Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Tom

White cedar shingles are a common building material used up and down the East Coast, and I'll tell you everything you need to know about them.

Richard

If your garden faucet has a slight drip like this, it might be easier to fix than you think.

Juliette

Yeah, we love the idea of it, and we sort of get to this point where we get all our plants and vegetables, and we spend all this money at the store, we have a whole family gathering, we plant everything, we're super excited about it, and then we go on vacation, and we come back, and everything is dead.

Jenn

The hardest part of keeping up with a garden is watering. I'm headed to Raleigh, North Carolina, with a solution.

Tom

Exposed white cedar shingles are an iconic look for coastal homes throughout the northeast. They're kind of an interesting building material because even though they're made of wood, they're installed on homes untreated. Eastern white cedar is naturally insect and rot resistant. They start off a light brown, and as time passes and they're exposed to rain, moisture, salt, and wind, they weather into a light textured gray, but because they are still often installed untreated, they require different care and maintenance than other types of siding. Hey, Kevin.

Kevin

Hey, Tom, how are you?

Tom

I'm well, thanks.

Kevin

Thanks for coming by. I appreciate it.

Tom

How are you doing?

Kevin

Good, good.

Tom

My pleasure. I like your house, very New England. Painted clapboards on the front and white cedar shingles left natural on the rest of it.

Kevin

Yeah, my wife and I, we love it. We recently moved in and purchased the house. You know, this is our first time owning a house with cedar shingles, and when we had the home inspection done, there was a few things the inspector pointed out. I'd love to get some feedback on what we can do.

Tom

All right. Well, let's take a look. Why don't we start on this end of the house over here?

Kevin

Sounds good. So, on this side of the house right here, we have a little bump out where our family room is, and you can see right here where the roof line

meets the side of the house. -Tom

Oh, yeah.

Kevin

One of the areas that the inspector did point out are some of the shingles that meet the roof line, where his concern was potentially some rot setting in right there.

Tom

Yeah, and he's right about that. You can actually see how the shingles are dark. That tells me that they're still wet from the rain, and that's why the moss is growing there. The shingles are touching the roof, and they shouldn't be.

Okay. -Tom

There should be a space there, probably around 3/4 of an inch. The reason for that is is the shingles get wet from the rain. They're touching the roof shingles. The water is then sucked up into the wood, causing it to rot, causing the mold and the moss to grow. So you're going to have to cut those away from the roof shingles so that the wood shingles can dry out.

Kevin

Got it.

Tom

I also noticed that there's moss right there growing down above your electrical meter.

Kevin

Yep.

Tom

The roofer should have put a little kicker underneath that bottom shingle, just bend a piece of flashing up, so as the water runs down the side, that kicker pushes the water away from the sidewall and into the gutter, and that would stop that moss that's growing down there above the electrical unit.

Kevin

Oh, got it,

okay. -Tom

All right? All right. So let's see what else you have.

Kevin

Yeah, sounds good. Let's take a walk around back.

Tom

All right, Kevin. I can see you have the same issue on this side of the roof that you had on the other side, where the shingles are really wet because they're touching the roof.

Okay. Tom

All right? And also, I can see how the water is coming down here 'cause you don't have a kicker. These shingles have actually got some green in them. So that's a moss you're starting to grow, and as I look down here, this is actually rotted. So this really needs to be cleaned. So when it's green, it should be cleaned.

Kevin

Got it. So what about the black discoloration here? Is this the same issue that we're having along this side of the house?

Tom

Well, it's similar, but this is just Mother Nature doing what she does to wood. When wood gets wet, and it dries out and gets wet again, a mold or a mildew will grow on the wood, and it's the look that people like. I mean, you can clean it if you want,

but it will always come back. -Kevin

Got it.

Tom

I'd be more concerned about the green over here and the green down here. So, again, if it's green, it should be cleaned.

Kevin

Got it. So, Tom, on this side of the house, this is probably most concerning for myself. You can see where we're having many of the shingles kind of lift out and sort of deform, and some of them are -- appear to be broken and potentially falling out, as well.

Tom

Yeah, this side is the southeast side of the house,

south-southeast. -Kevin

Yep, yeah.

