Low spot in garage can be repaired
Q. We have a concrete garage floor that has minor cracks and is slightly out of level. The problem is that the lowest places are right by the door leading into our house. It can accumulate about one-half inch of water over about 4 square feet. Water there is more common in winter because of melting snow falling from the car's wheel wells. We would like to level the floor to stop this accumulation of water. We inquired with concrete men and they said it would have to be broken up and repoured. Any recommended fix would be appreciated. We don't care what it looks like. We just want to rid ourselves of that water.
A. There are products made specifically for this problem. After thoroughly cleaning the affected area with a mixture of 1 cup of TSP-PF, 1 quart fresh Clorox bleach and 3 quarts clean water to remove all dirt, oil, salt, mildew and other pollutants, thoroughly rinse. Then, trowel on a vinyl-reinforced cement mix such as Sakrete's Top'N Bond Concrete Patcher or Thorocrete Concrete Patch, following the instructions carefully. These products need to be applied in thin layers, which can be troweled over each cured layer as needed. If the existing concrete is hard-troweled and smooth, it should be etched with muriatic acid. Under these conditions, if you decide to use Thorocrete, it would be wise to add Acryl 60 to the mix to provide additional bonding strength. Because muriatic acid is a very potent chemical, it must be handled with extreme care, by people who have experience with it. You might let a mason take care of the repair.
Q. I've got a few issues with a hunting camp that I've recently acquired. The camp is a block building, 28-by-16 feet and has a 24- to 30-inch crawl space with four vents. Should these four vents be opened all year round or closed in the summer months? The crawl space is a dirt floor with two layers of 6 mil plastic. Secondly, is there such a thing as too much attic ventilation? I have two gable vents at each end of this camp. And lastly, where can a DIY-guy obtain information about metal standing seam roofing materials and rent the tools to put this type of roof on by myself?
A. Assuming that your hunting camp is very rustic and only used sporadically in the winter, has no running water and is likely to be heated with wood when you are there, there is no need to close the crawl space or attic vents. However, if there is plumbing and you keep some form of heat on throughout the winter, close the crawl space vents in winter to keep cold air out. With two layers of 6-mil plastic, if they are in good condition and cover the entire crawl space, the vents can be closed year around. If the attic is insulated, you may leave its vents open, but again since there is little, if any, moisture accumulation problem possible with sporadic use of the camp, they are really not needed.
Metal standing seam roofing is best left to experienced mechanics, and it is quite expensive. You would need to find a panel-forming brake and a seamer in a tool rental shop. There are many choices of screw-on metal roofing panels available through building-supply houses. Many of these panels have durable factory-finish coatings and are easily installed with special neoprene-gasketed screws.
Q. Recently you had an article about a product that safely cleaned wooden kitchen cabinets. I cut the article out and lost it. We are refurbishing our kitchen and would like to know the best way to clean our existing oak cabinets so they will look their best next to the new ones.
A. This miracle product is Milsek, milsek.com. Many readers have commented on how great it is. I have had a similar experience with it.
Q. I have a problem with a very musty smell in our upstairs bedrooms. I bought this four-bedroom, split-level home eight years ago. It is about 50 years old. I had a new roof put on. My husband replaced all the windows. I had the house stripped of shingles and new insulation and vinyl siding put on. The contractor said the wood under the siding was dry. The house has a partial basement under the living room, kitchen and dining room. The bedrooms that smell are above the garage and family room that is built on a slab. We have no water in the basement (although it smells musty in summer and spring). The floor in the family room is concrete and was dry with no signs of moisture when new carpet was installed.
Why would our upstairs bedrooms, especially mine over the family room, smell so bad? It is worse in summer and days when the heat is not on. Some days are better than others. Our attic is dry as we have checked that out. The foundation is cinder block and it comes up high off the ground before the siding on the outside starts. The smell comes from one outside wall that goes across the side of the house that has the garage and family room. We have asked so many contractors what this could be and no one has an answer. I even had my husband remove the entire wall in my bedroom on that side and it was dry, no dead animals, and he replaced the insulation in the wall before putting up the new one and the smell is still there. I feel like the odor comes from the lower end of the room by the baseboard radiator and floor.
My thought is, could cinder block hold smells that would come up all the way to the second floor? The family room is under my room so the smell skips the lower room and goes upstairs! Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
A. You haven't said, but did the smell exist before all the work was done? Or did you have all this work done to try to get rid of it? Since the smell is in the rooms above the garage and family room, be aware that a garage can get very humid and, depending on how its ceiling is insulated and finished (if there is either insulation or finish on it), the dampness it generates can pervade the rooms above or the insulation. Convective currents can also bring moisture and its smell through any openings such as those around the radiator pipe. A concrete slab can also exude moisture in subtle vapor form, as it is a pervious material unless a plastic sheet was laid before the concrete was poured as a vapor retarder.
The fact that the concrete floor was dry with no signs of moisture when the new carpet was laid is not a guarantee that the concrete did not exude moisture. The only way to make sure is to thoroughly tape a piece of 2-foot square plastic onto the concrete for a couple of days. If there are no water beads on the underside of the plastic, the concrete is dry. But if there are water beads, that's probably part or all of your answer. Accumulation of moisture in all the wood components, furniture and furnishings of the partial basement that smells musty in the spring and summer may also be responsible. When the heat is on, the excessive dampness is absorbed by the warmed air and the smell disappears. You should consider using a dehumidifier in the basement and the affected bedrooms during the non-heating season, or the installation of a whole-house air-to-air heat exchanger to keep the indoor air fresh. If the grade is flat or negative (sloping toward the house) and the cinder block walls have been painted with a waterproof coating inside, water may also have accumulated within the blocks' cores, evaporating into the house. Since you haven't mentioned where you live, I can only guess that you do not have central air conditioning.
Q. In a recent column about gutter guards, you stated that you preferred commercial gutters and downspouts because they never clog. How would you describe commercial gutters and downspouts? How do they work so they never clog?
A. Residential gutters are 5 inches wide and residential downspouts are 2-by-3 inches (a cross section of 6 square inches). Commercial gutters are 6 inches wide and their downspouts are 3-by-4 inches (a cross section of 12 square inches). The most important part of the combination is the cross section of the downspouts. Residential downspouts are prone to clogging if sticks and certain tree debris get caught in their connection to the gutter or in any of their bends. This is not the case with commercial downspouts; most if not all stuff washes right through them. If commercial gutters are too big for the aesthetics of the house (such as in one-story installations), a residential gutter with a commercial downspout is a fine compromise as long as the gutter's outlet is sized 3-by-4 inches. Some gutter installers will tell you that you can't install commercial downspouts on residential gutters, but they are wrong; it's often done.