Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Tom

Have you ever wondered what power sander to use if you have a job to do? I'll explain how they work and which one to choose.

Mauro

I'll go over the basics of power washing vinyl siding. Sometimes when you come across a house, like, full of mildew or moss, everything on the walls grew up like crazy, once you turn on that machine, you clean it up, it's another house.

Heath

And I'll show you how to add outdoor lighting to your deck. And normally would put a transformer down by this receptacle. But you already have landscape lights and you have a landscape light transformer. It's the exact same thing that powers this.

Pam

Oh, that's great. ♪♪ ♪♪

Tom

I like sanding. It's a part of the job. ♪♪ When you take a rough piece of lumber and you turn it into something smooth, it's magical. ♪♪ When I'm standing, I'm in the zone.

I get in a zone, and I just -- if I'm hand-sanding, I'm looking at the grain, I'm going through the grits, and I'm saying, "Am I leaving any marks?" I wipe away the dust, and it looks beautiful, and I keep going. Then you get to the next one, and you just sand away. And you can feel the finish of the wood getting smoother and cleaner and crisper, and then the depth of the wood is brought out. ♪♪ When you're standing, you have to think about the stages of the paper that you're going to go through and how aggressive you need to be up front.

Let's say I've taken a piece that's rough-sawn, whether it's a circular saw, whether it's a bandsaw, and I want to get into that and make it flat and smooth. You could get in with a belt sander and go in there really aggressively, if you need be. From that, then you're going to drop down to different grits, but lots of times I'll start with an 80 grit. If I'm doing something rough, I would go even with a 60 grit if I really want to get rid of that saw mark.

But I would go quickly with that and then jump 80, 100, 120, 150, 180. You don't want to jump your grits in the beginning from, let's say, 100 to 220. You want to use the grits in between. But when you get up into the 220, you could go to 220, 320, 400, 500.

That's when you can start to switch. But you -- that's really important that you also wipe it down, clean it, because if any of the 80 grit stones from the paper are left on it and you put 100 on top of it, they're going to be mixed in there and you're going to have lines. So you have to make sure everything's cleaned between your paper grits and make sure that you don't have any leftover grit. ♪♪ Now, lots of times, depending on the finish that you want, 220, 320 is the highest you need to go.

But, you know, when you're doing high-gloss finishes, you have to be more precise about your sanding. Sanding is the key to a good finish. If you don't have a good sanding job, the finish isn't going to fill in those voids. It's going to telegraph those voids.

So you have to make sure that it's done right. ♪♪ You're just going to spend more time sanding and more time in that zone. ♪♪

Kevin

Tommy, I got to give it to you. You are into your sanding.

You actually enjoy it. Tom

I do enjoy it. It makes -- it makes you finished work that you're doing with your hands look really good.

Kevin

And you lose yourself in it.

Tom

I do. It's mesmerizing.

Kevin

So, you could pick a bunch of different sanders, different types. You've got a couple here. Let's go through them.

Belt sander. Aggressive. Tom

This is a belt sander. It can be very aggressive. There's different grits of papers. I mean, we've got 36 on here right here.

And it's just a belt that spins around.

Kevin

Look at that.

Tom

And you can control the belt from left to right. But it's a tricky sander to use. If you have a rough piece of lumber like this and you want to make it smooth, it'll make short work of it. But it's tricky because you want to start it before you lay it down.

You want to make sure that you keep it flat on the surface. If you tilt it at all -- and sometimes you're on a big surface, you don't know if you put more pressure on the other -- you actually create a groove.

Kevin

Yeah, you get that gouge right off the edge right there because it is so aggressive and it is spinning forward, pulling the material back and away from you and at 36 grit, that's going to move a lot of material.

Tom

Yeah. I mean, I'll just turn this on for a second and show you. If I turn this on...

Sander whirring

Tom

Took off a lot of material real quick.

Kevin

Pulling it all the way around, throwing it off the back. You can see a little bit of pile right there. And you would use something like this to move a lot of material, but you would use it in combination then with another sander typically to get a finish on it.

Tom

Yeah, I'd get it down to where I could then have like a finishing sander like this take over.

Kevin

When wouldn't you use that?

