Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Heath

Looking at this, I got to tell you, this is kind of an electrician's nightmare. It's got a fixture hanging from it that's not supported properly. It's wide open at the top. It's going to fill up with water and cause a problem. We have a 120-volt splice inside of there, instead of something safer, like a landscape splice, that's 12 volts. This lamppost isn't exactly installed to code. I'll show you how to install a new one.

Mark

These steps are sloped, falling apart, and growing weeds. I'll show you how to replace them. You see how much leverage I have?

Anthony

Yep.

Mauro

And an old piece of furniture, like this, can have a new life, with some hard work, a little bit of paint, and I'll show you how.

Anthony

Hey, Mark. How's it going?

Mark

Good, Anthony. How are you?

Anthony

Good. Thanks for coming down.

Mark

Great. Thanks for having me.

Anthony

Yeah, so these are the steps we wrote you about. My wife and I bought our first house a couple of years ago. We've done some work to the inside. Now, we're looking at doing some curb appeal projects and these steps are just very unappealing right now, so we're thinking about replacing them.

Mark

Okay. Great place to start. A couple of things that I've noticed. One was that you don't have gutters. That's going to allow the rainwater to come down, sit on the steps, create some ice, so other problems. And then, if you really zone in on those steps, you can see how much they do tip to the right.

Yeah. Mark

So I think that, to correct that, you're going to have to take those right out.

Anthony

Okay, well, we've thought about some different options and we were thinking maybe precast concrete steps.

Mark

Okay, I think that's a great option. They're pretty inexpensive. But what I really like is the fact that they're built inside in a controlled environment, so, anytime you can do that with any construction products is always a plus. All we would have to do, again, is get those stairs out of there. This is definitely something that you and I can do and we should probably get started on the prep work.

Anthony

Alright, cool. Let's do it.

Mark

Alright. Let's go. Alright, so I think the best thing for the job is going to be this jackhammers, so why don't you grab it? Have you ever used one before?

Anthony

No, I haven't.

Mark

Alright. Well, it's a great tool. Can be a little bit intimidating, but we're ready for it. We have our ear protection. We have a dust mask. We have eye protection, and those are the things that we're going to need to start with. Now, that should be a nice, solid piece for you to start, right? You can almost feel it with the jackhammer, right?

Yeah. Mark

Ready to go?

Yeah. Let's try it. Mark

Alright. Go that way. Pull up. Go right in the middle there. So, Anthony, when it starts to bounce like that, watch this. Instead of doing this, because I know I'm starting to slide, that's when you want to straighten up a little. You see how much leverage I have?

Anthony

Yep.

Speaks indistinctly

Anthony

Up here. So we've got a lot of debris here. What do you think we should do with this?

Mark

Usually, we cart this stuff off-site and we dump it, but what we have here is Pennsylvania flat fieldstone, which is what everybody loves, so, if you had a reuse for it somewhere on the property, that's what I would do with it.

Anthony

You know, my wife's actually wanted a fire pit in the backyard,

so it could work for that. Mark

Wow. I say we sort the good stone, put it in the wheelbarrow, get it out back and, whenever you guys are ready to do the fire pit, it's here.

Anthony

Great. Alright, Mark, that was a lot of digging.

Mark

So that was a lot of digging. But if you remember, one of our main problems was settlement. So, in this area, we had a ton of topsoil, which is not good. So we actually dug down 16 or 18 inches.

Yeah. Mark

We brought that whole thing back up with some nice, crushed stone and gravel and that's going to allow for drainage. So that should eliminate the settlement problem

that we had before. Anthony

Good.

Mark

After that, I put this form in. This is what's going to hold together our concrete pad. And these little spikes that you're looking at right here?

Mm-hmm. Mark

Those are for the rerod that you see in front of you. That's going to act as our reinforcement for the pad.

Okay. Mark

We're going to take our tie twister, put it through the eye of each end of my tie and simply twist. So, Anthony, you notice that we're keeping the rerod up high?

Anthony

Mm-hmm.

Mark

Very, very important. If this rerod is sitting on crushed stone,

it's not doing anything... Anthony

Right.

Mark

...so you have to pick it up

and make sure it's in the pour. Anthony

Gotcha.

Mark

Alright. Ooh, this is stiff. That's it. Now, look at your eye, Anthony. You know you're high, right?

Anthony

Yep.

Mark

So push into the edge. Use the edge. And then adjust your eye to the middle. Nice bounce, Anthony. You're now a concrete guy. All we have to do is wait for it to set up overnight and then I'll come back and we'll put the stairs in.

