Brighten up your exposed beams starting with all-purpose remover

Q. We have some exposed, unfinished wood beams in our house. They have some spots of latex paint that never got cleaned up from years ago. Do you know of any way to remove them other than sanding? Also, we are thinking of some kind of clear finish for the wood, to brighten it up. The beams are somewhat rough cut and have never been coated. A. Try OOPS! Water-Based All-Purpose Remover, which should be available in hardware and paint stores. (It will not only remove dried latex, but is also an all-purpose cleaner.) It can be used to remove tar, lipstick, ballpoint ink, crayon and grease. It is water-based and has no harsh odor. I would suggest that you do not use a finish that would form a film on your beams, but, instead, use a penetrating product like Minwax, which offers many tints besides a clear option.I can't tell you enough how fantastic your column is! I've solved so many problems just reading the letters. But now, I have a problem I haven't seen before and I wonder if you can help. When I turn the water on in the kitchen sink (only the kitchen, not the bathroom) there is a really bad mildew smell. I can't figure out what this is. My husband thinks I'm crazy, but I know what I'm smelling. We've had the water company out to our house for a different problem: the water's leaving yellow stains in the bathtub. Could this be related?A. Did the water company offer any suggestions about the yellow stains? They are probably due to iron in the water, which can be dealt with using a water softener. If you are on city water, as I presume you are, problems with the water quality should be addressed at the source, and there should not be any issues with it. However, a water specialist is probably the best person to call to analyze your water, just in case. The puzzling thing about your kitchen sink mildew odor is that you only smell it there. Did you have the kitchen faucet replaced recently?At the back of my house is a carport sitting on a concrete slab that measures approximately 16-by-21 feet. It's open on three of the four sides. The roof is attached to the house on one side, while wood pillars support the other. The pillars sit on top of a brick wall that's about 3 feet tall. I'm not certain how old any of this is, because it was all there when I purchased the house 15 months ago, but judging by the appearance of the concrete - and the shingles on the carport's roof - I would estimate it to be 10 or so years old. There's a section of the wall where several of the bricks have begun to deteriorate and are crumbling away. Coincidently, those same bricks have some type of white film over them. This film has the appearance of driveway salt that was liquefied and then allowed to dry, but that particular area is not subject to salting (and I don't use salt anyway). I can't wipe it off, because when I do the bricks start to crumble from the contact, and I end up with piles of red dust on the ground. Since I don't see any other area where the bricks are showing the same problem, I suspect the two issues are related somehow.Do you know what the white film might be, and why it would (seemingly) be deteriorating the bricks? It only appears to be the one area, too, so I don't imagine they used "defective" bricks during construction. Since a repair would be expensive - propping up the carport roof with new supports, tearing out at least a portion of the brick wall and then replacing it - I'd rather find something to preserve what's still there, or at the very least slow down the rate of deterioration.A. The white powdery substance is efflorescence, which is caused by moisture within the masonry that has dissolved the salts that are part of the manufacturing process. When the moisture dries, the salts are left behind. The crumbling of the bricks is most likely due to "rising damp" caused by soil moisture wicking up the bricks by capillary attraction. Apparently, the bricks were not hard-burned, as they should have been. The two are only related by the fact that they are caused by moisture, but efflorescence did not cause the deterioration of the bricks. The damage from rising damp is found only in some places because the soil moisture is probably more acute in those areas. Your photos did not show the overall picture, so I can't tell if there is an easy way to reduce the chance of further damage. You may want to check whether or not surface water is running down in these particular places. The best fix is to have a mason rebuild the affected wall sections, making sure that he or she isolate the contact with wet soil or use bricks that will not be affected.I have pitting on my garage floor under the car, which is due to road salt. Do you have any suggestions for a compound to fill these holes? Also, can you advise on a sealing compound to prevent further pitting, and is it advisable to treat the entire floor?A. I assume that your garage floor is concrete. ThoroCrete and Top 'N Bond are two products that can be used. Sealing a garage slab is not advisable, as it may never thoroughly dry.bull; Henri de Marne 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.#169; 2009, United Feature Syndicate Inc.