Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Heath

Landscape lighting is really a great way to make your yard design pop. I'll show you how to install it. So we're going to start at our furthest point, start tucking the wire in. Next thing is we're going to stuff the wire into the trench we dug and start backfilling as we go.

Rich

Have you ever thought about the physics behind your toilet? Well, I have. And I'll show you the basic principle that makes a toilet work.

Tom

And I'll show you how to organize all those small hand tools using some hooks and a pegboard.

Man

So this was one of the first projects I did at the house -- as you can see, it's a little choppy.

Scott

This walkway was installed in a hurry -- and it shows. But I'll show you how to do it the right way.

Hammering

Scott

Heath

Adding landscape lighting to the pathways or garden areas of your yard can really enhance the landscape. Whenever I'm getting ready to install landscape lighting, there are a few things we have to look at. The first and probably most important is where is our nearest power source? So in this case, we already have a receptacle located nearby where we can mount the transformer. This is going to become our starting point. The next step is to decide where we want to install light fixtures and what type of fixtures we want to put there. So the first thing I want to work on are some of the path lights, and you want to take into account where you want to light this up. One of these areas, especially a step, we want to make sure we accent this. So I'm thinking one on each side, maybe right here. That way we can see the drop off of the step and not be too far in the way of the other side. While we're in this section, we're going to work on a couple of uplights. And I'd like to put them over here, and I really want to accent this brick archways. So this way we can wash up with this and we'll have a really nice look at night. And we can adjust these later on as well. Now put the other on the other side, again, trying to stay back roughly a foot or so. For over here, we have a nice shrub that I really want to highlight, the best way to do that is uplight. Landscape lighting is usually connected using a low voltage wiring system, while there are line voltage systems available, most commonly you'll see a low voltage system in a residential application. So in this case, we'll be using a low voltage cable like this. And what will happen is we have two conductors where one will be the 12 volt positive. The second one will connect to the common terminal on the transformer. The advantage to this is it's only 12 volts. It's much safer than line voltage. So if you were to cut the wire accidentally in your garden, nobody's going to get hurt. I'm going to try to follow the path up against the edge as best we can. That way, the wire has less of a chance of getting damaged if we do any plantings. Now that we have everything laid out the way we want it, we can go ahead and start making our connections. In order to do that, we're going to use this guy. We're going to use a little brass barrel connector. And what happens with this is we'll stick the wires in each side of this connector, we'll be able to tighten down with the Allen screw. Then we're going to use this heat shrink that comes with it to slide over. Once we do that and heat it up, it has an adhesive inside that seals it up and makes it waterproof. And it's never going to be a point of failure. So at the existing receptacle, I'm going to install the transformer. This unit plugs directly into our 120 volt receptacle that's already there, and then it converts that to roughly 12 volts AC. We take our tube wire that we just ran all the lights, come up inside, put one to the common terminal, one to the 12 volt terminal, and that gives us our low voltage. The system is designed to have a photocell plug directly into it -- that way, this comes on at dusk automatically and turns off at dawn. Now, you may not want it staying on all night, and that's okay. If you don't, you can use the photocell in conjunction with the timer. With that, this system will still come on at dusk, but then you can set the time that it goes off. Let's say you want it to go off at 10 o'clock every evening.

It'll go off at 10

00, come on at dusk, you don't have to worry about it. All right, now that all the connections have been made and the system has been tested, it's time to bury the wires. So what we're going to do is I'm going to use a flat shovel like this and I'm going to dig a little channel. We want to get down about four to six inches, six is a little better if we can. And we're just going to open this up. So we're going to start at our furthest point, and start tucking the wire in, and what I'm going to do is I want to leave a little coil right here at each fixture. This is for anything that's growing, changing whatever happens down the road. You want to have the ability to move the fixture. If a plant gets bigger, if you change the garden bed, if you change anything, you want to have some flexibility, this will allow you to do that. The next thing is going to stuff the wire into the trench we dug and start backfilling as we go, and if you don't feel that you can get down there hard enough with your hands, feel free to grab a tool that's going to blunt end on it, something that's not sharp, that won't puncture the jacket, that'll give you a little bit of a hand of pushing that down all the way to the six inch mark. While the work for installing outside landscape lighting is fairly straightforward, it can get a little expensive at times, fixtures can cost you anywhere from five dollars apiece to up to a couple of hundred dollars apiece. And if you have to call an electrician to help with the power, it can even get a little more expensive than that. That being said, I still think it's a worthwhile investment for your yard -- it adds safety, functionality, and it really extends your outdoor living space.

