Silverdale: There's a Water Stain on My Ceiling and Nothing Is Above It

Why this happens in Silverdale

Start with a supply line leaking in a wall or joist bay. Copper pinholed at a nail plate or a hanger, a cracked polybutylene fitting, a galvanized thread rusted through. Around Island Lake and Old Town the housing dates from the subdivision boom after the Kitsap Mall opened, which makes this the likeliest answer to water stain on ceiling.

Then roof, flashing or window. Appears with rain and dries between storms. We've seen it near Old Town more than once, usually on first-generation polyethylene that has gone brittle.

Don't overlook a drain or overflow leak. Only when a fixture upstairs is used. On Silverdale properties from the subdivision boom after the Kitsap Mall opened it comes up more than you'd think.

Before you call

Silverdale is polybutylene country.

First steps for water stain on ceiling near Bucklin Hill: don't cut the ceiling at the stain; the leak is usually elsewhere. Note whether the stain grows with rain, with fixture use, or constantly. Do the meter test with every fixture closed. Then call; the rest is a locate through dense hardpan up on Ridgetop, not guesswork.

What happens next

When it's the buried line, the fix in Silverdale is interior water leak detection: we open and repair, trace and listen through a winter water table close to the surface at the marked spot on acreage out Anderson Hill Road, and thermal and moisture. Pipe locator and tracer and the mini excavator ride on the first trip so it's finished the same visit.

Clear Creek, Bucklin Hill, Ridgetop: near any of them, water stain on ceiling gets the same crew and the same equipment. Our home base, day or night, with the mini excavator on the trailer for Ridgetop and Island Lake cul-de-sacs.