Tom

So this side really gets cooked from the hot sun, and you can see the shingles are all cupping and curling. So look right here. See how this shingle is cupping? So when the shingles get saturated from the rain, the water actually gets in behind because the shingle sucks up the water. Well, when the hot sun comes out, it tries to dry the wood out. In some cases, the grain of the wood will bend this way. It will also cup, like this, and the sun has cooked them so dry that they're just drying and falling apart. Bad news is, this side should definitely be redone.

Kevin

Well, it doesn't sound like the greatest news here on the siding.

Tom

No, unfortunately it isn't, but let's think about it. How old is this house?

Kevin

Well, it's about 30 years old.

Tom

30 years old. You have white cedar shingles on this building that have never had anything put on them for protection. For you to get 20 to 25 years out of those,

you're doing really good. -Kevin

Okay.

Tom

So I think it's time for them all to come off

and get changed. -Kevin

All right.

Tom

Now, you want to be smart about it. You want to hire a contractor that's licensed and knows what he's doing. Get a few prices, it's going to be a big job. It could be 2 to 4 weeks for this project to happen. In the long run, you're going to be happy.

Kevin

All right. Well, sounds like we got some work ahead of us then, huh?

Tom

You sure do. It's going to be dry, and it's going to look good.

Kevin

Sounds good. All right. Thanks, Tom.

Tom

All right,

Kevin. -Kevin

What gives, Pops? What, are you a consultant now? You don't do any work?

Tom

Hey, he's got a lot of problems with that wall, a lot of typical problems.

Yep. -Tom

You know? So they're going to have to go in there, strip off the siding, obviously set up a staging, and then see the house, the condition of the house, fix anything, and then reside.

Kevin

And as you say, big job, so when the crew shows up, let's talk about what they should be doing

to make sure he gets a good job. -Tom

Well, they're going to strip the house down to the sheathing. They can see the condition of the sheathing, then, obviously, they may have to repair it in certain spots, but they want to then cover the wall before the shingles go on and protect it.

Kevin

So let's talk about the covering, 'cause you've got something up here that we use typically, right?

Tom

Right, this is a waterproof microfiber nonporous barrier

that goes on the wall. -Kevin

Mm-hmm.

Tom

And really, if any water should get behind the siding, it can run down behind this matrix right here.

Kevin

Right, so this is providing an air barrier

and a water barrier. -Tom

Right.

Kevin

And then we've also got this sort of gap that's created with your matrix.

Tom

That gives you the air and allows a place for the water to run behind it. The idea of it is, you really want that siding to be able to dry out from behind because the wood will rot if it just sits on a paper or on the wood sheathing below it.

Kevin

And you can see on Kevin's house that there were some of those shingles that were still soaking wet days after a rain. So that air gaps help them dry out quicker.

Absolutely. -Kevin

So when it comes to installation, you guys call this a starter course?

Tom

This is a starter course. You want to double up or triple up the first course depending on the pitch of the shingle, and that's really because of the plane of the shingle. If you don't do it, that first course looks funny.

Yep. -Tom

So -- But, also, another reason you do it is because, when you're putting the shingles on the house -- So now I'm ready for that next course. Let's say I want to be 5 inches up maximum.

Mm-hmm. -Tom

All right? So then I go up 5 inches, 5 inches, but if you look, this row right here, that first course, if it's not doubled up, water can get right in there, and the house is not protected. That's why you put the second course on over

the previous joint from below. -Kevin

Got you. All right. So let's get some shingles up here on the wall and just see your technique.

Tom

So 5-inch maximum reveal, but that reveal is basically changed in relationship to the house. So you want your horizontals to line up with, let's say, a window, the sill, or a header, and basically, I just roughly made 5, 5 1/4 inches.

Kevin

So this is just a guide right here.

Tom

This is a shelf to sit them on so you can basically take your shingles out of the box.

You lay them on the wall. -Kevin

Yep.

Tom

You stagger over the joints.

Kevin

Yep.

Tom

Like that, and once you've staggered over the joints,

you nail them in place. -Kevin

All right.

Tom

Now, when the installer is installing the shingles, the first thing you want to do before you lay them on the wall is you want to check the shingle real quick to see if it's cupped. See how that single is cupped?

Kevin

I can see it from here. It's very clear.

Tom

Right, you want to make sure that you put that shingle on the wall this way so the belly is out. Not this way. It'll curl.

Kevin

'Cause otherwise, you put it this way, you're already behind the game.

Exactly. -Kevin

Yep.

