Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Jenn

I'll show you a few ways to redefine your garden. This I'm using to create a straight line on the back edge. And then, when we're done, we'll backfill everything.

Ross

I'll explain what you need to know about proper and practical air filtration in your home. Your next best solution after that is potentially a home air purifier or air cleaner.

Kevin

Buying one off the...

Ross

Buying one off the line. Yep. Or we have one here that we're gonna actually assemble, okay?

Kevin

Like, we're gonna make our own?

Ross

We're gonna make our own.

Tom

And this Adirondack chair would be a great addition to any backyard, and I'll show you how to build it.

Jenn

Plants grow. And as they do, you can grow with them. So, this homeowner already has a ton of great plants. We've got this catmint. I see phlox, daisies, some definitely well-established shrubs. She's got sedum, salvia, daylilies, iris. So all the pieces are here. It just needs to be reorganized. Without spending too much extra money, we can expand the garden to find the space and connect it to the overall landscape. To get started, I want to define the space with spray paint, so that way, we have the definition between bed and sitting area. And all you do... I would like to expand the garden to give the perennials a little more room to come out. And another thing -- If you don't have spray paint, it's okay. You could use a hose. You could use a rope. Just something to help you guide. But I know I want mine to go like this. So, first, I want to dig up and divide the plants that I think need to be moved to open up the space. So, this sedum is really leggy, and I really want to transplant it to a new space. And the easiest way to do that is cut it back to about four inches tall. So when I dig it up, it's gonna be easier to divide. You'll lose the blooms for this year, but it's okay 'cause you'll have three new plants for next year. So, I want to clean up this area. I'm gonna leave these irises and daylilies, but what I'm gonna do right now is cut them back. We just want to tidy up the area. They're gonna come back again next year. Again, three or four inches tall. Just make cuts. This will help us see the space of this garden area and its potential. Okay. So this is catmint, and it is super overgrown. Some people like to just let it go like this. What I like to do -- Here in New England, it blooms from June until frost. So as soon as the first blooms are done, I cut it back like a big haircut. Just grab it, just like this. And within a couple weeks, the plant will bounce back, look nice and full, and have a great shape instead of overextending and reaching this long. You could really keep this plant contained if you prune it after it flowers. So, look how much space that just takes up, whereas if you're on top of it, you can shape it. But what I'm gonna do is dig this. I'm gonna cut it way back, and I'm gonna dig it up and divide it into two plants instead of one, just to space it out in the garden. So, there's nothing wrong with this phlox. It just needs to be staked up. So what I'm gonna do is put the stake in the ground and take some thin string and tie it up. These look like they've been cut back once in the season. So, phlox does rebloom, like a lot of other perennials. So say, for instance, this gets cut back. It's gonna rebloom. So, to define the edge of this garden bed, I'm gonna use cobblestones. This is a nice, solid piece of granite. And we're gonna dig a trench and follow the curve that we painted earlier. And that's gonna define garden bed, sitting area. It'll be a nice, clean division. Okay. So I'm gonna put the first cobblestone in to start this whole course. I decided to put it directly into the dirt because this is not a high-traffic area and it's the edge of a garden bed. If we were gonna put it next to a driveway, then I definitely would cement. Or next to a walkway, cement so it doesn't wiggle around. But here, I think it should be fine. So what I'm gonna do is just make sure -- This is where we dug the trench before. Then I'm just tamping it down so it's compact -- the soil is compacted underneath. This I'm using to create a straight line on the back edge. And then, when we're done, we'll backfill everything. So, this garden bed's been here for a while, and so I want to amend the soil with compost. So I'm just gonna sprinkle it around the whole bed. And then when we go to dig the plants in, we'll incorporate it in and turn it over. So now it's time to stage the plants. All the plants I dug up earlier have been divided, and now they're gonna be transplanted back into new homes with a little extra space around them and just different organization. And I did bring a few extra plants just in case we need to fill in the gaps. This is awesome. Tickseed -- coreopsis. Why not put a splash of yellow in here? How beautiful is that? I think one will look cool in the middle. One right here. Now we just have to put them in the ground. Tease these roots, 'cause it's pretty root-bound. Gonna leave it planted a little high 'cause I'm mulching around it. These roots aren't that bad. Just lightly tease those. Pop it in the soil. Backfill. With just a few hours of work, this place has been transformed. We created larger spaces. We moved plants around, gave them new homes and new beds. We defined the edge with this cobblestone to create the space. So all you need is a little bit of hard work and caretaking afterwards, and you have yourself a new garden.

