Q: When we bought our 1942 house nine years ago, it came with a brick retaining wall 35 feet long and 4½-to-5½ feet tall. Holding up the stairs to our front door, it was already leaning to one side, and now the tilt is even worse. Several contractors have given us astronomical estimates for redoing it. The brick is the original specialty brick found in only a few other houses in the neighborhood. I keep looking at this wall and asking myself: Can’t we just dig out behind it, push the wall upright with backhoes and jackhammers, then build another wall behind it, hidden by the dirt and stairs? This wall would act as an actual support to keep the earth in place. Our original wall would become a faux wall to stand there and look pretty. Is this wall reparable? If not, is there a way to match the old brick?
Washington
A: When a brick wall is at least 12 inches thick and has little or no cracking, it sometimes can be repaired by excavating and pushing it straight, according to Charles B. Clark Jr., vice president for engineering services at the Brick Industry Association, a trade group. You would need a structural engineer to assess whether this is possible, and you might need one anyway if you ultimately decide to rebuild the wall. Clark cited a 2015 International Residential Code requirement for an engineer to design any retaining wall higher than four feet if it holds back soil only, or higher than two feet if it holds back soil and other loads, such as a driveway immediately above the wall. The reason for requiring an engineer is to prevent the situation that's plaguing you, which often stems from inadequate drainage or a skimpy foundation, or both.
Sometimes it's possible to use soil anchors to fortify retaining walls. The anchors tie heavy plates on the open side of a wall to gigantic screws threaded into the soil on the other side of the wall. But Christina K. Wilson, president of Renaissance Development in Washington (202-547-2345; rendevdc.com), which specializes in restoring historic brickwork, including retaining walls, said soil anchors wouldn't work in your case because they can only keep a problem from getting worse; your wall has listed too much. The only solution, she said, is to redo the wall. "Redo the wall and the steps as one entity," she said. "If they are constructed to work together, they will last longer."
As to which materials to use, cost might be an important factor. If you do want to retain the brick look, make sure the contractor knows that and agrees to be as careful as possible during demolition. If the existing bricks can't be reused, it is possible to buy new ones with a rustic texture that is somewhat similar to what you have now. Clark suggested checking out the Bark Face Brick line from Belden Tri-State Building Materials (btsbm.com), the Concord Bark (Standard) and Flash Bark With Maize styles from Glen-Gery Brick (glengery.com), the Textures style (especially Antique and Tree Bark) from Summit Brick (summitbrick.com/textures.html), and the Rough Texture and Bark Texture styles from Bowerston Shale (bowerstonshale.com/catalog.html).
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Q: This Danish modern table once had an oil finish, but after soot damage from a house fire, it was refinished with an unknown hard, shiny finish. Recently, a trivet failed to protect it from a hot pan that left these scars between the trivet’s ribs. Any idea what finish would respond to this heat and how to repair it?
Kensington
A: You could be dealing with shellac, polyurethane, varnish or lacquer — in other words, pretty much the whole universe of hard, shiny finishes. The white marks form when heat draws moisture into the finish, which turns it cloudy. Luckily, white marks are a problem within the finish; the wood itself is undamaged.
Sometimes, the white marks disappear in a week or so as the moisture evaporates. Gentle heat, such as from a hair dryer, can speed this process. It also sometimes works to smear mayonnaise on the spots and wait overnight. The combination of acid (lemon juice) and oil works wonders.
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If the marks persist, the moisture driven in by heat probably caused tiny cracks in the finish. Try polishing the crazed areas with a soft cloth moistened with a ring remover, such as Homax White Ring Remover ($4 at amazon.com) or Liberon Ring Remover ($21 at rockler.com). Ring removers contain very fine abrasives.
And if polishing doesn’t work, you’re probably looking at stripping the finish and starting over, unless the finish is shellac. Test for that by dabbing a little denatured alcohol onto an inconspicuous area and seeing whether the finish softens. If it does, you can probably use the alcohol to soften all the finish that’s turned white. Let that dry, then re-coat the tabletop with shellac.
Companies that refinish tables include Schoenbauer Furniture Service in Charlotte Hall, Md. (800-955-7603; schoenbauer.com), which charges $30 to $50 a square foot to refinish a tabletop, and Restorations Unlimited in Sterling (703-904-9575; virginiafurniturerefinishing.com), where tabletop refinishing starts at $100 per foot of a table's length (meaning at least $600 for a six-foot-long table). The company's preferred finish is catalyzed lacquer, which is more resistant to heat damage than the other options.
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