Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Greg

There's one project in particular that I wrote in about -- a gutter problem here.

Tom

Oh, yeah. You definitely have a gutter problem. You have an outlet for a downspout. Oh, then again, no downspout. Think you've seen everything in gutters? Well, think again.

Jenn

I'm taking my cues from the desert as I design a new front yard in Phoenix. So, your yard is very flat, and what we want to do is mimic the foothills of the mountains nearby, so we're gonna create these mounds just to add some undulation to your landscape.

Ross

And, after living with technology from Future House for a year, I'll show you what we learned.

Richard

This is a typical spike right here just for the coffeemaker.

Kevin

Hi, there. I'm Kevin O'Connor, And welcome back to "Ask This Old House," where we love getting your questions about your houses, so make sure you keep your letters and your e-mails coming. The guys are standing by. Hey,

Roger. Roger

Hey, Kev. You seen Jenn?

Kevin

Yeah, yeah. She's doing a story on actually landscaping in a desert, so she's actually going to the desert. She's on a flight right now to Arizona.

Roger

Really?

Kevin

Oh, yeah.

Roger

I wanted to warn her about the jumping cactus.

Kevin

About the what?

Roger

Jumping cactus.

Kevin

Come on. The what?

Roger

It's a form of cactus that is attracted to water, which, who has a lot of water in their bodies?

We do. Roger

Okay. Has little tendrils on it that pierce the skin and go into your skin and lock in place.

Kevin

Are you telling me this thing, like, when you're walking by, just reaches out and grabs you?

Roger

It can move and grab you.

Kevin

What do you do then?

Roger

Well, you got to get it off you, and you don't want to take it off with your hands because, if you go to put it like this, it's gonna spread.

Kevin

And then you're gonna be attached to your hands, which is gonna be attached to your thigh.

Well... Roger

So...

Kevin

...Jenn, she's going. What?

Roger

There you go.

No way. Use this. Roger

Yep. As soon as you see it, grab it and pull it off.

Kevin

Whew. All right. Well, you know what? She's a professional, so I'm gonna guess that Jenn already knows about this. So she should be all right. She's never gonna get this through TSA, though.

Laughs

Roger

Tom

Hey,

Greg. Greg

Hey, Tommy. How you doing?

Tom

Nice to see you. How are you?

Greg

You too.

Thanks for coming. Tom

I like your house.

Thank you. Tom

Small house, but very nice.

Greg

Yeah. Yeah. So, my wife and I have been here about a year now. We've been trying to knock off a few little projects and everything, but there's one project in particular that I wrote in about -- our gutter problem here.

Tom

Oh, yeah. You definitely have a gutter problem. There's no end caps here. Bracket's falling off. The spikes are coming out. This joint definitely looks like it will leak.

Laughs

Tom

Oh, and there's no brackets on that gutter. Well, you have an outlet for a downspout. Oh, then again, no downspout.

Greg

Yeah. So, this is a project that I really wanted to tackle myself, the downspout being one of the biggest problems, though. The water coming down, pooling here. I'm concerned about it getting in the basement. So I said, "Why don't we switch it, put the downspout in the driveway?" But then, you know, the winter, the ice...

Tom

Yeah. You don't want that either.

Greg

So I'm really hoping you might have some alternative

for me. Tom

Well, you know, a lot of people want to take the gutters off. They don't want to deal with them. They think they're a problem. They got to clean them and everything else. But they're important to protect the house. Water coming off the roof gets into the gutter, and then it's dispersed away from the building, like downspout. If you take that gutter off, the water coming off the roof hits the ground, splashes back, hits the siding. It could rot the siding and even your sill. But in this situation, you know what? I have an idea that we can put something up here that will take the water off the roof, hit that, and then disperse it so you're not getting splash back onto it.

All right. Tom

All right? Want me to get some tools?

Greg

Let's do it.

Tom

And we can get started. All right, Greg. You ever see anything like this before?

Never. Tom

Well, I'm gonna call this

a gutterless gutter. Greg

A gutterless gutter?

All right. Tom

All right? It's actually a louver, and you can see it right here, and it will mount to the fascia board on these brackets right here. Now, as the water runs off the roof like a waterfall, it'll splash onto the louver. Because of the angle of the louver, it takes that water that's coming down and turns it into raindrops and pushes it away from the building.

