Ask This Old House

Kevin

Today on "Ask This Old House"...

Roger

A chainsaw is one of the most dangerous tools you can use, but it comes with some built-in features to keep you safe.

Kevin

And maker Ben Uyeda is stopping by to show us how to make a simple but elegant piece of furniture.

Logan

I was taking a shower, and the shower valve actually came off in my hand.

It stripped off. Richard

Yeah?

Logan

Took it to the home center, I got a new one, but it's never quite worked right. It actually leaks down into the crawl space.

Richard

So it leaks inside the wall.

That's correct. Richard

Right. You know it doesn't match, right?

Logan

I'm well aware.

Richard

And if you have an old shower valve like this, they're not as hard to repair as you might think. I'm heading to Nashville to show you how.

Kevin

Hey,

guys. Richard

Hey.

Kevin

Sorry I'm late. I've been running all over the place looking for this guest that we've got coming today.

I can't find him. Roger

What'd you do, lose him?

Kevin

I didn't lose him. I don't think he's here. I think he's late. I was running up and down the barn...

Richard

Haven't seen him. We've just been getting ready for our day.

Kevin

All right. Well, I guess I got a few minutes, so why don't you tell me what's going on? Chainsaws, huh? I like that.

Roger

We're gonna talk a little bit about being safe with a chainsaw. But I got to get it ready, so I'll see you in a little while.

Kevin

Oh, you're not ready. My guest is not here. You got something for me, Richard?

Richard

I am actually off to Nashville. I'm gonna help somebody repair a shower valve in their bathroom.

Kevin

You're leaving, huh?

Richard

I'm out of here.

Kevin

You're not going to get to meet this guy.

Richard

All right. So, you know what we're doing. Who's this guy?

Kevin

Uh, well, he's a maker.

Richard

Maker?

Kevin

Maker.

Richard

What's that?

Kevin

He makes stuff. He makes videos online.

A lot of people watch it. Richard

Oh.

Kevin

We've worked with these "makers"

over the years a couple times. Richard

Yeah.

Kevin

His name is Ben Uyeda, and, uh, I thought I'd have him in here. We're gonna do a little project that sort of exemplifies his unique --

Tom

I hear you're looking for Ben?

Kevin

I am, yes. This guy,

Ben Uyeda. Tom

Yeah. Well, I've been talking to him for about an hour and a half

over there. Kevin

Were you gonna tell me?

Tom

Well, I would've told you if you were on time.

Richard

We've got to learn to communicate.

Kevin

I was not,

I was -- Tom

You're late. You're always late.

Kevin

Hey, Ben. Good to see you.

Ben

Good to see you.

Kevin

Tommy didn't give you too much of a hard time, did he?

Ben

No, no. He's fine.

Kevin

Yeah, he saved that for me. So, nice to meet you in person, 'cause I've seen the videos. There are literally hundreds of these out there now, millions of views. And that's sort of your thing now.

Ben

Yeah. I -- I would -- I feel more comfortable being described as a designer, 'cause my making skills are pretty beginner-level. But what I try to do is actually try to design not just what the thing's gonna look like, but try to design an easier way to make things. And then with my limited skills, I can sort of show people that it's not that hard.

Kevin

Right. And you come from that background.

Yeah. Kevin

Former architect.

Ben

Background's in architecture with a focus on sustainable design. But one of the things that always sort of, uh, bothered me a little bit is with that business model -- that of sort of a custom-service profession -- uh, you're sort of incentivized to work with wealthier

and wealthier clients. Kevin

Right.

Ben

And I came from a -- a pretty, uh, poor background. So I really wanted to figure out how to take my ideas and make them available to people for free.

Kevin

So that's the idea of putting them out there with the videos, something that is easily repeated by people.

Ben

Yeah. And it's probably one of the better ways

to use the Internet. Kevin

All right. So, let's talk about this now-famous bet that you and a friend made. And the idea was, if I got this right, that everything is made very inexpensively over there, and then we bring it over here. Why can't we make it here in this country at an affordable price, right?

Ben

Right. Well, the assumption is that it's expensive for -- to manufacture things in America. And that's because labor costs are generally higher than they are in a lot of other places in the world. So we actually saw that as an opportunity to actually substitute labor with your own two hands so that you're replacing one of the expensive parts. And then, the only thing we had to do was figure out how to motivate and incentivize people to use their own hands to build something. And we did that by sharing design ideas that were pretty easy to repeat.

