Questions & Answers
You may be starting a home project or be in the midst of one or have some experience you'd like to share. So here's a forum for that exchange. Jill and/or I can answer questions about certain problems or challenges but, remember, we're not licensed contractors. All you're asking is for our opinion. If you want to respond or add to any entry, just send it along and we'll add it as soon as possible (usually within a week). Also be sure to check out our newest feature: how-to videos. Thanks. Ron & Jill
How Should I Refinish These Floors?
I live in a house with oak floor from the 50's Now the polyurethane is peeling and the floor is getting dark stains from floor traffic. What do you think is the best way to sand and reseal the floor. I have 3 rooms to do and each room is roughly 12 x 15
Thanks, M.R.
Hi, M.R.: best thing for your job would be an orbital sander. These are easy to operate (unlike drum sanders) and they'll do what you need. Since you do not have damaged floors, all you need to do is sand off the old polyurethane and old dirt. Your local DIY rental store can advise you on how to use the orbital sanders. There are also plenty of videos on line about this.
We recommend at least two coats of high-gloss polyurethane to finish your job (see our video for details: How to Sand and Save a Wood Floor.
Good luck with your project and keep in touch! Best wishes, Ron
Are Copper Gutters Good for a DIY?
Hi, Ron, a friend of mine put me onto your house renovation site; amazing stuff. Thought of you in light of my front gutter coming down with ice. I live in a Victorian . . . and need to replace a section of guttering about 13ft on the ground level. I've been looking online and mixed reviews about whether guttering is something to do diy, especially the soldering for the copper.
Any thoughts? Trust you must have faced this problem with your place.
Thanks, Graham in Baltimore
Hi, Graham: thanks for checking out our site and getting in touch. First, there's nothing like copper gutters. If it's within your budget, get a pro to do the replacement. Two reasons: the pro has experience; and, if he's reputable, he'll back up his work. As you know, the gutter has to sit just right under the roof line and it has to drop just right to keep the water flowing. And, of course, it has to be secured well so that it will hold under most conditions (not storms like we just had). I'd save the aggravation and time for other DIY projects, like installing a door or wiring a new lamp. Good luck with your project. Send us a photo. And keep in touch. Best wishes, Ron
How To Clean Mucked-up Cabinet & Door Hardware
Hello, I have spent the better part of a whole day reading your blog. It is fascinating and wonderful. I also have a love for old homes and can see many possibilities. I have old hardware, door knobs and face plates that need to be stripped and/or cleaned. Does Jill boil them in just soapy water? Is there a particular brand of soap that works best, and is anything else added? How long does she boil it? What is the process after they are boiled?
Thank you ahead of time for any assistance you can offer me.
Sincerely, Johanna in the UK
Hi, Johanna: I boil rusted or heavily painted hardware (door plates and latches etc.) overnight in my crock-pot. I keep the heat on "low." I add only a squirt of dish detergent. Neither of us is sure if this makes any difference but I figure it can't hurt. In the morning, I lift out one piece at a time (careful, they're hot), then I place the piece on a metal tray and scrub it with a small fine-wire brush. The paint comes right off and so does the rust (if there's any left). If there are any little bits of paint left, I pick them out with pins or a dental tool. Then Ron sprays the hardware with a clear gloss lacquer. We never re-paint the hardware. If we don't want the hardware permanently coated with a clear finish, then we rub cooking oil on it to inhibit rust. I hope this helps. Good luck with your project! Jill
How To Remove Aged, Yucky Tile Adhesive
Hi. We just removed old vinyl tiles from the 12x12 kitchen floor.
Covering the hardwood is black yucky tile adhesive. We tried adhesive
remover. It was very toxic and didn't work. Any suggestions? Especially
non toxic/green. We would like to stain and varnish after adhesive is
removed. Saw your great video. Thanks. Dobra
Hi, Dobra: Jill and I had this problem in our kitchen. The tile had been laid in the 1920s and was under several inches of other tile. When we got down to the floor finally, we encountered the black, aged tile mastic--it's like hardened tar. We tried all kinds of solvents on it but nothing was much help. We got so frustrated we contemplated blowing it up but that wasn't pratical. Finally, Jill wet the adhesive with soapy water.
Mind you, we did not soak the floor, just got the adhesive wet. You could lay wet towels over a stretch of the adhesive or you could spray bottle patches as you work. It does
loosen up.
