Steel Reinforcing Bars Are Good Anywhere, Even If Not Necessary

A. Rebars - steel reinforcing bars - are good anywhere. Yours are not necessary, because that slab is not going anywhere, but since the first one broke up so badly, why not? It's your garage, your floor, and your money, and the man is not charging much for them, so why not. Your insistence is definitely not unreasonable.

Q. I have a built-in china cabinet along one wall of my dining room. It has glass doors on the top and drawers on the bottom. The exterior wall behind the cabinet is insulated, and the back of the cabinet is painted matchstick wainscoting. It is mortal cold in the cabinet. How can I insulate the back of the cabinet to keep out the cold?

A. The cabinet is cold because it is separated between the insulated wall and the heated room. Open the glass doors and the cabinet will warm up, with little extra fuel burned. But it will not hurt to add a little insulation wherever you can. You can cover the back of the cabinet with another layer of three-eighth-inch-thick wainscoting. If the shelves can be removed, take them out and tack or glue new pine wainscoting on the old. Then put back the shelves. You may have to take a little off the sides of the shelves to make them fit. If they are glass, or cannot be removed, instead of putting new wainscoting on the entire back of the cabinet, cut the covering to fit between shelves. As I said, you can tack it or glue it. If you use glue, use Phenoseal, an adhesive caulk that is good for this purpose.

Q. I just put in a French drain, a pipe under the floor all around the inside perimeter of my foundation. It works well, and is covered with concrete. I then put down big indoor-outdoor carpet squares, and the ones over the drain are retaining moisture under the carpet. I keep a dehumidifier running, and it runs fairly continuously. How can I stop that moisture?

A. That moisture is condensation of water vapor coming up through the concrete, condensing on the cool floor, under the carpet. There is too much of it to allow the carpet to let it evaporate. The cure is to lift those border carpet squares and set them aside to allow the moisture to evaporate. It will with ventilation.

There is one more thing. That dehumidifier is working well, perhaps too well, pulling water vapor out of the air and more water vapor right through the concrete, where it might stay if the dehumidifier were not used. So, turn off that humidifier and use ventilation instead. It is a lot cheaper than the dehumidifier. In winter you do not need to dehumidify or ventilate because there is less moisture. You may have to experiment, but a little adjusting can go a long way toward a dry basement.

Q. I am taking the ceramic tiles off a wall, which leaves some mastic remaining. I plan to reuse as many tiles as I can. How can I remove the mastic from plasterboard or plaster?

A. Use chemical paint stripper; it will soften it enough so you can scrape it, every so carefully, from plasterboard. If it is plaster, it is much easier to strip.

Q. My rubber door mat has a lot of little buttons on the back, which make black rubber smudge marks on the porch floor. I can scrub off the smudges, but it is getting to be a pain. How can I keep the smudges off the floor?

A. Chuck the rubber or put it in the back. Buy one of those new fiber welcome mats. They come in all shapes and colors and will not smudge. There are some pretty nice ones in the Improvements Catalog, (800) 642-2112.

Q. I installed white caulking around a bathtub about four years ago. Now it has turned brown. How can I clean it and keep the brown from coming back?

A. Bleach can take away the brown, but if it is any kind of caulking, the bleach will also mess up the caulking. So, it is best to dig it out and put in a new white type - one that resists staining. If the joint you are caulking is between tub and tile, then use grout rather than caulking.

Q. A couple of triangular-shaped ceramic tiles went missing on my bathroom floor. I do have the square tiles from which I can cut the triangles to fill in the spaces, but how?

A. There's the rub. The tiles are not ceramic, but are probably porcelain, much harder than ceramic. You can cut it with a glass cutter, then snap the square in two by stepping on it over a pencil. It's not easy. Another way to do it is to put it in a vice and cut it with a hacksaw, with the blade flat on the tile. Or, take it to a tile cutter who can make short work of it.

Q. My parents have painted their front porch ceiling every year, but the rusty nail spots keep coming though. Is there a way to keep the rusty nail part covered under the paint?

A. I assume you mean the roofing nails are going through the wood boards where you see them if you look up to the ceiling. Those are the nail points that get wet from condensation and thus rust. It would be difficult to clip off the nail points, which would rust again anyway. Here is one thing: you can nail up cedar boards and not bother to finish them. Less expensive is to nail one-quarter- inch plywood on the wood ceiling and paint it with a latex solid stain. Two thin coats will do well and will resist peeling.

* Write Peter Hotton at the Boston Globe, Boston, Mass. 02107, or e-mail him at photton@globe.com. Hotton is available 1 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays to answer questions on house repair. Call (617) 929-2930. Hotton also chats on line about house matters 2 to 3 p.m. Thursdays. To participate, go to Boston.com.

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