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 ...

Q. I have a hairline crack on two of the tiles of my floor. How would I remedy this? A. There are two options: leave it alone if it’s hardly noticeable or have the damaged tiles removed and replaced.

Q. We have a gas fire. There is a crack in the back of the fireplace, which seems to have been filled in at some point before we bought this house, 30 years ago. (The house was built in 1933.) We have ...