Then we scraped the stuff off with a razor scraper and some other
paint stripping tools. One tool we used is called a "mutt." It's a large scraper attached to a shovel handle. It gives you wide coverage and lots of leverage. None of this is easy but it is do-able and just as effective
as chemicals. Do NOT take sand paper to the adhevise -- that will just heat up the adhesive and gum up your sand paper. As a final clean-up--after you've scraped most of it off -- use rough steel wool soaked in rubbing alcohol (90% alcohol is best) to scour the floor. Then we went over it once more with a razor scraper. Good luck! Ron & Jill
The Mystery of the Popping Floors: I live on the 1st floor of a 3 family house about 100 yrs old. It is very poorly insulated and you can hear your neighbor's conversation if they are speaking loudly. Not much repairs have been done except the recent replacement of a delapadated porch. You could not make two steps without the floorboards squeaking, so I finally convinced my brother to fix it. Now the squeaking is replaced by a lot of popping when you step in those areas and cracking when you walk through the archways. For instance,I notice that when I step in the entrance of my kichen, there is a popping sound on the opposite wall. . . .I know that some places where the wood joins, if you manipulate it with your toes, it is springy, . . . If you hold down a loose board with your toes and someone walks across it, it feels like the floor is giving way under your feet . . . . I was planning on buying this house from my brother, but now I am not so sure. What is happening . . . and how can this be fixed?
Dawna in Connecticut
Dawna, my best guess is that the floor joists have sagged and so there is space between the joists and the floor boards. The joists are the support beams under the floor and these are attached to the frame of your house. Over time, the house has "settled," making the joists bend down at the ends. 
This kind of sagging happens in all old houses, which is why floors in old houses are never level and rooms in old houses are never square.
Run your mouse over this image -- it gives you an idea of how your floor boards rock. The popping is the floorboard smacking against the new nails because the nails won't hold the floorboard tight against the sagging joists. The cracking is probably the floorboards stressing against each other as they try to rock up.
It's really not a serious problem but it will take work to repair. You'll have to pull up all of the floorboards and put shims on top of the joists to level them out. Then you can re-lay the floorboards. While you have the floorboards up, you can insulate (sound proof) between the floors. Remember, when sound-proofing you need air space between the insulation and the floor--you do not want to pack the space with insulation because packed insulation carries the sound instead of dampening it. So here's an opportunity to take care of nagging problem and get some more privacy. Good luck!
I love your newel post "Lady Lamp". Where can I find one?
The lamp lady -- the newel post lamp -- shouldn't be too hard to find. A great number of these were made in the late 1800s and early part of the twentieth century. You can distinguish these from table-top lamps because of the small round (wood) base that they stand on. The figures themselves were made of spelter, an alloy that is mostly zinc (it's also called "pot metal"). It was a cheap substitute for bronze. Figures cast from spelter are fairly fragile. Often if they topple onto a hard surface, they will crack. If you find a spelter figure in an antiques shop, you want to be sure the seller knows the difference between spelter and bronze. Bronze is going to be very heavy, very smooth, and, if scratched, it will show yet more bronze below the surface. Spelter will show a silvery color.
We actually had another newel post figure just like this one but we sold it to a friend in the neighborhood. The first one we got from a friend who found it at an auction. We found our second one at an auction too. That's a good place to look. You'll pay a lot more at an antiques store. Also look at online sales. In fact, if you do a search by entering "newel post lamp" you'll find a lot of offerings. If you're looking for bargains, auctions are the way to go. Our newel post lady cost us $75 six years ago. Good luck hunting.
Hi Ron, I just spent several very enjoyable hours on your "house love" web page. Thank you for sharing - it's a great house!
How did you refinish the radiators? Did you use the same heat gun & steel wool method you describe for the woodwork? I am having trouble getting the paint off the inside nooks and crannies of my radiators, and don't know what to finish them with when I have the paint off.
Thanks! Kathleen, Baltimore, MD
Hi, Kathleen: thanks for checking out the website. At first we didn’t know what to do with our radiators. They were painted over with gummy off-white paint. We tried applying chemical stripper to them and then heat guns, but had no luck. Some people remove the radiators from their houses and sandblast them clean. Ours are too big for that. We decided to scrape them clean with paint scrapers. We used the kind that have triangle blades, which were really good for getting into the radiator's design. We also used ice picks, old screw drivers, metal files--whatever bit into the paint. This took a long time but it worked pretty well—it got off the goopy paint and help rescue the radiators’ detail.
Our strategy was to reveal the detail, scrape off whatever our tools would budge. Then I took a wire brush to the radiators. And then I wiped them down with alcohol (90% or grain). The main thing is to get them clean—especially in all those crevices. I used alcohol-soaked rags, shoved around with long-bladed screw drivers.
We learned that you DON”T need a special paint for radiators. They don’t get hot enough. For a top-coat we chose Modern Master’s “metallic paint collection,” which is water based and comes in a wide range of colors. Jill likes to mix paints to make a richer hue. So that’s what she did for the radiators. For a couple of them, however, I also used Rustoleum’s American Accents metallic paint (gold), which is oil based and fairly toxic.