Kevin

So you and a buddy made a bet, and -- and he basically said there's no way that you can get all of these things -- thousands or tens of thousands of things -- made here in a cost-affordable way.

Ben

Yeah. Anytime somebody thinks that something's impossible, it's normally because they have a couple of assumptions along the way. And I knew he was assuming that the only way to spread a product or a design idea is through mass production.

Right. Ben

But I knew that you -- it's easy to disseminate information on the Internet. So I just knew I was gonna just do a quick demo and let it go viral, and let people take it from there.

Kevin

All right. Well, let's see where people took it. You gonna show us this little magic trick of yours?

Ben

Yes. So, I like to use a lot of kind of unusual materials. I'll borrow a lot from sort of more industrial materials and techniques and stuff like that and sort of mix them together. And concrete is one of my favorite materials to work with -- one, because it's available everywhere in the world.

Yep. Ben

A lot of other countries, they don't have as many sort of forests and stuff as we do, so concrete becomes this readily available, affordable material. Also, concrete's really cheap. There's not a lot of things where you can get an 80-pound

bag of it for around 5 bucks. Kevin

Okay.

Ben

So we're just gonna mix some concrete in the bottom of the bucket, cut this down to three pieces, stick them right in, wait 24 hours, and pop it right out.

Kevin

Let's do it.

Ben

We're gonna start by cutting this dowel into three 16-inch-long pieces. Just gonna scoop in some concrete. And this is a 5,000 PSI mix. It's a little bit stronger than a typical concrete. And we're just going to add some water. The only way to really screw this up is by adding too much water. That sort of weakens the concrete. I'm just gonna mix this to about the consistency of oatmeal. And the key is to make sure there's no dry concrete at the bottom.

Kevin

And then, mixing it with your dowel that you just cut.

Ben

Yeah. I actually, uh, try to show things that don't require a lot of precision. And we just put in all three sticks. And I just sort of eyeball it to make sure they're all level.

Kevin

The bottom of the bucket forms the concrete, and the rest sort of forms the diameter of your legs.

Ben

Yeah. And here's what it looks like after 24 hours.

Kevin

Mm-hmm.

Ben

I'm just going to flex the bucket to create a little separation between the concrete and the bucket. And now we're ready to pull it out.

Laughing

Ta-da. Kevin

Look at this thing! You got a real seat. You got three legs, no wobble at all.

Ben

No. It's pretty easy, huh?

Kevin

And so, after you made this and posted it, did anyone make it?

Ben

Uh, we've seen about 10,000 of them made around the world. There's actually a couple in, uh, Australia, they make them. They make really cool different sort of, uh, marbleized concrete. And they actually make and sell them.

Kevin

Yeah.

Ben

I've seen people in Alaska make them with -- uh, for ice-fishing. But it's just, uh, it's just frozen water. And yeah, I think we've seen them now made on about six different continents.

Kevin

That's incredible. So you won the bet.

I won. Kevin

All right. Well, Ben,

thank you very much. Ben

My pleasure.

Kevin

We are gonna be watching to see what's next.

Ben

Great.

Kevin

So, Roger, you promised me chainsaws. Looks like you are ready.

Roger

I am. I am ready. But I wanted to talk to you about a couple things. Every year, 36,000 people are injured by a chainsaw.

Kevin

It's got to be one of the most dangerous tools.

Roger

It has to be. You're going -- Whatever you're gonna use in the garden, it'll never measure up to this. So every time I use it, I say, "This saw can hurt me."

Kevin

All right. So we're talking safety.

And we've discussed -- Roger

We got a bunch of stuff.

Kevin

Yeah, 'cause we've discussed the gear before, and I remember the lesson well.

Safety glasses... Richard

Yep.

Kevin

...in addition to a helmet with a facemask, and definitely hearing protection -- in this case, built-in. Gloves you love to see used, and then the chaps. I will never forget this lesson.

Roger

We took a pair of jeans and put it on the mannequin, took the saw, and it went right through, clean as a whistle.

Kevin

And in contrast, when we did the same thing with chaps, I mean, it literally shut the chainsaw down almost instantly. It cut through, but then it grabbed that, uh, what was it, ballistic fiber?

Roger

Ballistic fibers, and it stopped it.

Kevin

I have not used a chainsaw without chaps on

since I saw that. Roger

I'm glad to hear it.

Kevin

All right. So that's the gear. What are we talking about today?

Roger

We're gonna talk about safety features on the saws themselves. Now, it doesn't matter whether it's a gas or an electric.

