Replacing ceiling tiles with drywall may be worth effort

Q. After reading the Sunday comics, I have been reading your home repair consulting column for years. It has always been interesting and helpful.

I hope you can help me with some suggestions for replacing a low ceiling in what has been called an "English basement" (meaning a not very deep basement). Part of the basement area is fixed up as living space - a family room and shower/bathroom. The rest of it has a hot water tank, furnace, humidifier, laundry and storage space.

My question is about the family room area, which has a low ceiling. Because of this, the usual ceiling tile arrangement cannot be used. The ceiling tiles were just nailed to the rafters. Through the years, some of the tiles became loose and fell down.

I contacted a company that advertised ceiling installation and repair and they did not have any suggestions other than to nail the tiles back up. They were nailed back up, and now I can see that in some areas the tiles are starting to droop, and probably will fall again.

Do you have any suggestions for keeping the tiles from falling again, or another method of installing a ceiling of this type?

A. The dropping ceiling tile dilemma sounds unusual. Ceiling tiles are normally stapled, giving them a two-point attachment at each staple.

If yours were nailed, perhaps the weight of the tiles is too much for only one attachment point - the nailhead. You mention that the tiles are drooping; is there a high level of relative humidity (RH) in this part of the basement that is absorbed by the tiles, making them heavier than they should be? Perhaps the furnace humidifier is set too high. RH is best kept no higher than 30 percent in most cases.

At this point, the best I can suggest is to remove the tiles and screw drywall to the floor joists. If the floor joists are 16 inches on center, you can use 3/8-inch drywall, although 1/2-inch drywall is more rigid and will withstand higher levels of RH without distortion. Be sure to prime the drywall with B-I-N, followed by two coats of latex paint.

In fact, if the RH level is a problem, not only should you consider a dehumidifier, but you should also consider using moisture-resistant drywall.

Q. Thank you so much for your response to my question about moisture damage to the plaster ceiling around a stone chimney. There may be cracks in the flue tiles. I cannot imagine how they would be repaired or replaced. Can you advise?

I do have caps on the chimneys. I am sorry to say that there is no access to the attic above the ceiling where the damage is occurring. I will plan to improve the ventilation.

A. Since you have caps on the chimney flues, we can discount that as the source of moisture from rain seeping through any potential cracks in the flue. But condensation of gases from burning wood or fossil fuels could be the cause.

An experienced chimney sweep with a camera should be able to find out if there are any cracks in the flue liner, and be able to repair them.

Depending on the fuel used, a chimney can also be relined, if need be. If the roof has enough of a pitch for the attic to be large enough to access, an entry to the attic could possibly be installed in the ceiling of a closet or utility room, or, as is often done, in a hallway with a folding stairway.

If this is possible, on very cold mornings, you would then be able to determine if the plaster ceiling problem is caused by condensation occurring on the non-absorbing stones and dripping down to the plaster ceiling - one of the potential causes I mentioned in my previous response.

Interesting comment from a reader: "It seems that I found a caulking product that works remarkably well. After using DAP caulk several times and having it fail within six months, I picked up a can of Locktite UCAN white sealant. It's not a silicone, but an acrylic sealant. After one year it is still bright white and as intact as the day I put it on. Some mold tried to grow on it, but I applied a 50 percent water and 50 percent bleach solution that killed it within five minutes and left it bright white. Note: I removed old DAP caulk then wiped down the surface with alcohol before applying new Locktite sealant."

Q. We had a beautiful pergola until the woodpeckers discovered that the pillars had insects inside. I have called the Audubon Society and they suggested attaching aluminum foil that is shiny and made noisy by the wind. It worked for a short period of time. I also sprayed the holes with insecticide to no avail. It is a big expense to paint it again and again, and we don't think that will help. Can you suggest anything except giving the woodpecker the bill to pay?

A. I've had a similar problem in the past on one particular corner of the cedar siding of a recently built sunroom. It was attacked daily by downy and hairy woodpeckers, in spite of the fact that I am positive that there were no bugs in this new siding. Nothing seemed to discourage them.

I fashioned a heavy-gauge aluminum coil corner and installed it over the wounded boards and covered the aluminum with new "sacrificial" cedar boards.

I thought that if they attacked that corner again and got through the sacrificial boards, they would have the surprise of their lives hitting hard metal. But somehow, they outsmarted me and never touched the corner again. Pretty intelligent creatures! Or is it that the bribe worked?

I hung a suet cake in a suet cage nearby. They flocked to it. Consider trying it. You may have to set up a couple more cakes if your pergola is attacked on all sides. It's worth a try.

Q. A squirrel has chewed a hole in a corner of the house. What should I use to repair the hole?

A. You didn't mention what type of siding you have. If it's spruce or cedar clapboards, the best way is to replace the damaged boards. It's relatively simple.

If you have vertical boards or some form of plywood, and the hole is not too big, try an epoxy filler, such as Minwax High Performance Wood Filler. You should be able to find it in hardware and big-box stores. Minwax High Performance Wood Filler is easy to work with. When cured, it can be sanded and painted. If your siding is stained, the stain may not work well with this product, as it is impervious.

Q. My wife and I bought a 25-year-old log cabin home on a beautiful lake in northern Vermont a year and a half ago. The house is in good shape and we love it.

Since the purchase we have done minor repairs, upgrades and normal maintenance projects to improve it as it was used infrequently for about five years.

One problem we would like to tackle is a basement noise that can affect us and our guests sleeping in the two first-floor bedrooms. The basement is designed to be wet with open runways of rocks inside the partial concrete floor, and is surrounded by poured 5-foot-high walls. From there comes consistent noise from the power vent we installed our first year to vent the fuel-burning water boiler away from the same chimney used by a wood stove on the first floor.

There is also a lot of squeaking across the first-floor hardwood floors during normal, inside walking. I expect that careful re-screwing of the hardwood and subfloor from underneath would help with the squeaking.

I would really like your recommendation as to whether or not it would be a good idea to have blown or sprayed insulation applied to the underside of the floor throughout the basement. The current insulation (probably the original material) is the stiff, silver-colored aluminum type that has been stapled to the floor joists from below with the seams taped as well.

A. I assume that the insulation you describe is rigid polyiso. It would be a shame to remove it to access the subfloor in order to stop the squeaking.

Instead, look into O'Berry Enterprises' 3232 "Squeeeeek No More" hardwood floor repair kit. It will allow you to perform the repair from above. You can buy the kit from Amazon.

To sound-insulate from below, there are two possibilities that come to mind:

• Affix sound-deadening drywall, such as QuietRock, over the rigid insulation. It is quite pricey, but effective at deadening sound. You can buy it at Lowe's.

• Screw metal resilient channels to the floor joists through the existing rigid insulation and screw drywall to the resilient channels. The advantage of the resilient channels is that any airborne sound bounces off the drywall and is not carried to adjacent spaces through contact with the framing to which the channels are attached.

This is quite tricky to do, as the effectiveness of this system depends on its proper application procedure. It would be best to hire an experienced contractor to do the job.

• Henri de Marne was a remodeling contractor in Washington, D.C., for many years, and is now a consultant. His book, "About the House," is available at www.upperaccess.com. His website is www.henridemarne.com. Email questions to henridemarne@gmavt.net, or mail First Aid for the Ailing House, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

© 2015, United Feature Syndicate Inc.