Kevin

All right, Richard, what do you got for me today?

Rich

little bit of science, I thought we would take a minute to talk about siphons -- you're gonna need a siphon if, say, you wanted to get the water from this tank to a lower point and you didn't have a pump. So if I had a pool or a fuel tank or something, I would need the presence of a short leg and a long leg. Now, that means if I had a little short leg

of tubing here -- -Kevin

Coming up from the back.

Rich

And then the longer one down here, what would happen is, once I got the water up the short leg, the weight of water in the longer leg would pull that bucket completely empty.

Kevin

More water here, more weight here.

Correct. -Kevin

Starts to pull down on.

Rich

So let me just show you an example here. I'll fill this with water.

Kevin

And this is the key to siphon, right. You got to actually have this water completely filled in the tube.

Rich

So now here it is here. Now watch what happens.

Kevin

Wow,

look at that. -Rich

Isn't that something?

Kevin

I mean, it's just literally just flowing all by itself. It's kind of crazy. I mean, no pump, no nothing. It's just working.

Rich

Right. So it's really a handy thing to know about because you don't always have a pump and you don't have one that works quite often. Now, that will keep on going until it goes empty or I break the vacuum -- so watch this.

Kevin

So as soon as that pops out and you get air in the tube, everything stops.

Rich

If I couldn't put my finger over the hose, I could also do this.

Kevin

This is what you see in movies when guys are trying to take gas out of a gas tank.

Rich

I never did that, I never did that ever in my life.

Kevin

There it is. I mean, it's still just flowing. It's as if it's being pumped.

That's right. -Kevin

Right

Rich

Good -- so, everybody uses the basic siphon principle multiple times a day because that is the principle that makes the basic toilet work. So this is a cutaway of a toilet bowl. The water level normally sits right here. If you look right here, this piece inside the china

is the short leg -- -Kevin

The short leg here.

Rich

Right. Water is right to this level. And then right here from this point on is the long leg.

Kevin

So the length, the curves, make it almost twice as long as this.

Rich

So if I can get the water level to come up and fill up this point over the top,

I will start the siphon. -Kevin

And you're a plumber, so you're going to put your lips down here and blow?

Rich

No, I'm not. So the tank is right here. When you flush the tank, water comes down into this flush rim -- you see it right here? The water also comes out through here, but also comes down inside the bowl to this little hole right here called a siphon jet. And that jet pushes water. Where's it go?

Right up that short leg. -Kevin

Yeah.

Rich

And so if it does, it then fills this spot right here. Your siphon begins. And now it'll keep pulling up the short leg, down the long leg until that water level drops and that air comes behind, vacuum's achieved.

Kevin

So long as it gets up over this hill and it's full water here to create that vacuum, you're good to go, it'll just keep going.

Rich

Absolutely, it'll keep going till the bowl is empty.

Kevin

And as you say, it's kind of marvelous because there's no pump, there's no electricity. And it does it time and time again, day after day.

Rich

It's one of the greatest inventions ever.

Says the plumber. -Rich

Absolutely. So you can also use this siphon principle to make a toilet flush, even if the water was off in the house temporarily, as long as you had a bucket of water, because if I poured -- say the bowl had to be evacuated, and I pour in...

Watch what happens. -Kevin

Look at that.

And there it goes. -Kevin

Just flushes itself.

Absolutely. -Kevin

It's really cool. Thank you,

Mr. Science. -Rich

Thank you.

Kevin

Tom, you want to talk a little tool storage?

Tom

Yeah, I mean, you know, you always have a tool bench or something and we throw all your tools and you're trying to find it. You don't know where it is or maybe you don't want to keep 'em on a bench, you throw them in a drawer, but you don't know what drawer you put them in. So, you know, you can always hang a pegboard on a wall. So if you have your workspace, you can hang it like this. We've got it organized pretty good.

Kevin

All right. And what did you bring us? What's this material here?

Tom

This is 1/4 inch masonite, it has 1/4 inch holes. You can also buy it with a smaller hole, 1/8 inch hole. And this is painted; you can get it unpainted

if you don't want it white. -Kevin

Beautiful.