Kevin

Ross, it is the best time to be talking about air filtration.

Tough year for good air. Ross

Very important. Yes, it is. We got the wildfires out West. Not good there, with all the smoke, right? Some of the worst air quality in history in California and Portland. And then we've got coronavirus, COVID-19, you know?

Kevin

So a lot of reasons for a lot of people to be thinking about filtering the air in their house. And we're also fortunate that a lot of people use an HVAC system for heating and cooling. So they're actually already moving air, and they're already filtering air. Question is, what are they filtering with, and can we do any better?

Ross

Yeah. So here's the typical MERV-1 rating.

Kevin

So let's just talk about MERV. MERV is the system that we use to rank filtration.

Ross

Yeah. MERV is a rating scale from 1 to 16 -- 1 is the lowest level of filtration, 16 being the highest on that scale.

Kevin

Higher the number goes, the better off we get.

Ross

That's right. This is MERV-1. MERV-1s are good for maybe cat or dog hair, maybe some dust.

You see right through it. Ross

Yeah. It's not gonna do much for you. But this is actually pretty typical of what you see in a lot of houses. So not that great, right? And you work your way up from there to MERV-4s and -8s. But then where it really gets interesting is MERV-13s.

Kevin

What happens at 13?

Ross

At 13, you're actually gonna get the really small particulates, all right? So if you think about it, particulates come in different sizes. From.3 micron to 1 micron is the really small stuff. And with that, we're talking about 1/50th the size of the human hair.

Kevin

So 1 micron is 1/50th the size a human hair.

Ross

Or smaller.

Kevin

Gotcha. Okay. Hang on a second. Before we get to 13, okay, am I doing anything for COVID? Like, 1 through 12, am I getting what I need to get to know that I'm safe?

Ross

You're not gonna get a great level of filtration, because MERV-12 or smaller is not gonna get those fine particulates. It's gonna get the medium size and the larger size.

Kevin

So I need into 13 or more.

Ross

You need to be 13 or higher to really get smoke and to really get the aerosols that we breathe out, which is what the virus basically hitches a ride with to transmit.

Kevin

So, what does a 13 look like? Is this a 13?

Ross

This is a MERV-13. This is a MERV-13, 20 by 20. It's a 2-inch-thick filter.

Kevin

So 20 inches wide, 20 inches long, and then two inch is that plate size.

Ross

That's right. And they come in one inch. They come in four inch, right? Here's an example of a four-inch version.

Kevin

Whoo-ee. Beautiful. All right.

Ross

20 by 25, but 4 inches thick.

Kevin

So if 13 is my number, I'm going home right now -- thank you for buying me this -- and I'm taking probably a 6 or 8 out of my system, and I'm putting this in, and I'm good to go.

Not so fast. Kevin

Why not?

Ross

With this, you're gonna increase the resistance of the air going across it. So you think about the higher levels of filtration, the more pressure drop, the more resistance you have to get and overcome.

Kevin

I don't care. I don't care if my fan slows down because I'm trying to save my family.

Ross

Yeah, I know. So it's not a good idea. If you put too restrictive a filter on, you're either going to freeze up your coil or you could seize the motor in that system. You really want to have an HVAC technician take a look at it before you actually go retrofit all your systems and upgrade them to MERV-13 or so.

So I do care. Ross

You do care. Yeah. You don't want that to happen. In an ideal world, everybody would have that MERV-13 or higher. So you just got to take a look at that.

Kevin

Is there any workaround to something like this? Is there any way I can reduce the resistance to the airflow?

Ross

If we go from a two-inch pleated filter that we have here to a four-inch pleated filter...

Kevin

Like the big boy you pulled out?

Ross

Like this guy. So you have twice the thickness, which means that you have twice the surface area. So there's twice the amount of surface area in this filter than there is in that filter.

Kevin

If I were to unfold this and unfold that,

that would be bigger. Ross

That's right.

Kevin

More surface area means less resistance.

Ross

That's right.

Kevin

So maybe I could go to a 13 with my existing motor and system if I picked a properly sized MERV-13.

Ross

Right. So it could be a four-inch or could even be a five-inch-deep filter like this that gets slid into a filter box. You have to have the space to be able to accommodate this. But if you could, you could actually upgrade your system.

Kevin

And if I don't have the space, then I'm back to the same old problem, which is I can't go to 13 without maybe risking damaging my motor.

Ross

That's right. Yeah. Your next best solution after that is potentially a home air purifier or air cleaner.

Kevin

Buying one off the...

