When the ghosting takes a geometric form
on a wall or ceiling--roughly outlining the framing behind
the surface--the ghosting is likely caused by cold spots
due to a lack of insulation or voids in the insulation
within a wall or attic.
Home Energy Magazine gets lots of e-mails from people who visit our Web site, www.homeenergy.org. These aren't experts in home performance or even subscribers, just homeowners who want help with a problem. Over the years, the most frequent problem we've heard about is black stains under doors, around carpets, on walls and ceilings--even in refrigerators! We call this "ghosting," and it is often caused by burning candles, gas fireplaces, or other sources of incomplete combustion that send fine carbon particles into the air. How the soot ends up on walls and under doors has to do with the dynamics of air flow within the home and the particles being attracted to surfaces with the opposite charge.
When the ghosting takes a geometric form on a wall or ceiling--roughly outlining the framing behind the surface--the ghosting is likely caused by cold spots due to a lack of insulation or voids in the insulation within a wall or attic.That's the problem Michele and I have in the bedroom of our house. We think the source of the staining is a fireplace in the living room, and the cause is cold spots on the ceiling. I climbed up into the attic the check out our insulation situation and found the likely culprit. The insulation does not reach the far edge of the attic right above our bedroom. (I found some other stuff up there--not deer droppings, if you catch my drift--but that's another blog.)
So now I have to decide whether I risk dropping my more than 200 lb body through the ceiling, or have a professional come out and fix our attic insulation problem. Stay tuned. I may be writing on "Fixing the Size-13 Hole in My Ceiling" for my next blog.
Jim Gunshinan is Managing Editor of Home Energy Magazine. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from University of Notre Dame.