Tom

Okay, now, if you have an open stud bay like this, you'd simply take the pegboard up, put it on the studs and put a couple of screws in it.

Kevin

Line this up for you here.

Tom

Okay, I'll get it right here first.

Kevin

Got it? Good over here.

Tom

Now, the nice thing about an open stud bay, it gives you the space that you need to mount the hole onto the pegboard.

Kevin

In other words, the space that you need

behind the holes because -- -Tom

Right. So this goes in, and if you had a solid wall there, you're not going to get it in.

Kevin

Because it's sticking out on the other side.

Tom

So you have to stand the pegboard off the wall. So if you had a workshop, for example, and it was wood on the wall or plaster or whatever, drywall, you want to make sure that you stand it off with scrap wood, I just take scrap 2x4s, 2x6, whatever they are. And I ripped down 3/4 inches out of it and I mount them to the surface of the wall. That gives me the space that I need behind the pegboard to get the hook in -- but you want to make sure that you mount them where there's structure behind you.

Gotcha. -Tom

Okay?

Kevin

Give you a little bit of the gap behind so you can put the pegs in. All right, want to do some organization?

Tom

Yeah. We'll organize some, got different hooks here. We'll put them on the wall. See what we have. Let's put some chisels up there like that.

Kevin

Put this guy in for screwdrivers. Got a couple of wrenches and maybe use the holes on the handles.

Tom

Yeah, we can use some singles for that. Now, the trick with those singles, they're so light that when you pull the wrench off, they may come right off the wall. So they actually make these little locks right here that go on, and you just put one in the hole beside it, line up the hook into that. And push it into the hole, and that locks it in nice and tight. Now when you take the wrench off it doesn't move around.

Kevin

I've got some bins here, Tommy, put those in.

Tom

It's good to put, like, loose hardware and stuff. Nuts and bolts. I got some eye hooks right here. Perfect.

Kevin

Got a couple of jars here, too, Tommy.

Tom

Screw 'em in place, now you can see 'em. No problem.

Kevin

Blades down here.

Tom

Like that, finish it up, huh?

Kevin

Satisfying, right, makes you feel organized.

Tom

It feels organized, that pile of tools was on our workbench. It's now organized on the wall.

Kevin

Nice job, Tommy. Thank you.

Tom

Thank you for the help.

Dan

Hey,

Mark. -Mark

Hey, Dan.

Dan

Thanks for coming out.

Mark

All right, thanks for having me.

And this is the walkway. -Dan

This is it right here.

Mark

All right,

all right. -Dan

So this was one of the first projects I did at the house. I was a little rushed, kind of slapping everything together. We had our first daughter born only a week after I finished. So I didn't have much time to to do it. And as you can see, it's a little choppy.

Mark

All right, well, every time that I see some humps, some low spots, some gaps in the brick, I always assume that the base is the problem. The base is the most important part of these walkways. So if you rush it, it results in this type of thing. So what I think we should do is pick up all the brick, see what you have for a base, fix what you have for a base. Put the brick back in and I think you'll be all set.

Sounds like a plan. -Mark

All right,

let's get going. -Dan

All right. Thanks.

Mark

All right, this looks like a good place to start. So what I'm going to want you to do, get this brick out, get that brick out, I'm going to get under the rest of it with this little pick and we'll peel up all the brick. Main thing here is we want to save these brick. We're going to reuse them. Little pieces like this no good to us. So don't worry about those, but we'll save everything else on the side. So why don't we get going?

Dan

All right.

All right. -Dan

Start right here?

Mark

Yep. Pull that out. That's it, all right. That might be all I need. So you'll want to pick these brick up and stack them. All right, so this wasn't quite as bad as I thought, but every good walkway has two ingredients. This is the pack run. It's just gravel and stone dust mixed together. And it helps let this walk fluctuate a little bit with the freeze-thaw cycle. The second ingredient, which you do not have, is stone dust. So it's basically crusher run without the gravel. This goes on top of the crusher run and it helps lock in the brick. So we want to make sure we don't skip that step next time around.

Okay. -Mark

So the other missing ingredient is the edging. The edging actually locks the brick together, but more importantly, it keeps loom, grass, all that out from underneath the brick. So we want to make sure we put these rails in when we go back.

Okay. -Mark

All right? I'll loosen everything up with the rake. Dan, why don't you come behind me with the shovel?

