceiling. Was able to get it back to original but that area should never be other than an easily cleanable material.
 
Bob Buchanan said:
Was wondering if calling in a carpet cleaning company would help.  I am shopping for a carpet cleaning (can't afford a wood floor as yet) - and was going to ask about the stains

My experience with carpet/upholstery cleaning companies has been really bad. Many years ago, we bought a brightly coloured chesterfield with a pattern on WHITE background. When the white started to look a little gray, we called Stanley Steamer, the carpet/upholstery clean people. After doing a test, they determined that the colours of the pattern would bleed so they did some sort of sponge and foamy shampoo nonsense which left the chesterfield looking no better than before they started.

So . . . with nothing to lose, I bought a carpet/upholstery 'steam cleaner' i.e. more accurately a water-extraction unit, from Sears. For those not familiar with these units: they pump hot water and upholstery shampoo/detergent into the fabric and immediately suck it all up into the dirty water tank.   

So . . anyway, we gave it our best shot. The worst that could happen, is that we would have to toss out an ugly white chesterfield that was no longer white!  :-\ The chesterfield came out looking like new, and since the shampoo was sucked up immediately by the extractor, the colours never had a chance to run.
That was 40 years ago, and we've always had white chesterfields since then!

We have been through three water extraction units (avoid Bissell crap) since then; and our current one, a Hoover, has been the best of all!!

http://hoover.com/products/details/f5912900/steamvac-spinscrub-turbopower-carpet-washer/

The Hoover 'shampoo' designed for the unit does a really great job, but when it comes to difficult 'high traffic' areas, you need extra strength spot cleaner. While Hoover vends such a product, it doesn't do nearly as good a job as Zep High Traffic Spot Cleaner available at Home Depot for half the cost.

It is pretty much an annual ritual around here, that I 'shampoo' every square inch of fabric in my rig with our Hoover water extractor unit, which keeps the interior of our 14 year-old rig looking like new, and smelling like new!  :) 
 
Our now departed '04 Sightseer had Ozite ceiling which is recycled plastic.  We had some stains from a roof leak and did this, which worked just fine:  Cover any areas you want to protect and use a spray bottle, on mist setting, with a 50-50 mix of household bleach and water.  Spray liberally and leave entirely alone for 12-24 hours.  Inspect.  If OK, great.  If not, repeat procedure.  I'll bet this will do the trick.
 
Our motor home is a 1991 and when we first got it we had stains in many locations (bad roof). We used PET stain and oder remover frm any pet store. Works with very little scrubing...Looks like new now....
 
Thanks to all for your help-glade to see that I'm not the only one.Full time living in a motor home for the last 2 years has been a super education.
Many thanks.
Happy motoring.
Jeff
 
Another thing to toss in here is consider using Simple Green as your shampoo. You'll have to experiment with different ratio of Simple Green to water mix but I've used that for carpet shampoo for a long time and works wonders. As for the ceiling stain I think your on the right track with a oxy type soap and see if you can lighten the stain.
 
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