Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Richard

We've actually done this story before, you and I.

I've tried to teach you. Kevin

"Tried"?

Why do you make it -- Richard

What's that?

Kevin

That's PVC.

Richard

That's PVC.

Kevin

Oh, you want the fitting name?

Richard

Come on. Come on. Deeper.

Kevin

That is a...

Tom

This floor has a few chips in it, and I'll show you how to fix them. Luckily, you saved some of the flooring that was left over in the basement.

Mani

That might be the best thing I see all day.

Chuckles

Tom

Yeah?

Roger

And, you'll never guess what damaged this paver walkway. I brought my apprentice along to show you how to fix it. We really got to pack that down. We don't want it settling out again.

Kevin

That's next on "Ask This Old House." Hi there. I'm Kevin O'Connor, and welcome back to "Ask This Old House." You may recall that, earlier in the season, we launched an initiative that we are calling "Generation Next," and it is our attempt to call attention to the shortage of skills in the building trades, and it's also an opportunity to maybe recruit some young people into the trades for a good career and a potential alternative to college. We did a national search, and we found three young, very capable candidates -- Nathan, Austin, and Bailey -- and we invited them onto our "This Old House" project. They've been working with us long and hard, and recently, Richard, you actually gave a sort of a plumbing 101 to the three of them.

Richard

I did. It was great. They were really smart. They picked it up. It was really terrific.

Kevin

And even though most of them are doing carpentry --

those three at least... Richard

Yeah.

Kevin

...it's good that they know

something about the plumbing. Richard

You got to know everything about the building. You can't just know one part of it if you're going to be good in the game.

Kevin

How'd they do?

Richard

They did great. They were very smart. You know, but it reminded me that we've actually done this story before, you and I. I've tried to teach you.

Kevin

"Tried"? Why do you make it --

Richard

What's that?

Kevin

That's PVC.

Richard

That's PVC.

Kevin

Oh, you want the fitting name?

Richard

Come on. Come on. Deeper.

Kevin

That is a -- That's a tee wye.

Richard

Tee wye, all right? Not a wye, a tee wye.

Kevin

Tee wye,

right. Richard

What's that?

Kevin

That's an elbow.

Richard

Elbow, but what kind?

Kevin

A white one.

Both laugh

Richard

How about that one?

Kevin

A sweep? A big sweep?

Richard

Long sweep.

Long sweep. Richard

Long sweep.

That's not too -- Richard

Long sweep tee wye.

Kevin

Oh,

long sweep tee wye. Richard

All right. What's that?

Kevin

Wait a second. That's not PVC.

That's a silcock. Richard

Frostproof.

Frostproof silcock. Richard

Frostproof. It is.

Kevin

Wait, you didn't -- You didn't beat up on them, did you?

Richard

No. No. Just -- No more than normal.

Kevin

Good. Terrific. Well, you know, the apprentices aren't just working with us on the "This Old House" jobsite. Roger's actually been working with his apprentice, Corey Forester, for the better part of a year now, and Corey started down the college path, but he soon decided it wasn't for him, so he left school, and he now splits his time between being a Marine reservist and working on Roger's landscape crew. And today, Roger is actually bringing Corey with him on a house call.

Roger

Corey, I got an E-mail from this homeowner, and I thought you might be able to help me figure out what his problem is. Now, we got a nice set of granite stairs, and we come up to a paver walkway, but look at these pavers. They've all moved and slid, and they're really dangerous the way they are now. What do you think caused it?

Corey

Could it have been water?

Roger

Well, if water did it, it would have to be a real strong, gushing current, and I don't think that's the case here.

Corey

What if the water froze and went up and down with...

Roger

Yeah. It would only move it a little bit if it did that, and it's opened it up quite a bit right now.

Corey

Yeah.

Roger

So, what I think it is -- chipmunks.

Corey

Oh, really?

Roger

Yeah. See this -- Oh. Look at the huge hole.

Corey

You think they're still in there?

Roger

I doubt it. Look at that trail, Corey. See where they bored right through underneath these pavers?

Corey

Oh,

yeah. Roger

No wonder they settled.

They make two types of burrows. Corey

Okay.

Roger

One of them is really shallow, in an area like this

with a lot of ground cover... Corey

Mm-hmm.

Roger

...so they can come in and out and not get eaten by a hawk or a fox

or something like that. Corey

Okay.