Dan

My wife actually slipped and fell asleep on the ice once.

Mark

We're going to compact the soil down and make sure it's even and firm. You can rent a compactor like this from any home center. Now, let's get the packing material back in, we'll use all of yours and I brought some just in case. Now we'll add the stone dust. When you compact the stone dust, I'm going to spray water ahead of you to keep the dust down. So, all right, now we're ready to throw the brick in, what you have is a McAvoy paver. So I went to the store and I got a bunch of McAvoy pavers because we've lost a few here. So one thing I know about the McAvoy pavers, the edge, see how sharp that is?

Dan

Yeah.

Mark

Nice, right?

Dan

Yeah.

Mark

The other thing is the coloration. There's a range of color in this brick. So the old McAvoys are much like the new McAvoys.

Dan

Okay. Mark, I notice that you're running the bricks vertically rather than the way that I laid them out horizontally. Why is that?

Mark

Actually, we have a number of reasons for that, Dan. Number one, going to be less cuts. Number two, we're going to end up with a better looking walkway.

Dan

Well, what about the curve? We don't need to do any cuts there.

Mark

So this curve is soft enough where we're just going to be able to tweak the joint in the brick. If you go horizontally, it kind of gives you a choppy vision on the walk.

Dan

That does look a lot smoother.

Mark

Right. All right, Dan, so this is the plastic edging that we were talking about -- all we have to do is line it up against the brick, nail it down,

and it will be in place. -Dan

That simple?

Mark

That simple. So now we're going to sweep the stone dust into those joints, that's going to do two things. It's going to solidify the brick walkway and it's also going to keep those weeds away.

Dan

Mark, this walkway came out great.

Mark

All right, well, I'm happy as heck too, but I am going to leave you with it a little bit of homework. So you can see that the gaps are coming back

after we did the rinse. -Dan

I did notice that.

Mark

Well, don't worry, because it did sink through. It did tighten up the walkway, which is what we wanted. But now the homework is, I'm going to leave you with a bucket of stone dust. After the this brick dries, you're going to spill it again and just sweep it into all the existing cracks that we have right now. After that, the walkway is going to be tight as heck and you'll never have another problem.

Dan

Great. I can do that. Well, thank you for your help.

Mark

Thanks for having me, Dan, take care.

Dan

You, too.

Kevin

Nice job, Mark. That's a good looking walkway.

Thank you. -Kevin

And, hey, you know what? No flies on Dan, good first effort, right?

Mark

Great first effort. I mean, don't forget, Dan's a dad, right?

We all know. -Kevin

I remember those days.

Mark

Oh,

boy. -Kevin

Everything gets sped up. So we have heard a million times that a good walkway starts with good prep, right?

Right. Kevin

And that big deep layer of all that crushed stone is critical. What I'm not sure everyone appreciates, though, is the freeze-thaw cycle. That's sort of the real enemy here.

Mark

Right, okay, so freeze-thaw, there's always going to be moisture in that ground, we know that -- and the freeze-thaw is going to start to occur when the temperature goes below 32 degrees.

Kevin

That's when we get the freeze and we know that water will expand.

Mark

Expand -- so now pressure under a stone can be built up and will push that stone under that walkway. So our crushed stone actually would act as a shock absorber. So that stone goes up, our crust stone goes like this. Once the frost dissipates, the stone goes back down into place and it will never show on the walkway.

Kevin

So we're not necessarily stopping a little bit of a bulge. What we are doing is allow it to come back down and go basically flat or level again.

Mark

That's right, and if you do your prep work correctly, that's exactly how it's going to work. Everything will sink back down into place.

Kevin

So the movement is good. We're going to let it up, but we'll get it back and it'll be fine.

That's right. -Kevin

Very cool. All right. Well, like I said, a beautiful walkway and a good explanation.

Mark

Thanks,

Kevin. -Kevin

All right. That's it from us, but we got plenty more next time. So until then, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

Mark

I'm Mark McCullough.

Kevin

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

Ross

I'll explain what you need to know about proper and practical air filtration in your home.

Tom

And this Adirondack chair would be a great addition to any back yard, and I'll show you how to build it. All right. So now we have all of our pieces cut, pre-drilled and sanded. So we're ready for assembly.

Jenn

And I'll show you a few ways to redefine your garden.