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On
a warmish New Year’s Eve, I planted more lettuce in
the cold frame on the south side of the house since what
I’d put in a few weeks before was thriving.
Then,
of course, the next few days turned bitterly cold.
Although the lettuce continues to thrive — it is a
cold frame, after all — my thoughts turned to how
people were coping with this and future spates of frigid
temperatures.
Consumer
Reports tweeted a link to a Centers for Disease Control
list of home-heating safety tips. I’ll give you a few.
Use
fireplaces, wood stoves, or other combustion heaters
only if they are properly vented to the outside and do
not leak flue gas into indoor air space.
Do
not burn paper in a fireplace.
Ensure
adequate ventilation if you must use a kerosene heater.
Use
only the type of fuel your heater is designed to use. Do
not substitute.
Do
not place a space heater within three feet of anything
that may catch fire, such as drapes, furniture, or
bedding, and never cover your space heater.
Never
place a space heater on top of furniture or near water.
For
the whole list, go to http://bit.ly/wC8yAJ.
———
Better
late than never. I received an e-mail while I was away
for the holidays from a reader with a decision-making
deadline of Dec. 22.
Oops,
I say. It seems she has a 1992-vintage dishwasher that
seems to wash pots and pans just fine but leaves cloudy
marks on the backs of glasses.
She
asked me to recommend a model — I cannot do so — or
determine whether she needs a replacement.
My
advice: If your dishwasher has a dispenser for it, a
rinsing agent might help. You also may be using more
dishwashing detergent than you need.
Experiment
before you replace.
———
Q:
My 1929 house was aluminum-sided (covering wood siding)
in the 1970s. Everything looks fine from the outside,
but I keep wondering what deterioration is going on
under that skin.
Short
of ripping off siding in different spots to check, is
there a way to know if the wood is rotting? Or am I
worrying about something unlikely?
A:
If there were pieces of siding that were crooked or
sagging, or there was mold or mildew on the surface, I’d
say you might have a problem. If everything looks fine,
depending on how you define the word, I wouldn’t go
looking for trouble.
From
my experience, houses were sided with aluminum for three
reasons: To avoid having to paint, to hide rotting wood
(salesmen in the 1960s talked entire neighborhoods into
believing replacing the rot was more expensive), or to
make one rowhouse look different from the next (hence
siding over brick).
From
your address, it sounds like your siding was done to
avoid painting.
———
Q:
How can I safely take berry stains off my Hardiplank
(fiber-cement) siding that birds put there from our
holly tree?
We
tried bleach and water and used a brush that took off
some finish. I also used a siding cleaner recommended at
the home center and it didn’t do anything.
A:
When I was installing Hardiplank as trim on a
19th-century shed in a churchyard a few years back, I
used washing soda (in the laundry detergent aisle at
Wegmans and elsewhere) to remove sap from evergreen
trees before I painted the board.
That
or lemon juice might work.
———
CORK
FLOORS: I wrote about cork flooring a few weeks ago, and
a number of you responded with your experiences.
Here’s
one: "I have cork flooring in my kitchen. My house
does not have a basement, and the cork floor is warmer
and also softer than a typical floor.
"I
didn’t consider it an expensive type of flooring, but
it does have one thing to consider. It is prone to
scratching. The installation has it as a floating floor.
The sections are large pieces, and they are glued
together.
"My
cats have put many tiny nicks in the floor through their
racing and stopping in the kitchen.
"I
did put a protective coating on the floor, using
water-based polyurethane, which is the suggested sealing
by the manufacturer."
My
neighbors recently had a cork floor installed in their
kitchen. What I saw looked good, but we’ll see about
endurance.
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