Ross

Buying one off the line. Yep. Or we have one here that we're gonna actually assemble, okay?

Kevin

Like, we're gonna make our own?

Ross

We're gonna make our own. This is called the Comparetto cube. It's using four of these filters with a box fan -- all for less than 100 bucks.

Kevin

Do we know Comparetto?

Ross

Yeah. His name's Neil. He's out of Virginia. The typical design was this. Take a two-inch MERV-13 filter. Put it on a box fan like that.

Turn it on. Ross

Turn it on, right?

And let it do its thing. Kevin

That's brilliant.

Ross

Then you get MERV-13 filtration. But he came up with the idea of taking this and adding four filters. By doing that, you're gonna increase the surface area, which means you decrease the pressure drop, which means we move more airflow.

Kevin

Oh. All right. Well, let's build it. You show me how to build it.

Okay. Kevin

What do we do?

Ross

We start off with cardboard in the bottom. And we're gonna stack these two-inch filters like this, with the airflow arrow pointing in.

Kevin

There's another one in there. How do you want this guy? There?

Ross

There. Yeah.

Kevin

And last one. We want it to come to that?

That's right. Kevin

All right.

Ross

Yep. Just like that. And I'm gonna get some duct tape.

Kevin

Really? Of course there's duct tape involved.

Ross

This is DIY right here. This is great.

Kevin

This is definitely what people are gonna be doing in this apocalyptic year.

Laughs

Ross

All right.

Kevin

Now, this is great. The bottom cardboard is there, so we're not blocking any of the filters. Do we get to duct-tape this down too?

Yep. Kevin

Awesome.

Laughs

It's portable. Kevin

It's portable. Give me a sense of how much air we are moving with this homemade cube filter here.

Ross

So, this is a three-speed fan, so we're gonna be moving somewhere up around 900 CFM on high speed.

Kevin

900 cubic feet per minute on high speed.

Ross

That's right.

Kevin

And can you give me a sense as to how much cubic feet is in a -- I don't know -- a 2,500-square-foot-house, roughly?

Ross

Yeah, so a 2500-square-foot house, eight foot ceilings -- You're talking about, you know, maybe 20,000 cubic feet of volume.

Kevin

And you said we're moving about 900.

Ross

900 or so. Yeah. So we're gonna get about almost one air change in that house every 20 minutes -- three air changes an hour.

Kevin

Wow. That's pretty good. That's really good, actually.

Ross

The thing is, though, this is localized, and it's not ducted, so it's gonna work for localized air cleaning wherever it is. If you're in the kitchen or living room, that's great. If you go to bed at night, you could take it with you.

That's not a bad thing. Ross

It's great.

Turn it on. Ross

All right. Turn it on.

Kevin

So we have got air flow this way, so coming in through four filters and coming out through the fan perfectly clean, which means clean enough that we're taking the smoke out of the air and coronavirus.

Ross

That's the great thing about MERV-13 filters. They get the small stuff and the big stuff.

Kevin

This thing is awesome. Love it.

Ross

Keep in mind, like any filter, it's gonna load up. This can get surface loading, which is gonna increase that resistance. So you're gonna have to replace these filters once in a while. On this system, it's gonna be about six months.

Kevin

Good enough for me. Terrific, Ross. Thank you. What a great idea. Hey, Tommy. I like this idea, huh?

Tom

Adirondack chair.

Kevin

Outdoor furniture. You can't go wrong.

And a classic design. Tom

Yeah. They've been around for a long time, and people have done all kind of modifications to the plan to build their own. But, you know, I'd never built one before. So what I did is I actually bought a set of plans. They have templates and everything. So cardboard templates. I made my own templates from the cardboard templates because after building that one, I realized I'm gonna build quite a few more. So why not have a template that I can reuse?

Kevin

So just transfer from the cardboard to the MDF and you're good to go.

Exactly. Kevin

Very nice. All right. And then the material? Just PT?

Tom

Well, again, this was gonna be my first chair, so I figured I'd build it out of PT. I modified the plan slightly. I changed some dimensions. I said, "You know what? I'm gonna build it out of pressure-treated decking."

Kevin

Yep. Gotcha.

Tom

And five-quarter material. It's beefy. So I can use this for the frame, the structure, the lath -- everything.

Kevin

Looks pretty good as is. This can weather just as PT. Will you put anything on it or leave it natural?

Tom

All pressure-treated should have something on it eventually. It will crack or check out. So you got to wait about three to six months, depending on where you are with that chair. And once it starts to dry out, you want to get a finish on it.

Kevin

Cool. All right. Well, you got the template. What do you say we get going?