Tom

You take this piece of oak veneer right here. This is a plywood used in cabinetry a lot. If I took this belt sander and I put it on here, you watch what happens to that veneer in a matter of seconds.

Sander whirring

Kevin

Took it right off. You're down to the core.

You've ruined the piece. Tom

I've ruined

the piece of wood. Kevin

So never on this. It's already smooth enough. It's not even close to that roughness. It's already smooth enough that you'd skip that and go to a finish sander.

Tom

Yeah, that's ready for a sander like this.

Kevin

And this guy is...?

Tom

This is basically a trim or finish sander. It has very little movement, but it vibrates. There's an off-center circle in there that's moving it just a little bit, and it will do a nice job on this plywood without going through it.

Kevin

And moving on to this guy,

random orbit sander. Tom

Right. I'm going to hold this. You turn it on.

Kevin

Okay.

Sander whirring

Kevin

I can hold off, but I can hear it really vibrating. So, I see the vibration. I see the spinning, and you see it reversing and moving around.

Tom

So if you push down one way, it stops, goes this way. Push on this side, it goes that way. This way, that way.

Kevin

And in terms of using that guy, the palm sander right there, versus this guy, when are you picking this up? What are you hoping to accomplish with it?

Tom

I'm hoping to move a lot of material quickly and get a nice, smooth finish.

Sander whirring

Tom

The pad's going to move. It's aggressive. I'm letting the sander do the work. You have to put enough on it.

Kevin

Alright, Pops, I'll leave you to it. I'll let you go on vacation, do some more sanding. Alright. Thanks, bud.

Sander whirring

Kevin

♪♪

Mauro

Siding can get really dirty. I'm over here checking the side of this house, and I see some grime at the bottom of the edge and also I see a lot of algae growing around this area here. It's all because of this street that's blocking the sunlight, and algae loves to grow in this kind of space. But the good news is I can clean that.

♪♪ Well, the tool that I'm going to have to clean the walls is a power washer. It can be really aggressive. If you don't know how to use it, you can hurt yourself and you can damage the surface. Once you get the hang of it, it's a beautiful tool to have, and it all comes down to the tips.

Well, one good way to understand tips is they are color coded. This is the red, and the red is zero degrees, very powerful, good to have like a hard surface like masonry or concrete or brick. And then we have the yellow tip, which is 15 degrees. It's also good for hard surfaces.

And after that, we got the green one. It's 25 degrees. This is the most useful if you know how to work with that power washer. And the white one is 40 degrees.

It's most for the beginners. This is the one to start power washing your house if you don't know how to do it really well. And then we have another one, which is the black. This is for your soap or for your detergent.

Well, the machine is really easy to set up. I have my water hose here and my one hose here and I got this tube into this bucket. If you want to use detergent, that's fine. I'm going to just use vinegar, which I think will clean better.

I'm going to use the black tip because we're spraying the cleaning solution first. That goes right in there. You let go. It's all set.

Now I'm going to turn on the machine.

Motor whirring

Mauro

When you think about the surface, the technique is for you to identify what's the surface that you're working on. You have to know if this is vinyl siding, or if you're working with the wood, it's a different approach. I like always to start off the surface a little bit and then just wet right onto the surface and it's time to spray in a nice and a smooth place. When you spray the detergent or the soap, you start from the bottom and make your way up because anything that's sprayed on the top will fall into a wet spot.

♪♪ Then, when you spray to clean, you start from the top. Get the top clean and then make your way down. ♪♪ Power wash is a beautiful thing, but, number one, make sure that you wear goggles. It's going to be some pressure.

So you're going to have a lot of water just coming into you. Make sure all the windows are closed, make sure there's no electrical outlets on the walls that you are spraying. If there is any, you have to turn off the breaker, and you have to protect the outlets or any other electrical stuff around. ♪♪ You have to stay at least three feet away from what you're spraying, for safety reasons.

Also, you don't get yourself all wet. ♪♪ I like to power-wash. Yes, I do. You can get a lot of work done fast.

Sometimes when you come across a house, like, full of mildew and moss, everything on the walls grew up like crazy, once you turn on that machine and you clean it up, it's another house. It's beautiful. I love it. ♪♪

Kevin

Our in-box often fills up with pictures from home inspectors and some of their worst nightmares, which we like taking for a walk. So, what do we got today, guys? Who's up?