Okay. Tom

Okay? So, first thing we need to do is remove your old gutter and mount the brackets.

Let's do it. Tom

Okay. Got these spikes. These are called spikes and ferrules, which is just a long spike that goes through a tube. We're gonna try to work those out. Actually used drywall screws, and that's a no-no. You shouldn't be using that. Okay. Before we install the louvers, I want to correct a problem that I see done wrong a lot. See this piece of metal right here? This is called a drip edge, and it's designed to break the surface tension from the water that falls off the roof.

Greg

So, what exactly is surface tension?

Tom

Well, it's like adhesion, so a lot of people think that, when the water comes off the roof, it'll fall straight down. Well, a lot of it does, but some of it actually sticks to the shingle, and it will run up and hit the drip edge and then run down. If there's nothing to stop it, it will continue to stick to the fascia board, run under, run down on the fascia board here, rotting the siding and the fascia board. So what I want to do is create a gap or a space right here at the lower edge of the drip edge so if the water comes down and around, it will fall down straight. So all I need to do is bend this out about 1/4 to 1/2 inch all the way down the roof. Could of last things I want to do -- There's no finished trim piece here, so I want to fill that gap right there with some caulking. And I also want to just touch up these holes where the spikes and ferrules were, hopefully stopping some water from getting behind. All right. We're gonna start mounting the brackets to the fascia board. We're gonna come in 10 inches from the end, 30 inches to the center, and another 20 inches for the other end. Now, the manufacturer wants the bracket mounted to the fascia board as far down as you can get it. They want a minimum of 4 inches from here, the top of the louver, to the bottom of the edge of the roof. They also want it to be 1 1/2 to 2 inches from the fascia board to the leading edge of the roof so when the water falls off, it'll splash onto the louver. Okay? Ready to screw that into place.

Drill whirring

Tom

Okay. Now we'll see if we can get the louver in. And then we just push this back in, clip it. Okay. That in. And then... that one.

Greg

That's it?

Tom

That's it. Three more to go, and we're done.

Drill whirring

Tom

Good. Push hard. All right. Greg, everything's in, and it feels like we're gonna get some rain, but I don't want to wait for the rain, so let's try it out. Now we'll spray some water up on the roof, but this could be like a heavy rain, so my guess is that it's gonna run over and past it. It's when it slows down. We'll see what happens when it hits the louver. See? It's stopping, hitting the louver, and it's pushing it right out. That's pretty cool.

Greg

That's great.

Working good. Greg

Listen. Thank you so much for your help.

I really appreciate it. Tom

My pleasure.

Kevin

Boy, I don't know, Tommy. I mean, I love the fact that it kicks the water away from the side wall, but all these years, we talk about catching the water and moving it away from the house, and it's all just dropping right next to that garage.

Tom

Well, it was a pretty tight spot, and it had good drainage down there, and you're right -- Water should be kept away from the foundation. So when the water drops down, you can always put a French drain aboveground in there and a pipe to get the water away.

Kevin

So, on a big house, we would probably have a drainage system down on the ground?

I would say so. Yes. Kevin

Okay.

Tom

All right? So, the key is that the manufacturer wants to make sure that the water comes off the roof and hits the center of the louver or as close to the louver as possible.

Kevin

So they're worried about the distance between the edge of the roof and the edge of this fascia right here?

Tom

Exactly right, and that distance has to be no more than 2 and no less than 1 1/2 inch.

Kevin

Right.

Tom

So if your roof is closer to the fascia board, they make an extender right here that you could screw on the fascia board, and that will kick the edge out so that, when the water falls, it falls down and then to the center louver.

Kevin

They're also particular about dimension from here down to the top of this louver, right? It's got to be down a certain height. What if you don't have enough fascia to affix it to?

Tom

Well, if you have a narrow fascia board, they make a bracket right here that can be screwed to the bottom of the fascia board, and you can adjust it down as needed. Again, they want it further down. The better it is, it comes off the roof, the water splashes in there, and then disperses.

Kevin

I know you're always trying to protect against the effects of surface tension, and the drip edge, I mean, you hate the fact that it's touching the fascia. That's just a pet peeve of yours.