Anthony

Alright. See you tomorrow.

Mark

Thanks,

Anthony. Anthony

Yeah.

Mark

When choosing your material for your front steps, don't forget to consider precast concrete. One of the things I love about precast concrete is it's made in a controlled environment. That means temperature fluctuation -- rain, snow, wind -- none of that will bother us during the pour. In a facility like this one, concrete, which is just water, aggregate, and Portland cement, is made in massive batches up here and then, it's trucked all the way around the facility in these bridge cranes. In this facility, they put the steel forms together. They're done in many different shapes and sizes. They can assemble these forms in such a way that they'll accommodate just about any entry at any house, and it all starts here, with pouring the concrete. They start at the top. They work their way down. They get to about the midpoint, then, they're going to pick up their rerod and they're going to put it into the step as reinforcement. After that, they want to use a vibrator, just to make sure the concrete fills all the nooks and crannies. After that, it's dry time. We're going to let it set up overnight. After that, we're going to strip the forms, and they're done. To most people, precast concrete can be a little plain. Not the case here. You can get either a brick veneer or a stone veneer, both sets of stairs are topped off with a granite tread and a nice piece of granite for its platform. Really good stuff. Once the stairs are complete, they're loaded on a truck and driven to a house. Hey, Anthony, how we looking?

Anthony

Hey. Things are looking pretty good, actually.

Mark

Alright. Yeah, looks dry. Okay, so what we want to do right now

is put these hard helmets on. Anthony

Okay.

Mark

The truck is here, so we might as well

just back out of his way. Anthony

Sure.

Mark

You can see that he's got that belt on?

That's all his controls. Anthony

Amazing. It's a two-ton piece of concrete there.

Mark

That he's just kind of lifting off the back.

Anthony

Mark, these steps are absolutely gorgeous. They're already one of the best features of our entire house.

Mark

I'm happy as heck. I thought they came out great and we had a lot of fun doing it. But don't forget, the damage to the step was a byproduct of a couple other things that were going on around here. Number one, we had a lot of runoff from the roof. No gutter, spills onto the steps. That's what broke the steps up, to begin with. But also, we have water damage on those shingles. You're going to want to take care of that. The last bit of homework is going to be the grade, okay? So you're going to have to fill in this whole front step. But, other than that, you should be good to go.

Alright. We can handle it. Mark

Alright, Anthony,

thank you so much. Mark

My pleasure. See you.

Kevin

Hey,

Mauro. Mauro

Kevin.

Kevin

What'd you bring us? Look at this.

Mauro

Here's the story about this piece of furniture. I'm working for this client, which we do a lot of work, and she has this piece of furniture sitting down in the basement, doing nothing, alright?

Laughs

Mauro

And she asked me if I could throw some paint on it for her. I say, "Yeah. Let's do it."

Kevin

Yeah. I mean, already painted, although not very well.

They didn't finish it all. Kevin

Right. And, I mean, who doesn't have something like this kicking around in the basement or they find at a flea market?

Almost everyone. Kevin

Let's give it a second life. Alright. How do you want to get started?

Mauro

Okay, we're going to start by hitting it

with that 220 grade sandpaper. Kevin

Yeah.

Mauro

And then, I'm going to try to -- we're going to remove the hardware, in order to sand all the drawer fronts, and then, we'll be ready to prime and paint.

Kevin

Alright. Let's get these out and I'll give you a hand. Is this going to come out or is this stuck in here?

Mauro

Oh, I think that's fixed right there.

That doesn't come out. Kevin

Alright. We'll leave that in there.

Mauro

Time for tack cloth, Kevin. Let's see if there's any dust left here. Tack cloth will take care of it.

Kevin

Just want to Make sure that all the little, tiny particles come off.

Mauro

Time to prime.

Kevin

Just a basic primer, just a latex?

Mauro

Well, what we're using here, Kevin, is a water-based primer. You can also do interior and exterior.

Yeah. Mauro

Yeah. We're going to apply it with this mini roller, which is 4.5-inch long by 3/8

indistinct

Yeah. Mauro

nap.

Kevin

No brush, huh? You like the roller?

Mauro

Roller will give us a nice and smooth finish, a good foundation for the top coatings that's coming up right now.

Kevin

Roller works great on these drawer fronts.

Mauro

And the other thing, too, so we can get a lot of work done with those mini rollers. Love them.

Kevin

Does this primer have a color to it?

