Following are tips for completing do-it-yourself maintenance and repair
projects from syndicated columnist Gene Austin.
Q. Our blacktop parking lot and driveway crumbled in a
couple of places during the winter and also have some fine cracks about 1/4-inch-wide or less. We can’t afford to replace the parking lot right now. Can it be repaired?
A. The crumbled areas can be patched with blacktop mix or cold patch, sold at home centers and hardware stores. The cracks should be sealed with a patching compound. The first step is to remove the crumbled blacktop, leaving a clean area, and smooth the sides of the hole to help prevent future crumbling. Smoothing the sides requires a cutting tool such as a wide chisel or a heavy digging bar, like those used to help dig post holes. The blacktop mix is best installed on a warm day when it will spread well. If working on a cool day, warm up the blacktop mix by putting the bags near a heat source for awhile. Do not put gravel in the bottom of the hole, as is sometimes recommended; you want to fill the entire hole, from the bottom up, with blacktop mix. Pour in the mix and spread it with a rake so it is slightly thicker than the surrounding blacktop. Tamp the patch with the end of a 4-by-4 or 2-by-4 until it is level with the surrounding material. Another way to compress the patch is to lay plywood on top and run over it carefully a few times with a car. Let the patch dry overnight before driving on it.
Cracks can be sealed quickly with a blacktop patch sold in caulking-gun cartridges. I get best results with GE Silicone II Blacktop and Roof Caulk. Some other caulking-gun patches I have tried deteriorate quickly.
Q. I have an old brick building. When the trim was painted years ago, the sloppy painters got spatters and drips on the bricks. I tried paint remover, but it didn’t take off the stains. Should I just paint the entire building to hide the damage?
A. It is seldom a good idea to paint a brick building. No matter what the problem is with the bricks, there is almost always a better solution than covering it with paint, which will require regular maintenance even if the work is expertly done.
One reason that paint spatters are hard to remove is because they are very old and the paint has been allowed to penetrate deeply into the brick pores. You don’t say what kind of paint remover you used in the past, but I suggest trying a powerful remover like Strypeeze. Buy the gel-type remover, which will cling to the vertical bricks, and lather on a thick coat. Let it work for 10 or 15 minutes, then use a putty-knife to scrape off the remover and paint. You might have to apply several coats and scrub it with a stiff scrub brush to remove all paint. If this doesn’t work, try Peel Away, a remover that is often effective on bricks.
Questions and comments should be e-mailed to Gene Austin at doit861@aol.com.