Quick tip to keep screws rust-free

Q. Quick question: I work outside for the gas company. I remove the faceplate on the gas meter where the index is. The problem is by beach areas; the screws become rusted and are almost impossible to get out. Do you have an easy way of removing these screws?

A. Try squirting WD-40 on the screws, but you will need to give it time to soak in and loosen them. As preventive medicine for future removal of these screws, coat them lightly with petroleum jelly before putting them back in. This will keep them from rusting.

Q. We live in a split-level home built in 1951 with a half basement cinder block foundation. One-third of the basement is partitioned off as a laundry room and second bathroom. Water seeps into the basement whenever there is a heavy rain over a period of days or if local flooding is forecast for the region. The seepage was on the east and north walls. There is a sump pump in the northeast corner. On the north wall there are steps leading out of the basement onto a patio. On the outside east wall there is ground ivy, which gets very little sun. The grading appears to be fine. I solved the seepage on the east wall by drilling into the cinder block about 8 to 10 inches from the floor and inserted a half-inch copper tube, attached a plastic tube to it and ran it to the sump pump. I have contemplated doing the same on the north wall as the seepage there can't get to the pump because of the bathroom and laundry partition. My brother doesn't think it is a good idea to drill holes in the wall and insert copper tubing. To run a French drain would be difficult because the stall shower is on the north wall inside the partition. I could get the tubing behind the shower so I thought this would work. What is your opinion?

A. If you are controlling the seepage with tubing 8 to 10 inches above the floor, it's telling me that the cinder block walls must be waterproofed and that you are relieving the pressure on the walls by draining the water down to that level. So where is the seepage? It usually occurs at the base of the walls, but if it has stopped with the insertion of the tubing, it must be seeping into the basement at a higher point than the floor.

Water accumulating within the cores of cinder blocks is unhealthy for the house and potentially also for its occupants. As it evaporates upward into the house, it can cause mold to develop, and windows and doors to swell, among other problems.

Although you think the grade is fine, please look at it again critically. The ivy may hide low spots. If that is the case, work some good soil into the ivy bed without burying the ivy by gently shaking the soil in with the back of a garden rake. Tamp it slightly to firm it. The goal is to slope the grade away from the foundation.

You may not have a serious grade problem since the seepage occurs only after extended periods of heavy rain, but you may also have a subsurface water problem; that is often the case with delayed leakage. The sump pump should take care of rising subsurface water levels if there is a good bed of egg-size stones under the slab, but it is possible that there isn't one in a 1951 house.

It would be best to drill holes and insert the tubing you have used successfully just above the floor to drain the entire cores of the blocks. Your system is rather unusual, but if it works, who can argue with it? I say go ahead.

Q. We live in a very hard-water township, and over the years we have a buildup of hard water deposit on our front picture window. We have even called in a professional window washer, to no avail. Unfortunately, the sprinkler system will always allow a splash or two on the window, so replacing - a rather desperate solution - seems a poor and cost-prohibitive option. Any suggestions?

A. Mineral Magic from www.ecogeeks.com should safely remove the hard-water deposits from glass. It comes in 8-ounce ($4.70), quart ($13.25) and gallon ($34.15) containers. Eco Geeks' address is 1509 Rapids Drive, Racine, WI 53404; (877) 492-8123.

Q. Your recent recommendation for cleaning the exterior mold with products containing sodium percarbonate has led me to ask for your advice with a similar problem. The interiors of our 25-year-old expanded A-frame Pocono Mountain home are built with both the original and 10-year-old, 6-inch- and 10-inch-wide natural cedar tongue and groove planking - no sealers have been applied. Because of some faulty thermopane window casings (since corrected), much of the cedar planking - ceiling and walls - have become water stained, some areas severely.

Is there a commercially available product or a self-prepared mixture that could be applied manually that would restore the natural cedar or at least reduce the appearance of the water stains? The cedar itself appears to be solid without any evidence of rotting.

A. Sodium percarbonate is a very effective, biodegradable and environmentally safe wood cleaner. Powdered bleaches are made by treating soda ash with hydrogen peroxide. Two of the best are OxiBoost, marketed by Natural Choices, now also known as Eco Geeks, www.ecogeeks.com, (866) 699-2667, and Shout Oxy Power, marketed by SC Johnson. Both are ultra-concentrated forms of sodium percarbonate.

Q. I am writing about a problem a friend of mine is having in his basement. He has a small drainage trough at the base of the back wall to correct a problem with dampness, and a small amount of water leaking into the basement after heavy rains. This trough is designed to empty into the drain where the washer and stationary tub empty into the sewer.

