Eliminating black mold; dealing with cracks in wood floors
Q. In one second-floor bedroom, behind a large bedstead, I am getting a goodly amount of black mold on the painted wall and was told that water vapor collected behind the bedstead and condensed on the cool wall, causing mold to grow. I cleaned off the mold with a special cleaner and preventer, and it is gone. Am I in serious trouble?
WORRIED SICK
A. No, and stop worrying. Black mold is very common; I even heard from one alleged source that it is toxic. No one has ever told me what mold is toxic and what is not. To me, if you are allergic to it, the mold is toxic. At any rate, you did everything right, including using a non-bleach mold killer because regular household bleach is toxic and does not always kill all the mold spores. Keep up the good work, and if you keep the house relatively dry, you will get no more mold.
Q. My husband redid our floors with white pine about five years ago. There are now noticeable cracks in the wood and the staircase, which he also replaced. Is this normal? He put down four coats of polyurethane.
BETH, in Hotton's chat room
A. Yes, it is normal under certain circumstances. First, where are the cracks? Are they actually in the wood, or are there spaces between the boards? If they're in the wood itself, the cracks occurred because the boards were green, that is, full of moisture, and nailed securely. Then when the boards dried out they contracted, causing the cracks. If the cracks are spaces between the boards, the same thing happened. The boards dried out and contracted, causing the gaps. There is nothing you can do about the cracks in the wood itself except lay new, narrower boards, preferably hardwood, that are tongued and grooved, and lay them in winter, when they are at their smallest. As for the gaps between boards, if they are 1/4-inch wide or wider, you can put in filler strips of wood. Nothing else will work.
Q. We have a screened porch with four columns. The base of one column is showing rotted wood. What can we do?
SPRING DREAMING, in Hotton's chat room
A. If you can dig out the decay and it is not too deep or spread very far, you can dig out the soft parts, douse it with bleach, rinse and let dry, and treat it with Minwax's wood hardener, then fill it with Minwax's wood rot filler, and repaint. If the decay is too far gone, you can shore up the porch roof on each side of the culprit column, and cut off the decayed part. Shoring means installing a temporary post. Then put in a new base of pressure-treated wood. The handyman has done this, and it works. But be sure to shore up the roof before you remove the decayed wood, to keep it from dropping when you cut off the decay.
Q. My battery-powered smoke detector started chirping, so I replaced the battery and the chirps started again after a few weeks. A friend suggested that I clean the detector. Does anything else come to mind?
KAREN, Canton
A. Cleaning the unit is a good idea. Vacuum it or dust it with a soft bristle brush, not a tooth brush. If that doesn't work, replace it. At least they are not expensive and are required. I would get the battery type.
Peter Hotton is available 1-6 p.m. Tuesdays to answer questions on house repair. Call 617-929-2930. Hotton also chats online about house matters 2-3 p.m. Thursdays at Boston.com. Hotton's e-mail is photton@globe.com