We primed the radiators with a tinted Kilz--the interior/exterior water-based variety that's compatible with latex or oil paint. You can buy tint at any paint department; it's a little tube of stain you squeeze into your paint gallon. You'll need more than one tube for white primer. The darker the primer, the less topcoat you'll need because you'll have less show-through. The paint on all of the radiators has held up well. I think the heat makes for better adhesion, though that could be my imagination.
Good luck with yours! Ron
Our new home--an 1890 Queen Anne Victorian--is by far not in bad a shape as your home was when you purchased it, but there are some things that we would like to restore. The major thing would be to remove the paint from the interior window seals, doors, and wood carvings . We can’t decide what would be the best way to go to get this project started. We do not want to damage the wood below the painted surfaces with the process of paint removal, because we don’t want to repaint the wood after we remove the paint. We like to only remove the paint, and than hopefully buff the wood up a little with polish etc.
All the information on the internet is so confusing …there are hundreds of paint removers out there, and they all claim to be the best. None of the products advertised mentions if the wood below the painted area will be damaged. Would you have any advice how to get started? Andre & Bobbi, Atlanta, GA
Hi, Andre & Bobbi: There's a lot to say about stripping paint (I devote quite a bit of time to it in my book). But here's a short answer: infrared heat is the way to go. We bought a Silent Paint Remover from Air-nailers. There are a lot of brands out there. They all do the same thing, housing two quartz heating tubes in a handled container that you hold up to your painted surface. These are the same quartz elements found in space heaters. They don't get hot enough to make the paint toxic (though you should wear a mask). And they heat a large shoe-box-sized area evenly.
If your woodwork has been painted over varnish, the heat will make the paint bubble and almost lift off. You have to practice a while with various tools to get the knack of lifting the paint off. Hot paint smears easily--you want to get under it and pry or flick it off. The removed paint (which cools quickly) will be as brittle as corn chips. The stuff can be ground to dust very easily, so you want to sweep it up as soon as possible.
We follow the heat treatment with a heat gun for the stubborn areas, then a rough steel wool dipped in high-content (90%) rubbing alcohol or grain alcohol. And then a light sanding.
No matter what you do, you will end up gouging and/or roughing up the wood. So you will have to do some sanding. That means you'll have to refinish the wood. I can talk about that too (at another time), if you'd like.
Another technique I use is a razor scraper. After the initial strip, I rub down the wood with the alcohol-soaked steel wool, I let the alcohol sit for a couple of minutes, then I scrape the wood with the edge of the razor blade. As soon as I get a minute I'll draw a picture of this and post it here. I scrape with a downward motion, firmly holding the scraper near the blade to get the most leverage.
The razor-scrape method has worked really well for me because it shaves off the slightest surface of the paint-saturated wood.
The main thing is to try a variety of tools and techniques. And wear a mask. Feel free to ask questions. And send us some pictures. Best of luck. Ron
P.S. Check out our recent video on paint stripping: "How to Strip Paint from Wood"
FOLLOW-UP FROM ANOTHER REHABBER: I don't have an infrared heat gun, but love my regular heat gun for removing paint. The only problem I have is with windows - the heat breaks glass. After this happened to me twice, I just stopped using the heat gun on the windows and re-painted them. Kathleen. Baltimore, MD.
RESPONSE FROM RON: Yes, those heat guns get really hot. Jill and I have devised a couple of ways to work around this. Tape over panes of glass with cardboard covered with aluminum foil (shiny side out). Another method is to simply hold a piece of thin plywood (quarter inch) over the pane as you blast the trim with heat. Both methods have worked well for us. Thanks for sharing. Ron
Ron, I've got a wet basement and I don't want to spend a fortune getting it fixed. What do you suggest? Suzanne. Monkton, MD
Holy cow, Suzanne. This is a huge question. Let me start with some basics: if your basement is underground (fully or partially),then the first thing you want to look at is drainage around the house. Concrete and masonry are really porous, though they don't look it.
Let me give you a very simplified drawing to illustrate the concept. The yellow shows where the home-owner has replaced the soil with gravel (actually you cover the gravel with about a foot of soil). At the bottom of the gravel, lying on some pvc liner, is a perforated pvc pipe angled so that it drains to a receiving area away from the house. That way, the water hits the pipe and drains away before it hits your basement wall.
The basement wall could be sealed also, on the inside with a product like DryLoc and on the outside with any number of waterproofing products, the most basic of which would be tar.
If the leaking persists, then you'll want to install something called a "french drain" in the basement itself. The concept inside remains the same as the drainage technique outside: you'll dig a two-foot trench--just inside the wall, all along the perimeter of the basement; then you'll put in gravel, a perforated pvc pipe angled to a sump-pump at the back of the basement; then cover the pipe with gravel. The gravel trench acts as a barrier to break the flow of moisture across the basement floor.
There's a lot of info. you can pull up online about techniques. There are few things more unpleasant--and potentially hazardous--than a wet basement, so you're right to seek some remedies, Suzanne.
