Replacing damaged flooring is tricky
Q. My air conditioner overflowed and soaked part of my Pergo floor. After I got rid of the water, I noticed sections of the Pergo bubbled up, like a blister. Can those blisters be repaired, or does that section have to be replaced? I do have a few of the planks left over.</p>
SUSAN JACOBS, Worcester
A. Those blisters may go down in time, but they represent delamination, and therefore, I believe, cannot be fixed. You can replace the planks with the spares, but I suggest you have the installer do it because it is a bit tricky to put in a new one, especially in the middle of a floor.
Q. I'm trying to clean and possibly refinish the oak woodwork in a local library, and it does clean up well enough with cleaners and alcohol, but there remains a black color deep in the grain of the wood. That black does not yield to much of anything I try. Is there a way to clean out that black?
DICK LAHEY, Marblehead
A. Not in any normal way. That black is natural and is what gives the oak its characteristics. Oak is an open-pored wood, as are walnut and mahogany. When these woods are varnished, the finish is not smooth and mirror-like because the pores (and fissures, in the case of oak), break up the light on the finish. This is all on purpose, one way to treat oak. The other way is to fill the wood. This is done by treating the wood with a paste wood filler, a beige, thin, paste-like liquid that fills the pores and fissures. When varnished, this surface is smooth and like a mirror.
If you want to do this to the woodwork, you will have to sand to the bare wood before filling and finishing. I frankly think it would be better leaving it the way it was intended.
Q. I am enlarging my kitchen in a ranch on a slab, and have taken up the old linoleum, and a hard plastic tile under that. What remains is a black material, very hard, and fairly smooth. There is also a moldy smell. The floor had a radiant heating system using heating pipes in the concrete, but that system was cut off and we put in another system not in the slab. Can I put the Pergo over that black stuff? Would the Pergo block the moldy smell?
MARY FITZGERALD, Braintree
A. Hold everything until you get rid of that mold smell. It might be coming from the water in those pipes embedded in the concrete; while no longer used, any water remaining in those pipes could be stagnant and very moldy. The mold might also be in that black stuff, which is a tar emulsion designed as a tile adhesive. You could try treating the black stuff with Moldex, a nontoxic mold killer sold in Ace hardware stores and other outlets. If the mold odor does not go away, call a mold remediation company.
Q. I have woodchucks in my yard, which I don't mind living with, except in the house, of course. My concern is: Can they hurt my concrete foundation or the concrete footings for the posts in my enclosed deck? I don't want an animal person to trap them, because I know their fate after that.
CONCERNED
A. Hold your hand, and never fear again. Woodchucks (sometimes called groundhogs) are a terror in your garden, but they do not burrow deep enough to undermine any foundation, unless it is very shallow. Even then, they are unlikely to affect a foundation, or the footings deep in the ground holding up deck posts. Just enjoy them as you might enjoy chipmunks, if you can catch sight of them.
Q. The vinegar I poured into the joints in our bluestone walks keeps weeds away but the ants seem to thrive on it. So I dribbled some chlordane into the ant holes but my wife said never again. She couldn't stand the smell, so that goes into the hazardous waste collection tomorrow. I tried these mint concoctions but they don't work. Any suggestions?
BILL ENGLISH, Falmouth
A. I don't blame anyone for not liking chlordane. It does smell to high heaven. And it is far too potent and toxic for treating a few ants. The safest way (for the environment) is to pour boiling water on them once or twice a day. Or use something called Bioganic. Or try Terro, an ant killer. I don't know the ingredients.
Q. I'm in my house for 40 years without water in my yard, until a neighbor had his dry well filled in. The flooded areas are not terribly big but they are a nuisance. My land does slope down away from the house. What can I do about those puddles?
VERY WET
A. You could build a dry well of your own in a critical position, and put a large pipe running underground from the dry well coming out "to daylight" further down the sloping property. It is a rather involved job, so you might want to contact a landscape architect, landscape contractor, or a hydraulic engineer.
The mother of all downdrafts
Here is what Al Contreas called to tell us about a downdraft he had in his chimney for years before he finally figured it out: I have tried everything under the sun and moon to stop a severe downdraft in my chimney. The problem is aggravated by my steel stovepipe, which runs 30 feet horizontally from heater to chimney.
I simply reduced the 8-inch opening in the flue in the chimney by about half. I cut a 4-inch hole in a piece of stainless steel and secured it to the top of the chimney. It works well. On cold, wet days, when the draft acts up, I heat the pipe with a hot air gun.
Good point, Al Contreas, and thanks for the info. You would improve the draft without any help by shortening that 30-foot snake of a stovepipe.
Q. I have a problem with my garage, which just barely survived Katrina. The cement slab has dropped at one end, leaving the 4-by-4 sill at the bottom of the frame wall sort of hanging in midair. The gap between the 4-by-4 sill and the concrete is about 3 feet long and 3 inches high, on both sides of the garage. What can I fill it with to keep critters out and secure the wall?
BONNIE, Meterie, La.
A. You could fill it in with a piece of pressure-treated wood. Or fill it with mortar or concrete. Buy Mortar Mix or Sand Mix concrete at a hardware or big-box store. Mix with water into a crumbly but not soupy mix. Block one side of the gap and stuff this mortar mix into the gap. It will take a lot to fill the space and you must make it very, very compact. You can use a pointing tool or pointing trowel to press the mortar mix into the gap. Mix only as much as you will use in 15 minutes, because it will start to set up in 15 minutes and will be unworkable in 20. You want to block one side of the gap so you won't be pushing the mortar mix clear through the gap. Mix the mortar mix in a wheelbarrow.
Q. Concerning the gaps between floorboards in a house that you wrote about recently: You said to fill them with wood strips. Are there special ones to be gotten and if so where?
ANDY, in Hotton's chatroom
A. They don't make such strips. You have to cut them yourself. Usually cut them to the correct width from a regular three-quarter-inch thick pine board. If the gap is three-eighths of an inch wide, you can buy parting bead, which is three-eighths of an inch thick and three-quarters of an inch deep. Or, for half-inch gaps, half-inch parting bead. Play it by ear. If your floor is 1-inch thick, you will have to cut a different sized strip. One more thing about these wood strips: A strip that is lighter than the floor color will stand out much more than a strip that is darker. So, stain the strip before you install it.
Globe Handyman on Call Peter Hotton is also in the Styles Section on Thursdays. He 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. To participate, go to Boston.com Hotton's e-mail is photton@globe.com.