Tom

So you put on the other, on like that. The other thing you do is you want to look at the shingle down the shingle, like that, to see how it is, if it is cupped. You want to make sure you put that on the wall so it goes in like that because, look, if I put it on the wall that way already, it's already sticking out.

Kevin

Got you,

okay. -Tom

Okay?

Kevin

So once we've got these laid out on your guide here...

Tom

Right, and I've made sure that I'm over the joint behind it, I want to make sure that my nail above my 5 inch -- I can just put a little reference line like that so I know that my nails are going to be higher than the coursing but as close to the coursing as possible.

Kevin

Because this represents the bottom of the next course. So you want to make sure your nail is above that. It'll be hidden that way.

Tom

But I want to be as close as I can to it. I don't want to be nailing way up high.

Right. -Tom

I want to use a thin nail. That's called a box nail.

This one's galv-y. -Tom

Galv-y.

Kevin

Yeah.

Tom

You want to make sure also that the nail is 3/4 to 1 inch in from the end, close to my line. Gonna nail it. And same thing on the other side. No more than two nails per shingle. If it's really wide, you'd go three. A slight gap between the shingle.

Kevin

Looks like 1/16 to an 1/8.

Tom

Allow for the movement of the wood.

And so on up the wall. -Kevin

Good. Kevin put untreated shingles on his house, right?

Tom

It's pretty common practice today, you're right, and it's still done today.

Kevin

How do you feel about adding some protection to the shingle, a stain?

Tom

Anything that you can put on raw wood to protect it against the weather is beneficial.

Kevin

Okay, what have we got on here?

Tom

That's a bleaching oil.

Kevin

So less protection, it's very light coating.

Light coating. -Kevin

Yeah.

Tom

This is a weathering stain, just meant to weather.

Kevin

And then what have you got over here?

Tom

These are solid body stains so you can pick a color. You know, these are just a couple of different colors, but the stain is going to give you the best protection for the longest.

Kevin

Right, so more protection, but they are going to fade, so they do have to be maintained.

Tom

Absolutely, a stained house is going to have to get restained, but it is going to give you 4, 5, 6 more years than you would get if you didn't put anything on the house.

Kevin

Okay. All right, Tommy. You're forgiven. Nice job, good information.

Tom

Thanks.

Kevin

Hey,

Richard. -Richard

How are you?

Kevin

All right. We talking faucets today?

Richard

Well, it's springtime. Many people are going to turn on their outside garden faucets, and many times they leak. So I thought we'd do a little care and feeding.

Kevin

Yep, always a leak with these.

Richard

All right. Here's a typical garden faucet right here, and I bet you 75% or 80% of them in this country, when you turn them on, they leak like this.

Okay. -Richard

I don't think people realize that the fix is relatively simple.

Kevin

So it's not a leak that's coming down at the hose attachment, it's somewhere in the body of that?

Richard

It's leaking from the bonnet. So I'm just going to tighten this up and just show you what I mean. Okay?

Kevin

And what are you tightening?

Richard

I'm tightening up the bonnet. Now let me just turn this off again,

and I'll show you in a cutaway. -Kevin

Bonnet?

Richard

So in a typical outdoor faucet like this, you can see there's full water supply right here, and there's a washer that sits against a seat, and now when you turn this knob, there's a stem that rises. See how it's coming up? And it lifts that washer off the seat.

Opens it up. -Richard

Right. Now, the top part, I'm going to pull this right up. The top part is a thing called a bonnet.

Kevin

Oh, so that's keeping the stem into the fixture.

Richard

Right. So this is this bonnet that holds the stem in and has a bonnet packing, and over time, you know, what happens is, as this thing goes up and down a bunch of times, this starts to get worn and looses. You hold that. So many times, you can just tighten up and tighten up this top nut, which thereby compresses that bonnet again to have it stop leaking out from here,

Kevin

Right.

Richard

But sometimes that's not enough. It's just so worn.

Kevin

So you called it a bonnet -- What was the black part?

Richard

The bonnet packing.

Bonnet packing. -Richard

Okay?

Kevin

So if it's not enough, what are you, replacing it?

Richard

Well, they have kits like this that you can buy at a home center that's got a little bit of everything in it. If you can find the right one, you can do this and just pull this apart. You see it has a little nut right here. Loosen the nut.

Kevin

Take the handle off.