The stationary tub empties via a straight pipe (no "S" trap) into the underfloor sewer line.

The pipe joint has not been permanently cemented or sealed as the drainage trough diverts its water into the back of this fitting and they stuff rags around the opening to try to minimize any sewer gas penetration.

This sewer odor is much less than a year ago (before the township installed a sewage system and they were hooked up, but it remains a definite problem.)

I am writing to ask if there is any membrane or other material available that they could use to seal around this joint to allow any drainage water to go into the drain while preventing sewer gases from coming up into the basement, since most of the basement is finished and used as an entry and spare room. I have already urged my friend to install an "S" trap under his stationary tub but do not think this would eliminate the sewer gas problem entirely.

A. Your friends have a creative, but hardly acceptable, drainage system for the occasional basement leakage. You are right; they should install an "S" trap for the washer and stationary tub, and seal the joint between the tub and washer drain pipe and the septic line under the floor. They should install a sump pump to take care of the occasional leakage.

Q. I read where you recently recommended a Hot Dawg electric garage heater in your column. I would also like to inquire about the subject of add-on heaters. I live in southwest Pennsylvania, about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. I have an unheated 21/2 car integral garage that sits directly below the master bed and bath. Along with the outside wall, the bath has two skylights and is entirely ceramic tiled. The entire bath ceiling is the roof and has no room(s) over it. The bedroom has only about one-third with a room over it. To make matters worse, both also have cathedral ceilings. Thus, these critical areas of the house stay much colder than the rest of the home. To complicate matters further, the bathroom sink is against the outside wall and the pipes will freeze when the temperature gets into the single digits.

I have put a smaller electric hot oil-type radiator heater in the room during very cold times, which makes it comfortable, except for the cold ceramic floor. It will also prevent the pipes from freezing. But I realize this is not a solution. To me, there is not a clear spot where a permanent bathroom-approved electric heater could go, but I am not knowledgeable in this area.

I have natural gas heat and am unsure if heating the garage below is the answer (Gas or electric?). The bathroom itself? Both? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I sure need help and advice.

A. You didn't say what type of heat you have. If it is warm air, the system may need balancing to throw more heat in the bedroom and bath than in the rest of the house. A competent heating contractor should be able to regulate this for you if the system was installed and sized properly in the first place. If not, there are booster heaters for warm air ducts. The HVAC contractor should know about those and install one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom.

If you have a hydronic heating system, ask the HVAC contractor whether it is possible to add radiation in both the bedroom and bathroom. If there is no wall space to add a length of baseboard, it can often be added on top of the existing radiators. Another possible option is a radiant heat panel installed on a wall or the ceiling of the bathroom.

Heating the garage under these rooms is not the answer; a heated garage activates the salt brought in with cars and hastens rusting. But you may want to check how well the garage ceiling is insulated. Often, this is done poorly, resulting in cold floors in the rooms above because, if the insulation is fiberglass, it is usually stapled from below, and it does not entirely fill the space between the joists. Heat is lost in the cold space between the underside of the floor and the top of the insulation.

Assuming the garage ceiling is finished (as it should be for fireproofing), the solution is to have dense-pack cellulose blown in between the joists, even if it means squeezing the fiberglass, or open the ceiling around the perimeter of the garage outside walls and insulate the rim joists.

Ceramic tile and any other similar dense floors will always feel colder than wood floors because more of our feet's nerve endings are in contact with dense materials than with cellular materials.

Q. We are interested in having our garage floor coated and sealed. Are there different products and processes you recommend? Is this something we could do ourselves or would it be better to hire a professional?

A. If by coated and sealed you mean to undertake one process, you can buy clear concrete sealers in any masonry and specialty building-supply stores. If you mean that you want to apply a paint or stain and then seal it, I would caution you that you may be asking for long-term problems. Painting concrete is always risky; staining is much safer, but staining old concrete that has been traveled on a lot, as is the case in a garage, may not be very successful. The job may turn out spotty, and the stain may not take very well. In any case, you will need to clean the concrete thoroughly with TSPPF and hot water. There are specialty products applied by trained specialists to coat concrete, but the cost is high.

• Henri de Marne's column appears Sundays. He was a remodeling contractor in Washington, D.C., for many years, and is now a consultant. Write to him in care of the Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006, or via e-mail at henridemarne@gmavt.net.

© 2009, United Feature Syndicate Inc.