Q: My son played with a big truck on a finished wood floor and left many black tire marks. I tried various cleaners such as paint thinner, Brillo, and Murphy’s oil soap, without success. Do you know how I can remove them? — Anonymous
A: Try one of these: Dow’s Bug & Tar Remover, any citrus cleaner (Citrus Green, Citrus Clean) or mechanic’s waterless hand soap. In a pinch, apply any kind of oil, wait 15 minutes, and scrub with a nylon pot scrubber.
Q: When I had new windows installed, they left unshingled spaces around each window. The old shingles are nicely weathered. How can I get the new shingles to match the old? — Frank in Rockport, Maine
A: Those shingles are white cedar, and in the marine environment where you live, they will turn in a year, two at the most. Be patient. Matching the weathered look with a stain or bleaching oil is impossible.
Q: I have a small Cape House, built in 1962, with little doors on the second floor leading to a crawl space behind a low wall going the length of the house on both sides under the roof. There is no insulation on these low walls and the floor joists are showing. How can I insulate them? There is also no roof overhang (soffits) so I can’t easily put in vents at the eaves. How can I ventilate that space? — Susan in Hanover, New Hampshire
A: You can do it all. That low wall is called a knee wall, and you can put in 3 inches of fiberglass, with the paper backing toward the heated room. Add at least 6 or 8 inches of fiberglass between the joists on the floor behind the knee wall, again, with the paper backing down, touching the ceiling below.
Now to ventilate. Picture your gables, the upside-down V-shaped forming half the end wall at each end of the house, just below the roofline. You can put vents (any practical size) in each lower corner of that triangle.
Do it at both ends of the house, and you will get good cross-ventilation.
You already have a triangular vent at the peak, and you are all set vent-wise. Some day you can put in a ridge vent.
Q: I have a big problem with an interior woodworking paint job. Professionals painted all the woodwork and used a high quality Benjamin Moore paint. Just a few weeks later the paint is coming off in thin layers, especially around doorknobs. What went wrong? — Furious!
A: If the woodwork was not sanded lightly, that is one possible cause. Another is the lack of a primer (undercoater or primer-sealer). A third reason for failure is that around doorknobs and other areas where hands often touch, oils from the skin are transferred to the finish. The correction: Those professionals should come back and sand off all that peeling paint, then apply a primer-sealer and finish with the Benjamin Moore paint. For free, or at a greatly reduced fee.
Q: My 1964 house has a poured concrete foundation, and several hairline cracks that leak water twice a year. I’d like to have those cracks filled, but when I called a waterproofing company they offered to put in a French drain and sump pump for $10,000. Your opinion? — Michael Gold, Louisville, Ky.
A: If the cracks are the only source of water, you do not need that $10,000 job. There are companies that can inject an epoxy or other fast-setting material into the cracks, often from the inside. If you can’t find an injection company, find a mason or waterproofer who will dig down on the outside, enlarge the crack and install hydraulic cement, which expands when it cures. Next this fellow will slather roofing tar on the crack, then a layer of roofing felt and more tar. It can work.
Q: We have a situation where the turning-off of a bedroom walk-in closet fluorescent light frequently causes a motion-sensing light outside the bedroom to come on. These lights are approximately 30 feet apart. An electrician replaced a broken switch in the closet, believing this would alleviate the problem. Nope! As there are other light switches much closer to and on the same wall as this outside motion detector, we cannot understand this. Any ideas, or is this light haunted?
— Lou in Shirley, Mass.
A: A good question, worthy of putting out there for an answer. I wonder if switching that light to incandescent might be helpful. Otherwise, the Handyman dare not give another opinion, other than that the haunting is rather prosaic.
There must be better ways to haunt a house. Perhaps if the electrician experimented with various switches and bulbs, you might find an answer.