Tom

Because the water is the enemy. It'll come down off the roof. It'll stick to the fascia board as it falls if there's not a space here. I usually like that gap to be at least the thickness of my fingers so when the water comes down, it won't stick to the fascia board, rotting it.

Kevin

And your fingers are pretty thick.

Yeah. Kevin

So, you built this one, and so this is the distance that you like to see. And, here, you've got it not just on the fascia, but you've got it going up the rake, as well.

Tom

Wherever there's a transition from the surface, it should always be a space -- like a windowsill, for example. An angled windowsill, the rain comes down on the windowsill, hits the -- comes off, hits the leading edge,

and it wants to go back up. Kevin

Right.

Tom

If you look under that windowsill,

there's usually a dado. Kevin

Yeah.

Tom

And that dado is a groove that, when the water comes down, it hits that groove. It drops it away. It drops away.

Kevin

Well, all right. Good information as always.

Thank you. Tom

Yep.

Kevin

Hey,

Ross. Ross

Hey, Kevin.

Kevin

Playing with your energy monitor there?

Ross

Yeah. We looked at this technology last year on Future House. It's an energy monitor that connects to the two hot leads on your home's electrical panel and then transmits data about your power consumption via Wi-Fi. It's giving you a snapshot of what the house is using for electricity. It's also giving you device by device. It's actually learning the signatures of the house. And my brother and I bought one for our Father's Day.

Kevin

Oh, lucky him, huh?

Richard

So finally a Father's Day gift that wasn't a hand tool or a tie.

Kevin

I got my dad a nice bottle of scotch.

Ross

You don't like the ties?

Kevin

But this is what happens when you come from a family of plumbers.

Richard

So, I have a house that was built to all the energy standards, the highest energy standards in 2004. We put this thing in. I turn on the switch on the recess cans over the kitchen island, and we watch this thing spike by like 900 watts.

Kevin

Wow.

Richard

So, these were recessed halogen lights. I thought they were efficient. They aren't. So now what that does is, it, all of a sudden, made me start thinking about, "Boy, I'm gonna leave those lights off and..."

Kevin

Maybe screw in some L.E.D.s, 'cause now those are efficient. You can use those.

Ross

And one of the other things was with the coffeemaker. You know, you think -- You know, it's a pod style. You think it's actually gonna be, you know, only on when you're using it, but in this case, it's actually cycling.

We could see it on and off... Kevin

Wait a second.

Ross

...where you could see a spike on, a spike off.

Kevin

You put the pod in. You press brew, and it comes on.

Richard

Right, but it's got a little heating element that keeps that little reservoir... There's an electric element that keeps it on and off all day long, so when I leave, I make sure I turn that blue button off so I'm not doing it. This is a typical spike right here just for the coffeemaker.

Kevin

So, I mean, this is the idea, right? Without the information, you can't fix the problem

or change the behavior. Richard

Right.

Kevin

So, now this is starting to change your behavior. I remember, though, the thing that got you excited was the ability to sort of foreshadow problems, right? You guys were seeing... Was it a furnace that was cycling on and off? And you were afraid it was gonna break down?

Ross

So, we saw a furnace that took three ignition cycles to start when it should only take one. And so that can be indicative of a problem. You know, what was cool about this was the refrigerator, right? We saw the refrigerator was on all the time. It was drawing 1,300 watts when it was cycling.

Kevin

Going to the fridge?

Richard

No. The compressor just would not shut off. Well, we found out, that the filter on the front that pulls all the air in was completely clogged. If no air goes in, it's not gonna take the heat away from the refrigerator, and the compressor will just stay on, on, on and won't cool the box.

Kevin

So, now you've got the information. You saw the problem. Do you foresee a day when nerds like you don't have to buy it and install it?

Richard

Nerds?

Kevin

No. I mean, I say it in a loving way, but where it actually just is built into the technology?

Ross

Yeah. I see a day in the future where that type of device will be installed standard in any electrical panel. And what's great about that is that it's gonna send you a text message or an e-mail, saying, "Your refrigerator is using 35% more electricity this month than it did last month." Right? Something might be up.

Richard

If, and when, that happens, it's standard, then, and only then, will we actually change behaviors and reduce electricity consumption.

Kevin

Which would be a good day... although you'd be left with one problem, and that's, what do you do for Father's Day?

