By DWIGHT BARNETT, Scripps Howard News Service

Q: My son recently purchased a modular home and was told there were no problems with it. Within two weeks, the water heater stopped working and it needs to be replaced. He's now heating water on the stove to take a bath. Do modular homes use those newer heaters that don't have tanks? My son works hard just to make ends meet and doesn't have the money to hire a plumber.

Q: I used my fireplace for the first time this year and noticed that the brick lining is cracked. A friend told me that I should never use mortar to repair the bricks, but he didn't know exactly why. He only knew it was not a good idea. I decided to wait until I could find out more about repairing the fireplace. Can you help?

Q: Our 42-year-old house has drainpipes running through the basement. The little oozes at the joint were caulked. However, the black, tar-like coating on the extensions is wearing off, and rust is showing through. How should we approach this problem?

A: Forty-two-year-old drainpipes, those that are 2 inches or larger in diameter, are most likely made of either cast iron or copper.

Q: When purchasing a home, what are some of the most common problems you find? I really would like to have the home I'm buying inspected, but money is the biggest problem right now, and we can't afford to pay an inspector. If we do the inspection ourselves, what should we be looking for?

Q: Last night, I heard a noise coming from my fireplace, and when my husband looked, he saw a squirrel in the chimney. He also found a bird's nest, which helped to explain the fluttering noises we heard all summer. We have a chimney cap, but they still get in. What can we do?

Q: I just read your article on crawl-space humidity and am hoping you could provide some advice. We just purchased a super-old home (1734) in Boston. This week, I discovered rot under a side porch. I ended up dismantling the porch and tearing out all the rotted wood from the house.

Q: I'm a first-time homeowner and will have to do the minor repairs myself. One of the most annoying problems is the shower drain. I've tried using a plumber's plunger and drain cleaners, but nothing seems to work for long. The drain backs up every time I use the shower. Please, how can I fix this messy flooding problem without having to give in and call a plumber?

Q: After two long years, we finally received an offer on our home. The buyer requested a whole-house inspection that was performed, and we then received a "letter of response" from the buyer's realtor. One request asked for the furnace to be checked further by a licensed heating contractor, which we did. The furnace was leaking water from the air conditioner, which was repaired.

Q: We recently had a new roof, windows and siding installed on our two-story home. All of the old shingles were removed and replaced with a 25-year-warranty shingle. We then had new vinyl siding installed over the old wood siding as well as new vinyl-replacement windows. We are now experiencing problems with roof leaks in our family-room addition.

Q: We had a problem with ice buildup on our roof this past winter and water damage inside on the first-floor ceiling. We had a roofer come in and remove some of the shingles on our roof and some siding. He installed an ice shield, because it was not installed correctly before.