Yeah. Kevin

A little tint?

Mauro

Well, just like a gray primer that you can use under any dark-finish coatings. That can save you a lot of time and money.

Kevin

Alright, Mauro. Looks so much better already.

Mauro

Looks awesome, yes. Well, we're almost there. Let's wait for about two hours for this primer to dry and then, we'll be ready to top coat. Alright, our primer's dry, so we're going to use this acrylic interior paint.

Yeah. Mauro

We're going to have a different technique this time, Kevin. We are applying the paint by roller and then, we're going to back-brush.

Kevin

Oh, really?

Mauro

Yes.

Kevin

For what purpose?

Mauro

Well, the homeowner wants to see some brushmarks on it...

Ah. Okay. Mauro

...so, and that's the good technique to get it done.

Kevin

So that's just going to be for the look, right?

Mauro

Yes.

Okay. Mauro

Ready to go here?

Kevin

Just regular interior latex paint.

Mauro

Acrylic paint, yes.

Kevin

Now I know why you used the tinted primer.

Mauro

See? It's all about the coverage. So, as soon as we paint, we used the roller for the first coat, so we're just going to back-brush, just like that.

Kevin

Now, did you get your brush dipped in paint to do that...

No. Kevin

...or did you just back-brush it?

Mauro

Just back-brushed.

Kevin

So I can just drag this across?

Mauro

Just drag that across. The paint is already there.

Kevin

So I like this natural brushstroke, Mauro, but it makes me wonder -- why don't we just brush it

Laughs

Kevin

to begin with?

Mauro

The homeowner specifically told me she doesn't want to see much of a brushstroke. She wants to see just a very light and sort of brushmarks, just a little bit.

Kevin

So all brush would give us too much brushstroke.

Mauro

Absolutely,

yes. Kevin

Combination of the two,

just the right amount. Mauro

Combination of the two will give like very, very fine brushmarks.

Kevin

What color are we working with here, Mauro?

Mauro

This color calls naval blue.

Kevin

I like it.

Mauro

Well, second coat is completely dry. Hardware back on. What do you think, Kevin?

Kevin

I like it, Mauro. It's a nice big pop of color and I got to say, that brushstroke? It does actually make all the difference. It looks sort of natural, a little antiqued.

Mauro

Yeah. There's some character to this old piece of furniture that came out nice. A little bit of work, a little bit of paint,

here we go. Kevin

Nice job.

Ben

Hi,

Heath. Heath

Hey, Ben.

Ben

Hey,

thanks for coming. Heath

Thanks for having me. This is really a great-looking place here. So who's this?

Ben

This is Chloe.

Heath

Hi, Chloe. This is a great little spot.

Ben

Yeah, thanks. We've lived here for about two, two and a half years, now, and we've been working hard on sprucing it up. We're almost done with the landscaping work and, now, we're on to replacing this lamppost.

Heath

Got it.

Laughs

It's -- Heath

It needs it.

Ben

It does. It used to be a mailbox. I've heard rumblings how former owners used to make this a flower box.

Heath

This is an electrician's nightmare, looking at this quickly. So it was definitely a mailbox post that someone converted to hold a fixture, instead of a lamppost. It's got a fixture hanging from it that's not supported properly. It's not the way it should be installed. It's a fixture that shouldn't be here. It's wide open at the top. It's going to fill up with water and cause a problem. We have a 120-volt splice inside of there, instead of something safer, like a landscape splice, that's 12 volts. This is not what we want to have. This is dangerous, so we definitely want to try and clean this up a little bit.

Ben

Yes. So, yeah, we're looking to rip it out and put in a taller lamppost and that's what led me

to call you. Heath

Sure.

Ben

I'm not familiar with the electrical work, so I would need your help on it.

Heath

Okay. Well, I think a good place to start is by taking this thing out of here and getting rid of it and, hopefully, forgetting about it. And then, we'll grab the new post that you're looking at and go from there.

Awesome. Let's do it. Heath

Alright. Ben, this is a great-looking post and lantern you have here.

Ben

Thanks. We really like it.

