Ceiling leak and there's something odd up there .....

Sydney has had two very heavy downpours in two days, and today I noticed a steady leak from a flaky section of the ceiling. I think the leak resulted from capillary action drawing the rain back under the flat cliplok roof, since there is no hole directly over the leak. The leak stopped about an hour after the rain stopped, and tomorrow I will call some roofers.

I got on the ladder and inspected the ceiling and surprisingly the section of loose paint came away (about the size of a small saucer) and there was only some light brown fibrous material behind it - nothing solid at all! The room was built in the 1960s; could they have used plasterboard with fibres through it at that time? If so, the actual plaster seems to have dissolved away, leaving just the fibres and the paint. Is that possible? I am really stumped by this and hope someone can throw some light on this.

With rain expected again in two days, is there any band aid fix I can do? I already managed to turn down the edge of the cliplok with a pair of pliers, hoping to break the capillary action.

You have the old fibrous plaster and not the newer gyprock style which is basically two sheets of paper with plaster between. The old type had sisal fibres with a gypsum plaster mix and the really old plaster used horse hair as the reinforcing.
If your ceiling has been leaking for quite a while most of the plaster in that section has probably dissolved away leaving mostly the fibres only.
Depending on your Kliplok thickness you can lay those sheets down to 1º pitch for the 0.48mm thick sheets but otherwise I think the minimum is 2º for the 0.42mm.
1º is 1:50 slope.

Stewie

Thanks Stewie D, your explanation fits exactly with what I'm seeing. I'm amazed the plaster dissolved without any real evidence of a leak till yesterday. It seems a couple of coats of paint were the only thing holding that bit of the ceiling together. When the paint cracked, the water came through.

I started calling roofers today. There's not too many in my neighbourhood (Chatswood). Can you recommend anyone from the Northern Beaches? I know some tradies who often travel down from Brookvale or Narrabeen to my area, just don't know a reliable roofer.

I really don't know any sheet metal roofers. Th two guys that I used to use on occasions ( 15 years ago ) one has retired and the other moved to the central coast.
Ridgeway roofing may be able to help ( Brookvale ) but I haven't used them.

Stewie

Thanks, I'll keep asking around.