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Shower tiles unlikely to be damaged by household drain cleaner

Q. After unclogging a bathroom shower with an inexpensive retail liquid drain opener, I noticed how clean it got the shower's tile floor - grout and all - where it spilled. So I put on protective gloves and glasses and sprayed more on the remainder on the dry shower floor. After 30 minutes or so I rinsed the product off, then lightly scrubbed a few areas. The floor looked like new!

I have no kids so there is no danger to anyone except myself. But could I be damaging the floor in some way?

A. You didn't mention which drain cleaner you used. Drain cleaners come in several forms, but basically some have an acidic base and are mostly used by licensed plumbers because of the risk their use can entail. Others have an alkaline base and come in solid or liquid form, and are available in hardware stores.

Alkaline drain cleaners contain sodium hydroxide (lye) or potassium hydroxide. The lye in the cleaner is likely responsible for the cleaning of the tiles and grout.

I am no chemist, but my sense is that ceramic tiles used in a wet environment are hard-glazed and should not be damaged by the sodium hydroxide.

Q. I live in a split level in a new suburb of Chicago. There is a 3-foot-deep crawl space under the kitchen, living room and dining room. In the winter, the hardwood kitchen floor gets really cold. The living room and dining room are carpeted so no problem. The crawl space has a concrete floor, but the space is not insulated. It has vents in a couple of walls.

My question: should the floor under the kitchen be insulated? Should any part of the crawl space be insulated?

A. The reason the kitchen wood floor feels colder than the carpeted floor is that the cellular composition of the wood floor is denser than the fibers of the carpet.

Our skin is full of nerve receptors, including the bottoms of our feet. More of our feet's receptors will be in contact with a denser surface than they will be on a carpet. So we feel more.

An example I can give you is the difference we feel when sleeping on flannel sheets versus regular cotton sheets in the winter, especially if you sleep in the buff.

Insulating the kitchen floor or the entire crawl space floor may make a slight difference, but not a significant one. Insulating the entire crawl space walls will make the space warmer, but, again, it will not make much difference in the feeling of cold.

In either case - crawl space floor or wall insulation - there are some considerations to take into account. Doing so will allow deeper frost penetration, which may increase the risk of damage to the walls from frost pressure unless the house's backfill was done with coarse material, the grading around the foundation slopes away from it and there is an effectively functioning foundation drainage system.

Q. Our house was well built in 1858. Some areas are just wearing out. The most crucial right now is the door knob on our main point of entry. Things have slid around inside, screws have been worn and some replaced and things just don't line up well enough to always open the door from the outside.

If someone is not in the house to let you in, it's a trip around the house to come in through the barn. We have been told we may have to replace the whole door, which we really do not want to do. My suggestion of cutting out a section of the door to install new hardware has been dismissed.

In these three pictures, you can see the edge of the door (the weather stripping, I guess) is held together with duct tape. We have not used the original lock and key in my lifetime. The dead bolt was fine until we got weatherized and now we cannot unlock the door from the outside - although when the door is open, the key works fine in the lock. All in all this door just baffles me.

A. Thanks for the photos, but they are not clear enough for me to have any other suggestion than to have an experienced locksmith examine the lock and offer whatever solution he or she deems feasible. When calling locksmiths, be sure to ask if they have experience with very old locks.

The problems shown on your photos also tell me you may need an experienced carpenter to perform some repairs to the apparent damages.

Q. Thank you for your Daily Herald column. Please provide advice for sealing our 2-year-old concrete driveway to prevent deterioration. So far there are only a few small spalls and no cracks.

A. There are two kinds of concrete sealers: penetrating and topical.

Penetrating sealers are the best and are permanent, but they only work if the concrete is absorbent. To check if the concrete is absorbent, sprinkle water on it. If the water soaks in, you can use a penetrating sealer, but if the water beads, it would be a waste of time and money.

Topical sealers can be applied on any clean concrete, but need to be reapplied regularly - every one to three years, depending on use.

Q. You are such a wealth of knowledge. I truly enjoy your weekly expertise in our local Daily Herald.

I have attached a picture of my kitchen stove rail. The rail to me is the wood. It does have many, many years of grease splatters. It is 28 years old. I clean/wipe my stove almost on a daily basis with just a clean, wet kitchen dish cloth. The wooden rail is getting very sticky and I can't seem to get it "unsticky" from the grease build up. What can I use to clean the wood to get rid of the sticky surface?

A. Try Milsek Furniture Polish & Multi-Purpose Cleaner, the original Milsek product (www.milsek.com). They now have many products suitable for a number of purposes.

You should be able to buy it in some hardware stores. Ace Hardware carries it, others may also. Milsek's website let's you find stores where the product is carried in your area.

It's a miracle product we use regularly on our furniture.

• Henri de Marne, a former remodeling contractor turned columnist and consultant, is the author of "About the House with Henri de Marne" (Upper Access Publishing). He continues to take questions from readers for this column and his website, www.henridemarne.com. Email questions to aboutthehouse@gmavt.net.

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