Tom

All right. Sounds like a plan. All right. Good. Now, those two pieces are actually part of the main frame, or the superstructure of this chair. And this is the main template right here. So this rests on the ground. And you can see this is where the front leg goes. And here is the back support to hold up the chair itself. And the laths are here. So, the idea of this template is we want to make it so that it's flush with the bottom. To do that, we line it up with our square -- all three pieces.

Kevin

Good here.

Tom

Okay. All right. Now we want to make them tight. Hold it down so it doesn't move, and I'll put a screw in one of these holes. Okay. Get one here. Okay. So now all three pieces screw together. Then we'll follow that that the band saw.

Saw humming

Tom

All right. So, we've made our curved cuts, not touching our template, but cutting as close as we can. This cut right here is a straight cut. And later on, we'll rip this piece down on the table saw. Now that you understand the process, we can screw our templates on the rest of the pieces that we need to cut. All right. So now we've cut our curves with our router table and template. Now we're ready to cut the pieces that are gonna support the back off of the frame and also the back slats. Now, if you notice, they're all tapered. These are all tapered cuts. And to do that and cut them on the table saw, I've made a templating jig. And it's nothing but a scrap piece of plywood. I cut some slots in it so I can use this and angle it any way I want.

Kevin

Each one of these is at a different angle.

Tom

Yeah. So now, to make the pieces cut exactly the same -- Here's my template. I'm gonna lay it on the tapering jig. Bring it over.

Kevin

It's got a little stop right here for it to rest into.

Tom

Make it flush here and just firm it up a little bit. Slide the top over. So that's flush there. I can get two of these out of this piece. And the way I'm gonna get two of them out of it -- I have to make this piece longer than I need. So I'll cut this, taper it, then I'll flip this over and cut another one. And then we'll cut our angles for the lath. The next pieces we have to cut are our slats. Okay. With the boards cut to length, we can now cut the slats for the seat.

Saw humming

Tom

I'm gonna soften all the edges with my trim router so they feel nice and smooth. I also want to predrill all the holes in my pieces before we assemble for the screws. And while I do that, Kevin, why don't you give everything a light sanding? All right. Now we have all of our pieces cut, predrilled, and sanded. So we're ready for assembly. So let's get some of this stuff out of the way. I'm gonna get this stuff, move it on the table, and then we can start. I want to start with the main frame. Okay. So we need the support legs for that. This is the part that's gonna go on the back side of the leg, and it's gonna sit under there. And then the leg is gonna come right out in front like that so we have a shelf for it to sit on. Okay. So we'll screw this on here. I want to center it. I've made this one a little bit narrower than the wide piece, and I just want to use a screw that is long enough to go through the top but not long enough to go through both pieces. Okay. All right. Now we need to do the layout for all of our slats. As you can see, as we lay them out, it starts to take the shape of the curve. All right. If you notice on this support on the back and the legs on the front, I made these little blocks right here -- this one here and the one on the front. This is to rest the armrest on it to give it some flat surface to screw it on. All right. Let's put it on the floor. We have one more piece to put on. And we're gonna put that piece right there, probably down across the back. And that's to keep the boards from twisting.

Kevin

How about an inch from the sides? Does that work?

Tom

All right. Centered good? Look pretty straight up and down, left and right? Good. All right. Last screw.

All right. Tom

There you go.

Kevin

What do you say we try these things out?

Tom

All right. Let me grab the one I built the other day. Put them together. Grab my coffee.

Kevin

Oh, yeah.

Have a seat. Kevin

That is nice. I tell you, nothing more comfortable than a well-built Adirondack chair.

Tom

You know what? I'm surprised. I never really sat in one until I built this the other --

Kevin

Really?

Tom

No, never. And they really are very nice and comfortable.

Kevin

Nice job, Tommy. All right. Well, that's it from us. So until next time, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

And I'm Tom Silva. Kevin

For "Ask This Old House."

Tom

Where's your coffee?

Kevin

Pops, put me down for four more of these.

Tom

Four more? I think a lot of people are gonna want some. So we got our work cut out for us.

Next time... Tom

Load-bearing walls are vital to the structure of your house. If you want to remove one, I'll show you how to identify it so you can.

Kevin

Did you build this?

Tom

I did. I built it because I figured it's real easy to explain.

Mauro

And I'll show you the correct way to paint a radiator cover. This is the paint that I have for the radiator. It's an organic zero VOCs paint. There's no chemical on it, and it can take the heat. And it's specific for radiators, but we can also use for the covers, too.