Q-We live in an old house that has steam heat with old-style cast-iron radiators in each room. When the heat comes up, two of these radiators make a steady knocking noise that lasts anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour. What can I do to get rid of the noise?
A-In these systems, steam enters each radiator, then eventually cools and condenses back into water.
The water drips to the bottom of the radiator and is supposed to run back out the same pipes.
However, if the radiator is not level, or if it slopes away from the valve, then the water gets trapped inside and can’t run out. The steam coming in causes this water to bubble and also tries to push the water out of the way; this is what causes the noises you hear.
If radiator’s pitch isn’t right, place a thin wood wedge under the legs away from the valve and keep building up this wedge until the level shows the radiator is sloping slightly toward the valve.
Split insulation
Q-We have foil-faced insulation between the rafters on our attic roof. Some of this foil has started to crack and split and the insulation behind it is starting to fall out.
We hate to rip it all out to replace it. Could we nail 4-by-8-inch boards to the rafters to cover all this, or should we buy plain foil and staple it over the old foil?
Would any of these solutions cause moisture problems?
A-The foil is the vapor barrier for your insulation. If it’s torn or split it’s no longer effective, so a new vapor barrier is needed.
I suggest using polyethylene plastic.
Spread it across, under the roof rafters, so that it covers the old insulation and foil. Staple it across the edges of the rafters so that adjoining sheets overlap and all the wood is covered.
That way you will have a continuous vapor barrier that will actually be more efficient than the old one.
Slippery tile floor
Q-I had a tile floor installed on my outdoor porch. It looks beautiful, but during the winter the tile becomes slippery and dangerous to walk on.
I asked the local tile stores if there’s anything I can put over the tiles to make them safer, but nobody knows of anything. Can you help?
A-If your tiles have a glossy finish that’s slippery, there isn’t much you can do about them without ruining the finish.
However, during the winter months you could put inexpensive indoor/outdoor carpet over the tile-perhaps the type that looks like artificial turf.
Buy the kind that doesn’t have black rubberlike backing because it might stain the tile. Lay the carpet down without mastic.
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Write to Bernard Gladstone in care of Your Place, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.
