Q. During a recent renovation, we had taps installed to our bathtub downstairs. Now whenever we turn them on, they bang really loudly. How do we fix this?
A. You don’t. You call the plumbing contractor who installed the taps and tell him that you have water hammers (what the banging pipes are called) and that you need air stops installed in the system to prevent this. If the plumber says air stops already were installed, then they are not working properly, and it is still the plumber’s problem to diagnose and to remedy. I urge you to be reasonable and polite with the plumber but also to hold your ground until the problem is fixed.
Q. I recently hired a man to refinish my dining room tabletop. He did this for a friend, who was very pleased, and he has a good reputation.
When I got the table back, it was a shock to see that it had a high-gloss finish. I felt partly responsible because I had not specified a low-gloss finish. After he left, I could feel tiny bumps and saw some small hairs in the finish. While he had the table, he was ill, and then he learned he has a serious illness. I didn’t have the heart to complain.
I have done some refinishing and am a patient sander and/or steel-wooler, but I haven’t had experience with polyurethane. I hope you have some advice.
A. You seem to be an understanding and patient person. You also are on track about a solution. Using very fine steel wool (No. 0000) and some non-pigmented furniture oil, such as Old English lemon oil, and wearing good rubber gloves, buff the tabletop gently with the steel wool and oil, always moving with the grain. Do a small area first. Buff it thoroughly with a clean, soft rag, and let it dry for a time. If it is still too glossy for your tastes, work on that area a little more.
The steel wool without the furniture oil would dull the surface seriously, probably much more than you want. But the oil acts as a lubricant, letting the steel wool slide over the finish and remove particles and hairs.
The key word here is “gently.” If you rub vigorously, the steel wool will dull the finish even if you’re using furniture oil. Your patience will be tested by working slowly, gently and carefully on small areas. But your patience also will be rewarded with a finish on your table that is not overly shiny or lumpy, as it is now. Good luck.
Here’s a tip: I buy heavy-duty rubber gloves for particularly filthy work or for work with products that are hard on the skin. They’re not cheap. As a right-hander, I find that holes in the thumb and index fingers of the right glove usually appear first, after which it becomes functionally useless.
After years of discarding both gloves just when one leaks and then buying new ones, it came to me a few years back that I could prolong their usefulness in two ways. One is to wear a spare left-hand glove on the right hand. It’s a little awkward at first, but they are stretchy and can work, unless I needto do something particularly dexterous. The second is, before I discard any gloves, I cut off glove fingers that are not damaged, slip them over damaged fingers on gloves I’m using and tape them on with duct tape. This also cuts back on dexterity and would not work for some projects.
By using these two approaches, I have halved the number of gloves that I buy, a savings of about $100 in five or six years.
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E-mail Mr. HandyPerson at yourplace@tribune.com.
