Aging wood causes litany of woes
Q. My house is only 20 years old, and already I am getting cracking noises on the second floor, nails are popping out of the drywall, and the baseboard molding is pulling away from the wall. The stairs squeak. And the kitchen floor tends to sag a bit and bounces when it is walked on. What can I do?
PETER, Albany, N.Y.
A. Whew! What can you do all at once? It is a real litany of woes. Not really woes but pains in the neck, caused mainly by wood that shrinks when it dries out. For starters, don't worry, the house is within code and is not going to fall down. Let's start:
1. The cracking noises are the shrinking of the floorboards. Nothing you can do.
2. Wood drying out caused the drywall nails to pop. So, pull them and drive in drywall screws nearby, indent them, and cover them with three coats of joint compound.
3. Molding pulling away: Drive long galvanized finish nails through the baseboard and into a stud. Too often those baseboards were driven into drywall, which will hold nothing.
4.The stair squeaks occurred when the wood dried out and shrank, separating from the risers. Fix them thusly: Have someone stand on the tread to bring it in touch with the riser. Then drive galvanized finish nails into the tread about 4 inches from each end of the tread, and into the riser. Drive the nails at an angle so each pair that you drive will form an "X" in the riser. Countersink the nails and fill the holes with filler. If there is a stair carpet, you can drive the nails right through the carpet. It is best to predrill the nail holes.
5. The floor sags and bounces because the joists are undersized, even if they are in code, and chances are they are in code. Since you say there is a finished basement under the floor, there is no way you can get to the floor from below. And to get to the joists from above, you would have to take up the linoleum and whatever floorboards there are. Whew. It's better to live with the bounce. Just tread lightly.
Q. I have a tray ceiling, with a flat, level space in the middle, sloping down all four sides to the walls, so it looks like an upside-down tray. It looks nice, but the corners keep cracking. I have filled them with Spackle, but the cracks reappear regularly.
SPACKLE PLENTY
A. Cracking plaster joints are the bane of homeowners. For you, the Spackle is wrong, because it hardens, and anything that hardens is sure to break again when the ceiling moves, making matters worse because the cracks are now jagged and uglier than ever. To correct this, dig out the Spackle and put in a bead of soft latex or vinyl caulking, and run your finger down the joint to make it smooth. This bead will move with the ceiling and will not crack.
Q. Is it safe to use 20-year-old pressure-treated wood around a veggie garden? The boards bordered a big sandbox for 20 years.
BARBARA, Wayland
A. By this time the chemicals that are going to leach out have leached out. To be safe, plant the veggies at least 12 inches away from the border boards. Also, you can line the boards with polyethylene plastic.
Q. My fence is made up of pickets on long 2-by-4 rails below a row of lattice. One of the rails is warped and I can't push it back into place. The warp is about a half inch. What can I do?
VERONICA CHAMBERS, Melrose
A. Your fence is just like mine, and you can sit back and enjoy its good looks. I wish some of my boards were warped as little as a half inch. Even if you took the board off (one heckuva job) and straighten it out, it would warp again. What I am trying to say is that such a warp is minimal and is best left alone.
Q. My brick steps are falling apart and are badly in need of replacing. What is best to use for durability, and a surface that is slip resistant: Brick or bluestone tread on a brick riser?
WANTS TO BE CAREFUL
A. Brick is durable and with individual bricks divided by a mortar joint, is quite slip resistant. Bluestone will last forever, and you can get a rough surface for the tread. It will also resist the salt used to melt ice, which brick will not.
Q. My doors face northeast and have always leaked at the bottom. I have used storm doors to no avail. The doors are new and still I get water inside. I have a sneaking suspicion that the threshold is not sloped enough. What can I do?
ROCKPORT
A. Your location on Cape Ann and the way the door faces northeast compounds the problems, especially during New England's signature storms, northeasters. If your door is completely exposed, as it is in so many New England houses, there is no cure. So, how about relocating the entry so the door faces another direction. Concerning the slope of the threshold, it does not have to be very steep to shed water.
Which leaves us the ultimate fix: Install a movable threshold, one that pops up when you open the door and pops down when you close it. Do the same for the storm door. Finally, a closed-in porch will work. Even if the door to the porch leaks, there would be no harm done on the porch.
Q. My cherry wood vanity needs work. It is not very old but looks pretty dreary. Should I sand it and refinish, or is there another way to refurbish it? I'd like to keep it the same color.
GEORGE McANDROS, Avon
A. Just a few years old? Must've taken a beating, but I suppose bathroom locations are not ideal for stained and varnished wood. You could do it the hard way or the easy way. The hard way: Sand to the bare wood, which is difficult and tedious because you have to sand the stain off as well as the varnish (finish). Then stain and apply a semigloss urethane varnish.
The easy way: Sand lightly to reduce gloss and roughen the finish. Apply one or two coats of Minwax PolyShades in the color of your choice. PolyShades is a combination stain and varnish; goes on smoothly and can look good, although you might find it obscures the wood grain. But it is a sight better than the old varnish stain used when the handyman was a pup.
Q. I tried your method of using paint thinner and cat litter to get rid of an olive oil stain from a granite counter top, but it didn't work. What now?
TOM, Belmont
A. Let a professional try his hand.
Q. I had some Sakrete that stayed a long time in the basement. The bag was well sealed, but when I opened it I found large, hard chunks. I crushed them back into powder and added water, but the concrete mix never hardened and flakes a lot. Did I do something wrong?
TED DuMOULIN, Wareham
A. You learned the hard way that you cannot reconstitute a concrete mix that has gotten hard. I'm surprised the bag did not harden into one huge chunk. Get a new bag. Even Portland cement, the basic ingredient of concrete (the others are sand and crushed stone), cannot be reconstituted if it gets very hard.
Q. I have used polish over the years on a beautiful Ethan Allen harvest table, and now it is quite dull and cloudy. What product will bring back the nice finish?
MARILYN, Canton
A. Old Ethan Allen might be spinning in his grave. To remove it, use paint thinner. Repeat as necessary. Turpentine will also work, but is strong smelling. This will dull the finish, but remove the polish. Apply one coat of Pledge or other high quality polish, which will restore the glow. But, go easy. Polish twice a year at most.
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.