Back to the ties. Richard

I'll take the scotch.

Kevin

Scotch would be nice.

Jenn

My favorite landscape designs are those that mimic nature. To get inspired, sometimes you just got to get out there and take a hike. South Mountain Park is a 16,000-acre natural preserve just south of downtown Phoenix, and I've come here to check out the natural, undisturbed desert. That is so cool. Nothing's really clumped together. There's no patterns. It's almost like a mulch, but it's all just tiny pieces that have just broken up over time. So many people think the desert's just flat. This is a very hilly terrain. The challenge for any designer is that you cannot replicate nature exactly in a suburban lot. What I like to do is take cues from the natural world and try to integrate them into my designs. Here in Phoenix, I'm working with Rod Pappas, who's a local landscape contractor, to do just that. So, Rod, we have a blank canvas here. Is this typical of the landscape in Phoenix?

Rod

Yes, it is. It's very typical of somebody's front yard who may have had turf at one time, covered it up with some sort of weed barrier, put granite down, and called it a day.

Jenn

Right. Well, the only thing I see here is this honeysuckle.

Rod

It's blocking the window. It's causing some security issues. We're gonna do away with it.

Jenn

All right. We could do that.

Hi. Jenn

Hi, Shoshana.

Morning. Jenn

Nice to see you.

Good morning. Hi. Rod

Hello.

Jenn

So, when you... So, when we all spoke on the phone, we talked about wheelchair access for your mother, right?

Shoshana

Right, 'cause my biggest concern is always to get my mother out and get her to the street.

Rod

Right, right. Once we learned about that, we decided that it'd be best if we built a natural-looking walkway out of pavers, so we're gonna come off of this sidewalk here, come out here a ways, and, about middle of the yard, start curving in and then back out again, and eventually meet up with the sidewalk here. It's gonna be easy now for them to roll either a gurney or a wheelchair or whatever they want back and forth. It will be plenty wide for accessibility.

Jenn

Which is very, very important.

Shoshana

Yeah.

Jenn

So, another thing in the plan -- We are gonna use native plants, try to take cues from nature what's gonna grow successfully here. And another thing we're going to incorporate are boulders, which are indigenous to this area. So -- But we first have to get started and take that honeysuckle out.

Rod

Okay. I'm going to scrape some of this rock off, and you guys can dig the dirt underneath, okay, once we get some of this granite scraped away.

All right. Jenn

Yes!

Rod

Okay. We've got a rough outline started here for our walkway. It's gonna be about 3 feet wide, so we're gonna dig down about 3 or 4 inches, clear off that granite all the way, and put it to the side for future use.

Jenn

So, your yard is very flat, and what we want to do is mimic the foothills of the mountains nearby, so we're gonna create these mounds that are about 4 feet wide by about 8 feet long, 6 or 8 inches high, just to add some undulation to your landscape.

Rod

Before we place the boulders, we're gonna dig out an indentation about the size of the boulder, go down about 3 or 4 inches so it looks like the boulder's been sitting there for about 1,000 years.

Jenn

I'm gonna dump it. Ready?

Rod

Yeah.

Jenn

Okay. So, now we have three mounds throughout the property, and boulders have been placed. We've also staged all the plants, and we'd like to stage the plants so you have the ability to adjust them or move them around or tweak them... unless you absolutely love it. What do you think?

Shoshana

I'm in love with it.

Jenn

Yes!

Rod

It's amazing how much color you can get from desert plants out here. Like, this red yucca right here -- This is gonna bloom like eight months out of the year, you'll have multiple stalks out of here, and it goes with your mailbox.

Jenn

Love that touch. That's awesome. Over here, we have some lantana on the ground. It's a perennial, and it's gonna cover this ground with this beautiful yellow flower for most of the year.

Shoshana

Oh, it's wonderful.

Jenn

Yeah. One plant goes a long, long way.

Rod

Hey, guys, look over here. A bougainvillea. Have you ever seen one of these before?

Jenn

Well, I grew up in Florida, so I see them all the time crawling over walls.

Rod

Uh-huh. Well, this one's not gonna do that 'cause it stays close to the ground. It's a compact variety, only gets about 2 or 3 feet tall, and that's as big as it gets.

Jenn

So just like a mound on the ground?