Heath

Yeah. So let's go over the components of this. So we have two basic components, even though there are several parts here on the table. We have the post, which, in your case is going to consist of the main post, that's going to go in the ground. We have a decorative base that slides over it, and then, we have the cap, that's going to mount to the top of this post, and this is going to allow the second portion of this, the lantern that you picked, to mount to the top of the post. These are usually just a standard 3-inch round fitting like this, that most of these will adapt over so you can pick any lantern you like. Now, normally, in a case like this, if we're installing something new, we have to call a utility locating service, dig a trench. We'd want to put a conduit in the ground, preferably 18 inches down, and pull the lines from the house over to where the post is going to go. But, in this case, where you already have a post, a lot of this work has already been done for us. So, in your case, we actually have an underground feeder cable, or UF cable, that's in the ground. So there's nothing wrong with having a UF cable buried like this and at the depth that it's at, but we want to make sure that it does have GFCI protection, so I'll make sure I add that before we're done. So what we need to do now is just remove the old one, start digging the post a little bit deeper,

and get ready to set this. Ben

Great.

Heath

So, now that we turned the power off, we can go ahead and take the light fixture off and start getting this post out of the ground. So this shrub is a little too big to take out. Let's try and tie this back, if we can. Beautiful. Just tie it off up there. We'll keep this out of the way. Alright, now that we have the hole dug to the depth we want, we went about 6 inches deeper than what we want to do for the post and the reason is we want to put a little gravel at the bottom so we have drainage, so we don't get water building up there.

Ben

Makes sense.

Heath

Now that we have the hole all set, we're going to go ahead and set this, but we want to pay attention to how this goes in. We have two holes on this we have to watch out for. The first one, up top, that's where the post comes through for the sign arm. Want to make sure that's facing out towards the street, so the sign's facing the way you want. The second one is down here, and this is actually for the wire and they preinstalled a pull string for us. In this case, where the wire comes up, we want this being towards the back of the house. That way, the wire's in.

Ben

Something like that?

Heath

Yeah. Looks great. And, now, we can grab a shovel and a level. We'll start backfilling and pack the dirt down. Alright, that's the last of the dirt. Let's see how it looks.

Ben

Looks great there.

Heath

And...it looks nice and plumb there. Perfect. Alright, now that we have everything tamped in and this is where we want it, we're going to go ahead and grab the base that goes around this. We're going to slide that from the top, instead of the bottom. It was much easier to tamp the dirt in and fill this in without that in the way. And then, just gently lower it down so we don't scratch anything up. Nice and gentle. And it's coming out of the top. There we go. Perfect. Alright, and that is all you. Perfect. Now, we can install the sign arm. Slide that through here. And through the other side. Now, we'll grab the end cap, put it on the other side, and we'll screw it into place That's in place. Let's free-drill it. Alright, now, let's install the support bracket. So, if you want to clamp that into place.

Okay. Heath

Nice and snug?

Yeah. Heath

Perfect. And, now, we're going to pre-drill this and screw this in. And the final part to our post assembly is installing the top cap. Alright, Ben, now that we've completed the installation and assembly of the Post, it's time to deal with the wiring, and you're probably wondering why we left this piece out, to begin with. Here's why. The wire's just a little bit too short to make it to the top, kind of like we thought, but we do have a solution. I think you're going to like this. So what we can do is actually install a receptacle on the side and then, we'll run a new wire all the way to the top for the new lamp. This way, everything's long enough, we'll have an accessible splice, and you'll have a receptacle to use for holiday lighting.

That'd be perfect. Heath

Alright. There you go. Alright, that's perfect, Ben. So we're going to use this connector. This is for the UF cable and what this does is it seals the cable and doesn't allow moisture to get inside past that. We want to be sure that box stays sealed and dry. That's going to go something like that. So we're actually wearing gloves when we're handling this light fixture because the finish on this particular fixture is very oily. So if we were to touch it with our bare hands within the first couple of weeks of it being up, we'll actually leave a black spot where our fingers touched it. So we certainly don't want to have a bunch of fingerprints all over your brand-new fixture. Lamppost looks great, now that this is all done. I finished installing GFI protection down in the basement. That way, this wire is protected and the receptacle is protected from inside, like we need to. But there's one final touch we need to add to this. You ordered a sign for this post.

Ben

Yeah. I thought Chloe would really love this.

Heath

I think she will.

Ben

Ah, it looks perfect. Yeah, thanks a lot, Heath. I couldn't have done this without you.

Heath

Thank you. I think it looks amazing.

Kevin

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

Tom

This solid wood bench can be used indoors or outdoors and I'll show you how to build it.

Mark

And I'll show you a few different ways to make your walkways and driveways less slippery during the winter. What we have over here is a calcium mix.

Kevin

Yeah. So this is -- You see this a lot, too. These look like these little white beads right here.

Ross

And, in "Future House," I'll explore some ways that home landscaping can be done automatically.