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Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Plumbing
FOR FLUSHING ISSUES Turn off the water to the toilet, flush the toilet to minimize the water in the bowl, and pour in a gallon of vinegar to remove scale and mineral deposits. Leave the vinegar in the toilet for 24-48 hours. This may improve the flushing. The goal is...
Brick & Masonry, Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Painting
Cleaning Paint Streaks Off Brick I believe this is the white pigment from the powder coating on the metal siding that is washing down onto your brick. Yes, you can remove the streaks yourself but this will continue to be a persistent problem until the siding above is...
Brick & Masonry, Cleaning, Home Improvement Library
White Stuff on Brick is Efflorescence Q: What is the white stuff developing on the bricks of my home?A: What you are experiencing is efflorescence. Efflorescence is a white crystalline or powdery, often fluffy/fuzzy deposit on the surface of masonry materials like...
Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Plumbing
Q: How do you get rid of black streaks in a toilet bowl? A: You have a lime-like mineral build up from the many little holes under the toilet bowl rim where the water flows during flushing. These water paths have left a mineral residue over the years and that...
Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Water & Moisture
Q: How can I remove mildew spots from my bathroom ceiling? A: Put a timer on you bath vent fan so that it runs for 20-30 minutes after a shower to better remove the moisture. The spots are from mildew growing on the surface of the paint, most likely from condensation...
Cleaning, General Construction & Repairs, Home Improvement Library, Plumbing
Sewer gas smell indicates a potentially serious health and safety threat. The simplest and more common solution to stop the smell is to pour water into the drains of all your plumbing fixtures to replace any water that has evaporated from your drain traps. Plumbing...
Cleaning, General Construction & Repairs, Home Improvement Library
The white dust you describe may be from several sources and also may be a little bit from each. If there is any carpet in the house there will inevitably be dust from foot traffic which usually shows up as “white dust.” Opening the windows for spring and...
Cleaning, Gutters & Downspout, Home Improvement Library
Top Job, Krud Kutter, Simple Green & Whitewall Tire Cleaner will clean the milling oil streaks off the gutters and remove the difficult dark streaks off your aluminum gutters. I’m also sure that Goof Off would clean the gutters but might harm the gutter...
Cleaning, General Construction & Repairs, Home Improvement Library
Liquid Nails and other construction adhesives are very hard to remove, so much so that cutting them off is the effective method. To remove two wood pieces or other construction materials, I suggest you use Windshield Cut-Out Wire (also called music wire), available at...
Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Remodeling
Cleaning cabinets is risky because the grease and oil residue that typically coats your cabinets also softens and destroys the cabinet finish. Removing the grease and oil from your cabinets usually removes the clear coat stain or paint on the cabinets themselves which...
Cleaning, Electrical, Home Improvement Library
Built in vacs are great, especially for allergy or asthma sufferers because they suck up dust mites, dust etc. and blow the “exhaust” outside the house. Regular cannister vacuums just recycle the dust into the same rooms. A central system exhausts outside...
Brick & Masonry, Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Painting
Solutions include scraping heavy deposits of paint off the brick, wire brushing the rest of the solid paint off the brick, and burning the residue off the brick with a torch, heat gun or Bernzomatic flame. Solvents are not good for this purpose because they turn the...
Cleaning, General Construction & Repairs, Home Improvement Library
The caulk likely failed because the surface of the shower wall was not cleaned thoroughly with a solvent, like alcohol. The old caulk may peel off like a rope, or it may be cut off with a razor blade. Caulk remover will not be effective. Any solvent that attacks the...
