Q I live in an old house, and I applied one of those basement-wall coatings to my brick foundation. At first, it really made the basement look good, but now it’s peeling like crazy. This is more than I bargained for. Should I scrape it off and start all over?

A No. Let the coating peel off, or assist it with some stripper. Then leave well enough alone. Old brick-and-mortar foundations are lousy surfaces to receive a coating. Their walls wick moisture from adjacent soil, as do their footings from the ground below (a condition called rising damp). Then there’s a century’s worth of mineral salts, mildew and goodness knows what else sticking to the brick. All conspire to keep even the best coating from adhering properly.