Home fixes for tile haze, fireplace odor and a room-addition crack

Q: Tilers left a haze of grout on my kitchen's ceramic tiles. I keep washing and rubbing without success. What can I do?

A: That haze is grout that has fused onto the tile and will not come off except with acid or rubbing. Rubbing with a dry cloth should have worked, if the tiles are glazed.

Another reader suggests rubbing the haze off with dry plastic pot scrubbers.

Q: My Victorian house has no chimney caps on the two flues coming out of the chimney. But when the heat or fireplace is not on, I get a sour, wet, burned ash smell from the chimney. How can I prevent that?

A: That smell is caused by a downdraft in the flue, when falling air pushes the odor from the walls of the flue into the house. It does, indeed, smell bad. One cure is to block off the flue that is at fault, which is probably the one serving the fireplace. Block off the fireplace opening, or put a damper at the top of the flue. Top dampers are sold at energy and fireplace stores. Another fix is to light several candles in the fireplace, which will get the air — and smell — going up and out.

Q: When I had a new room attached to my town house everything looked great for a while, until a crack showed up. The crack in the ceiling is a half-inch wide, and about a half-inch from the main wall where the addition is attached to the town house. Is the addition falling away? Is there anything I should do? Is there anything the contractor should do?

A: Call the contractor to get an opinion, I think he is obliged to at least cover the joint if nothing else is wrong. What you can do, all other things being equal: Check the walls where they butt up against the main wall; check the joints to see if any have opened up.

The ceiling gap may mean the addition has dropped or pulled away just a little, or just the roof has dropped or pulled away. In the latter case, check the roof where it butts against the main wall. Any crack in the roof may be covered by flashing, which may keep it from leaking. If the room or roof dropped a little, it probably won't drop any further, which is more a hope than a fact.

So, if nothing else moves, I suggest you put up a crown molding along that gap between ceiling and wall. The crown molding will cover about 3 inches of ceiling and 3 inches of wall. A good thing about a trim like this is that if anything moves behind it, there will be enough stress to split the molding or cause gaps between the molding and wall and ceiling, which will be an immediate, visible warning as to what is happening.

E-mail questions to photton@globe.com. Sorry, no personal replies.