Jenn

Well, for instance, check this out. Alright, Carl from Seattle, this is pretty impressive in there. It's a clogged gutter. There looks like a small tree growing out of it with some ferns.

So there's there's many problems here, right?

Kevin

Looks like a squirrel hotel, too.

Jenn

It's a home for animals.

Richard

There's a house growing out of that leaf pile.

Laughs

Jenn

I mean, it's dangerous. It's not good for the interior or the exterior of the house.

Richard

Been meaning to get to that roof.

Jenn

Yeah.

Kevin

Does someone actually live there?

Jenn

I don't know, but maybe they don't know that's happening. But they should clear it off, clear out the gutters, pull out the ferns, and maybe plant trees a little bit further away from the house,

just to have some clearance. Kevin

Or move.

Or move. Mark

Or move. Alright, well, you're gonna love this one.

Kevin

Hey! It's the same house on the other side.

Mark

I love the chimney, obviously. But my first thought was, "Call Jenn."

Jenn

It's a new take on landscaping.

Smoked privet. Mark

No, I've seen it before.

Kevin

Come on, how does that even happen, Mark?

Mark

So, people don't believe it, but a root will take where a root wants to take. And if there's any dirt sitting on top of that chimney,

and a seed finds it.. Jenn

It's gonna germinate.

Mark

...it germinates.

Richard

I can't get anything to grow. This guy can grow it in his chimney.

Kevin

So do you call a chimney sweep or a chimney landscaper?

Mark

I'd call Jenn.

Jenn

And be like, "Take care of this."

Sort of like this. Kevin

This comes from Huntsville, Alabama. Alex sends it to us.

He had a drain. Mark

Wow.

Kevin

And instead of going to the plumbing aisle to get a new piece of pipe, he went to the caulking aisle

and he got 32 tubes of caulking. Jenn

Looks like an elephant.

Doesn't move it out. Kevin

Doesn't leak a bit.

That's a trunk. Richard

Doesn't leak a bit.

Kevin

As you can see, we have fun with them and enjoy them, so, if you've got pictures of some horrible home inspection nightmares, send them along. We'll take them for a walk.

Richard

Dry as a bone. Look at them.

That's impressive. Richard

Dry as a bone.

Laughs

Jenn

Impressive. ♪♪

Pam

Look who's here!

Heath

Hi, Pam. How are you?

Pam

Oh, my gosh. We've been waiting for you! We are loving living here.

Heath

I can imagine. Look at the view! This is amazing!

Pam

It is great. And our house is so little that we spend as much time outside as we possibly can, which takes us into the nighttime hours

Sure. Pam

and it gets dark. I mean, I've tried candles in glasses.

Heath

A little too windy,

yeah. Pam

Very, too windy and they fall over and they break. I've tried, you know, battery-powered ones,

and they get wet. Heath

Okay. And it's just -- it's always a constant battle. So I was hoping that maybe you guys had some solutions for us.

Heath

Well, I think we probably have a couple of options. Looking around, it looks like you have some other lights on the house already -- the floodlight, the overhead. But I'm guessing that's probably a little too bright at night, kind of in your face, not what you're really looking for. Looking for something a little more comfortable, that you can sit around and enjoy and have a soft ambient light, something like that.

Right. Heath

So, let's take the deck furniture off, kind of get everything opened up, and take a look and we'll go over a couple of options.

Awesome. Thank you. Heath

Alright. Alright, so here's what I think we have for a solution. We have this LED tape -- it's actually waterproof -- that we can slide underneath the deck rail.

That's cool. Heath

And we have this track that goes with it, so we'll put the track underneath, glue this tape to the bottom side of the track, and that'll keep it in place. Again, waterproof. Should hold up down here pretty well and give you some nice, soft ambient light underneath this. It'll let you see at night, but it's not going to be blinding.

Pam

I love how you're going to connect it

because the winds rip out here. Heath

It does.

Pam

So that is really smart, to do that.