Rod

Just like a ground-cover mound, yeah.

Jenn

And that color is amazing.

Shoshana

Oh,

that's neat. Rod

Yeah, it is. And this is our anchor tree of the whole design, the Chilean mesquite. This is gonna be the biggest plant eventually on this property. It's thornless, as you can see, has a very airy, delicate-type leaf to it, and you've got a few of them in the neighborhood, don't you?

Shoshana

Actually, these are one of my favorite trees because, as the years go on, the bark actually starts to turn.

Rod

Got some barrel cactus over here. These are called golden barrels. They do very well with little water. The color in these is the thorns and the crown. You very rarely see any blossoms on these. But be careful handling those. They will bite.

Jenn

I'm gonna let you plant these.

Okay. Jenn

Okay?

Rod

Couple more lantana. Then we have some agave agustinas. And they will actually multiply and shoot out additional pups, what we call them, from the sides.

Mm-hmm. Rod

After about 7, 8 years, they'll send up a stalk that blooms a nice bright yellow.

Jenn

Yeah.

Rod

And that's the end of their lifetime. So...

Jenn

And then the plant will die?

Rod

That's right. The plant will die, but it leaves behind a family of young ones that will continue to grow.

Jenn

All right. Well, let's get these in the ground.

Rod

We're cutting away the plastic on the outside here because we want to still keep the rest of it intact to serve as a weed barrier. When we're digging this hole for the plant here, we want to keep the hole about twice as big as the original container. The key to planting a cactus is to protect your hands from all those thorns, and I have a piece of cardboard that I'm gonna wrap around it while I try and work it free of the container.

Jenn

Nice. Looks pretty good, yeah?

Rod

Yep, pretty good. So, we're ready to start with the walkway, and what we did first to prepare for it was to excavate down about 4 inches. We backfilled it with a 1/4 minus granite, which is 1/4 inch smaller. We leveled it, and then we went over it with a plate compactor.

Jenn

All right. So, here are our pavers. These are all modular, but we picked the color to have earth tones in it.

Shoshana

I like the color, but are we gonna have any concern with my mom in the wheelchair getting through?

Rod

No. They're gonna fit together really close. There's not gonna be any mortar joints, so we're talking about maybe 1/16 of an inch

in between those joints. Jenn

They're gonna be tight.

Shoshana

Real tight?

Okay. Jenn

Yeah. So there's not gonna be any divots

that you're gonna fall into. Shoshana

Okay. This is going pretty fast.

Jenn

Well, these are modular bricks, and as long as you have the proper base that we put down, it's gonna fly.

Shoshana

Oh, I love these colors.

Jenn

I know. You really can tell the color scheme when it's all laid out. That's why, if you're ever getting samples for a job, get at least five so you could really get a sense of what the true palette is.

Rod

Okay. Jenn, we're gonna use this piece of pipe, measuring the distance from that border there to the edge of this pipe.

All right. Rod

And after we get that, I'm gonna put this brick on there to hold it in place. And now we're ready to move on to the next spot. Okay. We're gonna trace this line of PVC with a pencil on top of the brick and then come back with a wet saw and cut it after we remove the pipe. Okay, Shoshana, the landscaping's all in. We watered it in really good with a hose, soaked it down. You'll probably need to give it some supplemental water for the first six months. After that, you can pretty much back off and let nature run its course with it.

Shoshana

All right. I can do that.

Jenn

And I just want to say, Rod, I love this landscape. We have this walkway. It's a concrete paver, not a natural material, but the color blends so perfectly with all the stone that we put in and then the boulders and the mounds. This site this morning was flat, and now just having that undulation in the landscape and then accenting it with all the different plants and textures and colors that are gonna come out, it really, really works well.

Shoshana

This entire experience has been amazing. The yard looks incredible. Thank you both for all your help.

Jenn

Thanks for having us in Phoenix.

Rod

You're welcome.

Kevin

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

Mauro

Paint is much easier to put on than take it off. I'm heading to Sacramento to show you how to do it safely and correctly.

Woman

Wow. That looks great.

Jenn

And I'll show you the right way to hook up your...

Richard

No, no, no, no, no. I'll do this tease. I'll show the right way to connect water to a refrigerator with an ice maker.

Laughs

Richard