Tiled ceiling

[Cleo]

Hi. I'm reposting this as the original message is locked. Anyway, I am going to be painting my ceiling. It looks like acoustic tiles but there isn't any strapping holding it up. There is a water stain by the back door so I'm guessing the roof leaked at one point. The stained area has lost some of the pattern, so I'm not sure if the previous owner tried to wipe it and removed the pattern or if the water damaged it. I spoke with a fellow at Benjamin Moore and he told me that since the tile lost a bit of the pattern I shouldn't use a latex based paint. I'd have to use a oil based. My husband is quite sensitive to oil based paints. This fellow said if I used latex it would soften the tiles and turn to mush. Is there someway I can tell if I can use latex on the ceiling?

[Greg]

Cleo, The trick I found is to use a brush and dab the paint on. It works with latex on popcorn ceilings. If you use a roller it will put too much paint on and lift the texture off. It takes longer, but it works. Greg

[DigitalDreams]

Is the stain a brown stain or colored.
The reason I ask is, we found after we started doing ceilings at our
home that even tho you can paint over them that the tile continued to deteriorate slowly because the real culprit was moister had permeated the tile so totally , in the hot part of the year that mold had grown on the backside and weakened the tile.

We ended up replacing the ceiling in rooms that had the large older tiles, and on ones like the bathroom finding a similar design 1ft x1ft and playing jigsaw replacement.

In the one room where neither way was a option we cut out the bad
spots then laid gridmax which is a zero clearance hanging ceiling system under the old ceiling leaving the old ceiling as insulation barrier and a first stop for any new leaks.

With the gridmax if the ceiling does leak again and makes it through
the old ceiling to the new,we can replace just the damaged panel.

[Cleo]

Thanks Greg. Don't relish the fact of painting with a brush. Maybe I'll just hire someone to do it.

Digitaldreams The stain is a light brown and about a foot in diameter. It does look like it was a waterf leak that has now dried. The roof was checked and found to be okay. I'm guessing the previous owner had the roof resealed after discovering the stain.