Richard

Right, take the bonnet packing -- bonnet nut off, remove the bonnet packing if it's worn, and then a new one goes on top of it. Now that's the simple way, right? But if you really want to make your own, don't overlook regular Teflon tape.

Kevin

You knew I was going to do something like that.

Richard

Right, 'cause Teflon tape, you take what you need, take enough. Now take it and twist it.

Kevin

So make your own...

Richard

Making your own bonnet...

Kevin

...your

own packing. -Richard

...packing, okay, and now you'd really do the same thing, just dance around like this enough time to build that.

Right. -Richard

And it's amazing. The 75% of the valves on the outside of houses

really could use this. -Kevin

Okay.

Richard

Okay, and then just compress this. So you're replacing that with this.

Kevin

Got you. Okay.

Richard

So one indication that it's the bonnet is that it only leaks when this handle is pulled all the way up, and you just tighten it up or put the new gasket in, but you often will see a leak when the thing is off, like a drip like that.

Kevin

So right now, this is all the way down, but it's not holding back the water pressure?

Richard

That's right, which suggests that it's the washer that is at the base of the stem. So you can see it right here in the cutaway. There's the bonnet. Here's the stem. Here's that washer, and it must mean that that washer needs replacement or the seat at the bottom is scored.

Kevin

Right.

Richard

So for doing that, you turn the water off, loosen the bonnet, and back this out.

Kevin

So now the stem comes out completely.

Richard

Okay, it comes out completely, and now you can see this is a Phillips-head screw. Now this screw has been in there for a long time. So it's really important that, when you get the right-sized screwdriver, and then you get right on top of it and get it really solid, with solid pressure, and then you back it off because it can snap off otherwise. There, okay?

Kevin

Yeah, got you.

Richard

Because it's a brass screw. It's been sitting in water its whole life.

Kevin

Soft screw welded in place from the mineral.

Richard

Yeah, okay, and if it breaks off, you can drill and tap it, but you don't want to get into that if you can help it. So now that comes out, and there's our washer.

Kevin

Can I see that?

Richard

Okay. You might see a score mark on the bottom of the washer. It could be gone,

too. -Kevin

Right, so we want to take this washer off of this brass screw.

Richard

Try this one. What does that look like?

Kevin

Find its replacement. That one goes out.

This one comes in. -Richard

Right, yep.

Kevin

Let me see if I can get this. Is there a top or a bottom?

Richard

Yes, well, there's -- You can see sometimes there's print on one side. So you don't want to do that. So there's a smooth side. You want the smooth side to be presenting itself to the seat at the bottom. So now we go back in.

Kevin

Well, that's a perfect fit.

Richard

Yep. Okay, again, be careful on the way in, and then snug that up, and there's the new washer, but that may not be enough. It could be one more thing. Here, you want to hold that?

Sure. -Richard

So this comes -- This washer sets down against the bottom. There's a seat at the very bottom, and that's milled in at the factory, and that can wear out over time. So they actually make a tool called a reseating tool. You can see there's grinding teeth right here. It allows you to come down inside the valve and grind that piece of brass down at the very bottom to get a new surface.

Kevin

So you want something that's flat, and you want some fresh metal.

Richard

So the washer can go right against it.

Kevin

Wow, nice. All right. Who knew? Thank you, Richard.

Juliette

Thank you so much for coming to Raleigh, Jenn. We're so excited you're here.

Jenn

I am so excited to be here. You guys have a lovely house, really great backyard, and it clearly looks like you do many activities back here.

Marc

Yeah, we have two boys. They're 10 and 7. We play baseball, basketball, soccer. We do a little bit of everything, and the one thing that we're trying to get them into is to start helping them with gardening.

Jenn

Okay.

Juliette

Yeah, we love the idea of it, and we sort of get to this point where we get all our plants and vegetables, and we spend all this money at the store. We have a whole family gathering, we plant everything, we're super excited about it, and then we go on vacation, and we come back, and everything is dead.

Jenn

Well, summertime is the perfect time to grow vegetables, but it does require water, and the problem I think you guys are having is when you're out of school, you'd like to try to go away. In your situation, I'm thinking that we start from scratch.

Sounds great. -Marc

That's sounds great.