Roger

But they also have another burrow probably 15 to 30 feet away from here that's 1 to 3 feet deep, and that's where they winter over and store their nuts and everything for the whole winter. So, I think the first thing we should do is tie the shrubs back so we can actually see what we're working with, and we'll go from there. All right, Corey. That looks good. So, I'm going to pick up some pavers. I don't want to take too many. I just want to go to about there. So I'm just going to take the first one out

and stack it up here... Corey

Okay.

Roger

...and then I'll put all the others behind it

in sequence. Corey

Okay. Want to just take a picture of it so we know where it's going?

Roger

That would be a great idea.

Corey

Got it.

Roger

All right, Corey. Let's take a little of an anatomy lesson here of what we have. We have stone dust, which was the base for the pavers.

Okay. Roger

Then under that, there's a little bit of stone layer in here, which is good for drainage. But what happened was as these pavers opened up, all this loaming material gets in the cracks, and that's not good because it's just going to lead to weeds and more expansion.

Corey

Okay.

Roger

We want to take that and put it in the bucket. Corey, this feels like it's kind of crooked here, and I just want to take a couple measurements and see what's going on. Okay. These pavers measure 18 1/2 inches there.

Corey

Okay.

Roger

But when I measure down here, it measures 22. So we're off 3 1/2 inches. So what we're going to do is try to clean this out all the way through down to the bottom of this piece of granite and then push the granite forward. Corey, we really got to pack that down. That's where that big hole was, and we don't want it settling out again.

Corey

Sounds good.

Roger

All right, Corey. I got the iron bar on the piece of granite. Now I'm going to try to slide it. When I get up there, I want you to measure. We want it to be 18 1/2, I think, right?

Yep. Roger

Okay. You ready?

Corey

Yep.

Roger

There she goes. A little more?

Corey

Still a little bit more to go. A little more. One more.

Roger

All right?

Yeah. Roger

Okay. Corey, I want to fill in this gap with pack. Now, pack is simply stone dust and stone mixed together, and it will compact and give us a firm base. So we just take and go along there and bring it up to the level of the stone dust.

Corey

Sounds good.

Roger

All right, Corey. We're up to sub-grade, so what we're going to do now is spread a little bit of stone dust

for these pavers to sit on. Corey

Okay.

Roger

Normally, if I was doing a walk like this, I'd come in and get the whole thing dug out and then leveled and put pipes up and screed it off, and we'd drop these in really quickly.

Okay. Roger

But unfortunately, we have to set every one of these separately because we're going to have two points we have to meet -- the existing walkway and this granite step. So we're going to start out here with this one and work our way back, leveling each one to the walkway as we go.

Corey

All right, looks like this one is next.

Roger

You sure?

Corey

Yep. I got the picture.

Roger

Corey, you're going to take and spread that stone dust on top of the pavers we set. It's going to fill in the joints, and that'll keep weeds from growing.

Corey

Roger, this came out great.

Roger

Well, we're not done yet. We have to think about the problem we had caused by --

Those chipmunks. Roger

That's right. They bored underneath, and the whole thing settled.

Corey

Could we prune back some of the bushes so that way they have no place to burrow under?

Roger

Well, these people have a very naturalistic landscape here, and I'm sure they want to keep it that way, so that's not going to be an answer here.

Corey

What else could we do?

Roger

Well, if I was building a vegetable garden and wanted to protect it from the chipmunks, I'd use this hardware cloth. It's about 1/4-inch mesh.

They can't chew through it. Corey

Okay.

Roger

But you want to dig down a foot and have a foot out, and that'll keep them from trying

to come in through the bottom. Corey

Okay.

Roger

But I can't get this hardware cloth

to fit down in there. Corey

Okay.

Roger

But I think, if we mix up some concrete and pack it in there, that'll stop them.

Corey

And they won't bite through that.

Roger

I don't think so.

Corey

All right.

Roger

Just on top. I'm just going to cover the concrete with some of the stones that are on-site. So, what do you think?

Corey

Looks great. It's like we were never here.

Roger

More importantly, it looks like the chipmunks were never here.

Exactly. Roger

Thanks for your help. You did a great job.

Corey

Thanks for bringing me along and showing me what to do.

Roger

Got a little cleanup to do down here.

Corey

All right.

Kevin

Doesn't matter who you are -- new guy always cleans up.

Roger

Always got to clean up.

Kevin

I'll tell you, I would have been with Corey. I would have said water, frost heave, but you go right to chipmunks. How is that?

Roger

Over the years, I've had the experience. In fact, I've had them twice rip up my front lawn,

so I know when they're around. Kevin

Yeah. I mean, and I guess we see the damage more... It's more obvious when they hit walks and walls. If they just burrow into the grass --

Roger

You're never going to see them.