Heath

Yeah, it would never hold up on its own, just mounted to the underside of that rail. Pam;

Right. Heath

The other nice thing about this setup is they come in sections that are 3 feet long. In this case, you can get them larger, smaller, if you need, but this worked for our application. If one section should fail down the road, all you have to do is unscrew it, remove it, install the new one, and screw it in.

Wow. Heath

Nice and easy. What do you think?

Pam

I can't believe we haven't done this sooner.

Laughs

Heath

Alright. Let me go grab some tools and we'll get to work.

Pam

Alright, great.

Heath

Alright, so, I'm gonna start by measuring where we want to mount the lights and where they want to go. And to do that, we'll take a look at this. We know we don't want to have them too close to that front edge.

Pam

Right. You don't want to be able to see them.

Heath

We don't want to see them. So we want to go a little further back. So somewhere around there.

Pam

Oh, that would be much smarter.

Heath

Yeah, so, I'm thinking something -- Looks like about maybe an inch and a half back.

That'd be great. Heath

So we'll start by mounting the track to the front edge an inch and a half back. We'll get that into place. And then we'll start snapping the lights in.

Drill whirring

That'd be great. Heath

So, now I'm just gonna use an alcohol wipe to wipe down the plastic track to get the oil off so the tape will stick a little better. So, now that the track's in, we can go ahead and install the tape. So, what we're gonna do is just peel the starting edge

off a little bit. Pam

Alright.

Heath

Get it started. And then you see the track.

Yeah. Heath

So we're gonna want this part just to be at the edge of the outside of the track. We're gonna snap that in. Okay. And want to tuck it all the way up inside there so it sticks.

Alright, Pam, so, we're gonna go ahead and connect these now. So we're just gonna take a little blank out of the end. And then take that feed-wire portion. It just pulls straight out.

There you go.

Pam

Okay. And then...?

Heath

And then we're gonna take the feed-wire end out on the other side. Same thing. Just unthread it and give it a little tug.

Pam

Okay.

Heath

Screw those together. A little gasket inside. That makes a waterproof connection. And now pull the plug out.

Perfect. And just screw them together.

Pam

Nice and tight.

Heath

Alright. The next step now that we have the connections made for this portion is we're just gonna tuck the wires out of the way and staple them up. Now, we're kind of lucky here. We have a little gap underneath this handrail, so we can actually slide this underneath a little bit and tuck this out of the way.

Then we can staple it, and you won't see anything. If we didn't have this and we had to run this a little further, we don't want this connector sitting out here in the way where you're gonna see it, so they actually make a small jumper that we can put in between these to keep that thin wire tucked against the groove and still make the connectors go in the back.

Pam

Hmm.

Heath

So we're just gonna stuff this in just a little bit, roll that to the back, get it out of the way so we don't see it. And then just get a staple on it to hold it up. Alright. That's the last one being fastened in.

Might be wondering why we still have two hanging left.

Yeah. Heath

These are where we're gonna bring our feed wires, so we're gonna actually come from the power source, come over here, and tie this in. The reason we have two is because the length of run. We didn't want to plug all these strips in together because when we get to the tail end, we have the potential of watching it start to dim because of voltage drop. So what we're gonna do is take our feed wire and bring this to a central location.

Here we'll take the two pieces of LED tape and tie them together so the length of run is even and it's fed in the middle. And then we're gonna come down here. And normally we'd put a transformer in down by this receptacle, but you already have landscape lights and you have a landscape-light transformer.

Yeah. Heath

It's the exact same thing

that powers this. Pam

Oh, that's great.

Heath

Your transformer's more than big enough to run these already, so why not have everything come on together at once? We're simply gonna tie into this wire, and we'll be all set.

Sounds like a plan. Heath

Alright.

Drill whirring

Sounds like a plan. Heath

Alright. Now we're gonna take the wire and just feed it underneath here. Here comes the wire,

Pam. Pam

Okay! Oh, I got it.

Perfect. Pam

Got it.

Heath

You want to take enough to go up to that top rail

and a little bit extra. Pam

Okay.

Heath

So, we're gonna use this 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 tighten it down with the Allen screw. Then we're gonna 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 that makes it waterproof, and this won't be a point of failure in the system. ♪♪ We're gonna go ahead and secure these just like we secured the other connectors, and then we're gonna staple the feed wire down the side of this 4x4 post. ♪♪ ♪♪ Alright, Pam. The lights are on.