Jenn

All right. Let's get the old raised beds out of the way and level the soil that's here. Okay, so this is what I'm thinking. The kit that you had before for your raised beds is totally fine, but I want to switch it up a little bit. These are 2-by stock of western red cedar.

Okay. -Jenn

They're great. They're naturally rot resistant, and they're chemical free. These are the corner braces, and they are designed to accept all 2-by pieces. You secure them with screws on these insides, and then you slide it right back over like that, and then one of the four corners is going to have irrigation on it. You attach the garden hose to here, and up here is an attachment for the soaker hose. So you screw that in here, and then you weed the soaker hose throughout the bed. And here's the game changer. This is an irrigation timer. So what you do is you attach it to the spigot on the house. You get it for what time you would like it to go off and the duration of time. It's an amazing tool, and it's going to allow you to go away on vacation and come back to plants that are alive.

Perfect. -Marc

Yes.

Jenn

Let's drill some pilot holes in the wood before screwing the brackets in. Nice. And these caps finish off the edges. Looks level to me.

Marc

All right.

Jenn

Boom. This is landscape fabric. I just want to create a barrier between the ground to keep all the weeds out. Now we can add the soil. Since you're growing vegetables in the garden, I prefer to use an organic raised garden bed mix.

This is a beefsteak tomato. -Juliette

Oh, yum.

I like those. -Juliette

Okay, yeah.

Marc

Tomato sandwiches.

Jenn

What about these two front corners? Let's do strawberries. All right. So let's put the basil on the ends.

Okay. -Jenn

So we have oregano. We have thyme, and I'm going to put these two Thai basil plants right here. All right. Let's do the tomatoes first, and it's okay if it falls apart a little bit because we're going to stick them right in the ground. That looks good. Some of these have roots that you need to tease up. So you just kind of break them up a little bit so they can reach out into the soil instead of growing in a circle like the shape of the pot.

Juliette

Oh, right, okay.

Jenn

Remember here is where the water is going to come out. This is the adapter. This is where the soaker hose is going to go in. So it has teeth right here. So we're going to slide the soaker in there.

Marc

Okay.

Jenn

All the way you can and then going to tighten this cap just like that. That's tightened, and then this, you just go into here and just thread it on. All right. That's nice and tight. All right. So what we're going to do, I'm going to give you the end.

Marc

Okay.

Jenn

And we're going to loop it around this bed. So I'm going to just -- Yeah, we'll -- Let's send it down that way first.

Juliette

It's harder than I expected it to be.

Jenn

Just weave it back down through the center. I'm going to put one of these staples in. I'll put one in here to secure it. And here. Okay. Nice curve. You want to put one of these landscape staples in? All right. Perfect. So at the end of the hose, we're just going to cap it off, similar to how we put it in on the other side. We have these teeth. I'm going to insert the soaker hose into it, tighten the cap, and so that way it doesn't spray out the bottom. All right. Marc's sending this through. That's good, yeah, and we'll readjust the slack later.

Juliette

Okay, so stick it in here and then...

Jenn

Yep, and then twist that, this top part, to thread it on.

Juliette

Oh, okay.

Jenn

Okay, so we have the hose set up to the timer at the spigot,

at the house. -Juliette

Okay.

Jenn

It's connected here, and all you have to do is turn it on here.

Juliette

All right. Oh, so cool.

Jenn

Wow, so it looks like you have really good water pressure. So what we want to do is soak this to give all these new plantings a great start.

Juliette

Okay.

Jenn

Do you guys have any questions for me?

Juliette

Yeah, I was wondering, so I know right now we soak it, but for, like, after today, how long do we leave it on, and how many times a day should we set the timer for that kind of stuff?

Jenn

So that magical timer, we could set it for however long we want, and what I'm recommending is once in the morning and once in the evening. So we should watch how long it takes to get to a good soaking period, and then you could set your minutes, say maybe start with 10 or 15 minutes at each cycle.

Juliette

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much for coming to Raleigh, Jenn.

Jenn

It was a pleasure. Take care.

Kevin

Next time on "Ask This Old House"...

Heath

To control all the lights in this kitchen, you have to hit this switch and this switch and this switch and this one. I'll fix that.

Woman

This is the fireplace.

Okay. -Woman

We love it. The one thing we miss is the mantel.

Mark

Let's get started.

Ross

And moving into a house that's been smoked in for many, many years may not only be tough to clean, but might be bad for your health. We'll explain.