Right. Roger

But out front, it can even cause trip steps and things like that...

Right. Roger

...which are dangerous.

Kevin

So, Corey had suggested maybe pushing the ground cover and those shrubs back, away from the walk. Do you think that's a reasonable solution?

Roger

It'll help, because they don't like to be exposed. A hawk can grab them, a fox or something like that. So, the more you cut it back, you create open space. They don't like to go across that. They try to burrow around it.

Kevin

Okay. You did concrete. You used wire. Obviously, we could have done trapping or exterminating. How about the repellents? Are they effective?

Roger

They are. Most of them are labeled to last for 30 days, but if you get a rain storm, it's going to wash them off, and you have to re-apply.

Kevin

Ah. So if you go with the repellent, know that you're going to have to stay on it and keep at it.

Roger

Again and again and again.

Kevin

All right. Well, great to see you working with Corey.

He's a good guy. Roger

Yeah.

Kevin

And the phone trick -- You like that?

Roger

Yeah. Hey, you know, I just happened to... Think it'll work on this?

Kevin

Yeah. I think you and Corey should probably get together on... You know what? Just keep him close.

Roger

Okay.

Door opens

Mani

Thank you for coming, Tommy. Welcome to our home.

Tom

Well, it's a lovely home, and thanks for inviting me. How old is this house?

Mani

It was built in the 1860s, and we've been here for about 14 years.

Tom

Well, that's great. I live in a house in about this same period, but I love these floors -- wide pine, random widths, face nailed. Really nice there, and it's a great color. And

chuckles

Tom

you can see a typical Yankee patch right there. If something had to be patched, they just took short pieces -- They didn't care if they matched or anything -- and face-nailed them. It gives the floor character.

Mani

It definitely does. I actually wrote you about some flooring. Can I show you?

Tom

Lead the way.

Mani

Thank you. As you can see, Tommy, this is the old part of the house, and this is the new addition of the master suite.

Tom

Yeah. I can see the old section here has those beautiful old boards -- random width. They look really nice.

Mani

We would have loved to be able to carry it through into the master bedroom, but we didn't have enough, so we added new pine here.

Tom

New pine, random widths, very nice.

Mani

And we decided... Once we added this, we wound up with a chip in the floor and a squishy floorboard.

Tom

Oh, yeah. I saw it move. Well, it looks like you got -- Someone tried to patch this area right here. I got a silly question. Would you happen to have that chip?

We do. Tom

You do?

Chuckles

We do. Tom

Wow.

Mani

We weren't sure what to do with it, and hoping to be able to fix the floor at some point.

Tom

Well, let's see how it fits. Ooh, look at that. Oh, that's nice. I can glue that right in there, and I'll show you how to do that. And we can fix that, but it'll be a little different way. Let me get some tools, and we can get started.

Mani

Great. Thank you.

Tom

Okay. Now, before I glue the chip back in, I want to refasten this floor back down to the subfloor. So I'm going to try to do this without seeing the fastener. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take a drill, and I'm going to drill a hole right through the chipped-out piece, and then drive a screw in there.

Screwdriver whirring

Blows

Tom

Now, we're going to use a polyurethane glue, and what I want to do is I actually want to put some water in the hole because that will make the glue activate better, not only for the wood, but for the screw. Okay. Next thing I'm going to do is take some of the glue and drive it into the hole. That's running down there, which is good. Take my screw, put it into the hole, into the wet glue... and drive it down.

Screwdriver whirring

Whirring continues

Tom

That stopped the floor from moving.

Mani

That's great.

Tom

Now, I used the polyurethane glue in the hole because it will expand on itself. It'll also glue the screw to the wood. But I'm going to use just a carpenter's glue or a wood glue, and I want to try to get it in there to cover all of the raw wood. I'm going to slide it in......push it down, and take a wet rag. I want to wipe off all the excess because I don't want it to show.

Mani

That's incredible. It's as good as new.

Tom

As good as new. So, I'll just hold that down for a little bit till the glue starts to set, and then we can work on the next one. All right, now we're going to patch this section of the floor right here, but it's going to be patched a completely different way. Because there's so much damage, I have to cut out this section of the floor and insert a Dutchman. Now, a Dutchman will sit on a mortise that doesn't go all the way through the board, creates a shelf that a thin piece of your flooring will sit on. Now, when you're trying to patch a floor, it's important that you have the same kind of wood, and, luckily, you saved some of the flooring that was left over in the basement. But you first want to match the grain, not the stain. So, if you look at the grain of the floor right here, it's nice and tight, and it's darker, and it's opened up a little bit here, and really opened up here. So, what I did is I looked at your boards, and I cut out a section that has a tight grain to it right here so when I look at that grain, it's similar to the grain right here. If I turn the board over, this is an open grain, and that patch would really stand out. Now, when I stain this, it's not going to stain exactly the same. It never does. So what I'm going to do is I want to cut our Dutchman out of this piece right here. Okay, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take this tongue off and true up this one edge. So, I've straightened out that edge with my plane, and now I want to make the strip about 1 inch to 1 1/4 inch wide.