What do you think?

Pam

Wow! Wow! This is a wow! I love this!

Heath

Glad to hear it.

Pam

Thank you so much! We needed this!

Heath

You're welcome. I think they look great. They're gonna be perfect at night. A nice, comfortable light to have out here so you can see but they're not gonna blind you from, like, a floodlight or anything else.

Here's the best part. Because they're tied in with your landscape lights and you already had that transformer, there's a photocell and a timer built into that, as well. They're gonna come on at night at dusk all year round and then turn off at whatever time you set them to turn off. You don't have to think about them.

You can just enjoy them.

Pam

That's great. And the neighbors will enjoy the curb appeal as they drive by.

Heath

They look great, and I'm glad you like them.

Pam

I love it. Thank you so much for coming.

Heath

You're welcome. Thank you.

Pam

Bye-bye.

Kevin

You know what? Makes a big difference. And it's kind of an elegant solution, just hiding it under the rail like that.

Heath

Yeah, and we were lucky with that type of rail. We had that option. So we could use an LED tape up under there. We had plenty of space to run it.

But there are other options that we have available for that tape if you have that kind of rail system that we didn't use here.

Kevin

Such as...?

Heath

Such as this setup. We have a color-tape option. So, it can change colors across the color scale.

We can install a remote control. Kevin

Look at this.

Heath

You can put a Wi-Fi module in to control it with an app.

Laughs

Kevin

So that's me just scrolling around the color wheel right there picking any color I want.

Heath

And, again, it's weatherproof.

It's meant to be outside. Kevin

Yeah. So, as you say, comes with the remote control right here. And in terms of -- What does this come in? A big, long reel?

Heath

So, this particular reel is a 5-meter reel. You can get them a little bit longer, a little bit shorter. You can cut them. You can extend them.

That is one thing you want to pay attention to, though, is length of run. There are limitations depending on voltage and the type of cable it is.

Kevin

And this is obviously low-voltage.

This is. Yeah. Kevin

Okay. Now, if you don't have a railing -- I've got a patio, so I've got no railing around the perimeter. Other options?

Heath

Sure. Just on a patio, you may want to look more at landscape lighting. If you don't have a flat rail where you can mount the tape under and you have the typical posts, this is the quickest and easiest thing you see a lot of times.

Kevin

So I'm looking at a little solar panel on top here. So it's charging. Rechargeable battery there?

Heath

Little battery inside there usually runs for 8 hours,

give or take. Kevin

And it just goes -- Kick the light out.

Heath

A soft light around it at night. Not too much. Simple to replace.

Kevin

Yeah, you don't have to wire it at all, right? Just replace the other top cap, put this one on.

That's it. Kevin

Beautiful. Okay. And then something like this feels a bit more sort of landscape lighting-esque -- metal housing here.

Heath

And it is. That's exactly what it is -- a landscape light. But if you have the posts and you don't have the room for this tape, we can typically install these on the post. Even if you have the sleeve.

Kind of run the wire up behind it. Run this cable down to a landscape-lighting transformer and turn them on that way.

Kevin

This is a low-voltage, as well. Type of thing you can daisy-chain. You have two posts. One to the other?

Heath

Absolutely. Again, you want to pay attention to how many you add based on what everything's capable of doing, but, yeah.

Kevin

Beautiful. Alright. So a lot of options out there. LED has sort of changed everything in this regard.

Heath

Changed a lot, yeah.

Kevin

Including the disco colors. You can do anything you want, right? How about, uh, pink for you? You like pink?

Heath

Pink's fine, but can I go with the blue again?

Kevin

Blue. You got it. Alrighty. Thank you.

Perfect. Thanks. Kevin

Check this out. ♪♪

Kevin

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

Jenn

I'll talk a little bit about the classic screening plant, the arborvitae.

Richard

And not only is this base put in the wrong spot, but it's not enough to heat the room on a cold day. I'll fix that.

Tom

And this bench can double as a cooler, and I'll show you how to build it. And it's all insulated, from the bottom, the sides. And underneath this copper but below the panel

is insulation. Kevin

I am on board. Let's build this beautiful thing.

Tom

Alright.