Mani

Okay.

Tom

So eyeball that and make a straight line. Okay. So, now I've got a rough cut there. I want to true that up with my plane. Yeah. So, now that's better. Now what I want to do is I want to try to make it thinner.

Mani

Okay.

Tom

So I'm going to rip it down this way... and make it thinner.

Mani

That might be the best thing I see all day.

Tom

Really?

Both chuckle

Tom

All right. So, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to true this up. See how it's uneven?

Mani

Mm-hmm.

Tom

So, now I'm going to put a straight edge on this side...

Mani

Okay.

Tom

...straight line to follow here, and the same thing on the other side... like that. Now I'm going to take my plane and try to make the board equal in thickness. All right, I've cut my Dutchman to rough size...

Okay. Tom

...width, thickness, and squared one end.

Mani

Okay. That's impressive.

Chuckles

Tom

Okay, so the next thing I want to do is I want to get a length for my Dutchman. So I look at the damaged section of the floor and see about how far it goes, and I'm going to go just a little bit further, and I'm going to mark the length I need.

Mani

So you measure that first? You don't measure the floor?

Tom

No. I'm going to cut the patch to size. Once I cut the patch to size, I'll lay it on the floor over the damaged section,

trace it... Mani

Okay.

Tom

...and mortise out the floor.

Mani

Okay.

Tom

Lightly score it. Cut my length also. Mark that. I'm going to need to remove this section of the floor, and down almost the thickness of this piece. Now, I could chisel it all out, but what I want to do first to save a little time is I'm actually going to use a Forstner bit, which actually leaves a flat bottom at the bottom.

Drill whirring

Whirring continues

Tom

All right. So, the mortise is cut.

Mani

Okay.

Tom

Now that it's cut, I want to see if my piece fits in it. And it's going to go in like this because that's how I cut it. Now, that fits tight. What I'm going to do is I'm actually going to plane just a little bit off of one edge, because I want it to slide into that opening.

Mani

Okay.

Tom

So I want to pitch it slightly to bevel it so that, when it goes in the hole, it'll be loose at the bottom but tight at the top. I'll drop it into the hole.

Mani

Look at that. That's incredible.

Tom

Fits pretty good.

Mani

Oh,

it's beautiful. Tom

All right. Now, before I glue it, I want to take it out and put some stain on it, because if I get glue on top of the surface here, the stain won't take.

Okay. Tom

All right. So I have to take the piece out. All right, when you have soft wood, like this pine, it's always good to use a prestainer, so that way the stain will be more balanced when it's on top of the surface. All right, it's been about five minutes, so now we'll wipe on some stain. We'll wipe it on, put it on a little bit heavy. And we'll just let that set on there for a few minutes. See, if I lead a little bit of it with the texture of the rag, it actually will put a little bit of a grain in it.

Mani

Oh, that looks great.

Tom

Okay? All right, I just want to get the sides and the bottom of the raw wood all covered. All right, so we've got all our raw wood covered with glue, and now we're going to set our Dutchman in the mortise. Push it in, make it flush.

That looks great. Tom

Thanks. Now we'll take our damp rag and wipe off the excess glue. All right, Mani. Your patch is in, and it's all stained. What do you think?

Mani

It's absolutely incredible. If I didn't know it was there, I would have to look really hard to find it.

Tom

Well, that's a good thing. All right. That's all we can do today.

Okay. Tom

Now what has to happen -- the stain has to dry overnight.

Mani

Okay.

Tom

Next thing I want you to do is tape around the border of it with some painters tape, and then put about two or three coats of poly on it.

Okay. Tom

Remove the tape, and it should blend right in.

Mani

Okay. Thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate it.

Tom

My pleasure.

Kevin

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

Drill whirs

Scott

Cutting and drilling masonry materials may be hazardous to your health, but new technology is out to solve that. Look at the end of the shank.

Kevin

Oh, no way.

Man

This is my problem right here. Last few weeks, the toilet's been getting really wobbly, and I just put that in there for a short-term fix.

Kevin

And we'll meet up with maker Jimmy DiResta for a very unique Build It.