They all have the same features. Kevin

All right. So, what on-board features are we looking at?

Roger

Okay. What we're gonna look at right here is called a chain brake. It follows Newton's third law of physics, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Kevin

Yep.

Roger

If you hit the tip of a saw, it's gonna kick back like that.

Kevin

Huh.

Roger

And we want to stop that from hitting anyone.

Kevin

So, that's interesting. So when it's forward like this, that's in operation mode.

Roger

Yeah.

Kevin

And you're saying that the kickback puts it into this brake mode?

Roger

Right. So you've protected your arm and your forearm from getting cut.

Kevin

Well, what's actually going on when it goes into brake mode?

Roger

Take a look right here. You'll see. This turns the chains. This is the main sprocket that goes to the engine.

Kevin

Okay.

Roger

So on top of it, we put this. And it actually slides on. And when you go to lock the handle, it tightens right around this and stops it.

Kevin

So this right here moves, which moves that, tightening this, which will just stop that right down.

Roger

Exactly.

Kevin

So that is the built-in brake feature.

Roger

You got it now?

All right. Roger

Yep. Now, the other thing we want to look at is down here. This is called a chain catch.

Kevin

Huh.

Roger

If for some reason this chain was going around and derailed, it could come flying back.

Kevin

So this is designed to grab it before it comes back at you?

Roger

Very simply, it gets wrapped on that and doesn't get back to you at all.

Kevin

I like to know that's there.

Roger

And then here, we have locking triggers. This is great because you can take and lock it down, leave it, or take it and move it, and then activate it again so you can use the saw.

Kevin

So it requires two steps actually, right? If you just try to push the trigger,

that's not gonna work. Roger

Yep.

Kevin

You press one, then push...

two. Roger

Yep.

Kevin

And that's great 'cause if you're carrying the saw, you don't want to actually trigger it.

Roger

There's no way it can -- it can activate.

Kevin

Right. You got to be in position, one, two. And that is good to know, that these features are built into the saws.

Roger

Yeah. One more thing I like people to know -- if you're not comfortable using a saw, hire a pro.

Kevin

If you're not comfortable, don't use it.

There you go. Kevin

Thank you.

Kristi

Hey, Richard. Welcome to Nashville.

Richard

Nice to be back in this great city. I love the city, and I love this house.

It's beautiful. Kristi

Thank you.

Richard

How long have you guys been here?

Logan

I've been here about five years, and we got married about a year and a half ago.

Richard

Congratulations. That's great. I like the feel of the place. It's terrific.

Kristi

Thanks, thanks. It did not always look this good, though.

Richard

What do you mean?

Kristi

Well, when I moved in, it was a bit of a bachelor pad.

Richard

Early man cave?

Kristi

Yes, yes. We're slowly transforming it.

Richard

The effect of Kristi is good. And it looks great here, too. Nice little dining area, and a beautiful kitchen. This doesn't look original.

Kristi

No, it's not. We actually renovated it last year.

Beautiful. Logan

Yeah. I'm an architect by trade, so as soon as we moved in here, I wanted -- I had plans to completely redo everything.

Richard

Right.

Kristi

We actually renovated our master bedroom, master bath, and master closet last year, too.

Richard

You guys have been busy.

Logan

We have. But there's one room we haven't quite gotten to yet.

Richard

All right. Lead on.

Logan

So, Richard, this is our very original 1960s bathroom.

Richard

I've seen a few million of these in my life.

Logan

Yeah. We don't use it very often. But I was taking a shower, and the shower valve actually came off in my hand.

It stripped off. Richard

Yeah?

Logan

Uh, the -- I took it to the home center, I got a new one, but it's never quite worked right. It actually leaks down into the crawl space.

Richard

So it leaks inside the wall.

That's correct. Richard

Right. You know it doesn't match, right?

I'm well aware. Richard

All right. So, what you've got here is original equipment to this house. This is called a three-valve. If you could see behind the wall, there would be a hot-water line that comes up here and a cold-water line that comes up here. Now, there's a stem unit. There's a hot and a cold. And when you turn it, it lets water come into the valve body that's behind the wall. And now it comes to this point called a diverter. And then the water will either come down through the spout or, if you close the diverter, it'll stop it and force the water up to the showerhead. Now, with many of these brands, you can still get the factory replacement parts, not the wrong ones like you got. All right. What we're gonna do is to actually -- You know where the water shutoff is, right?

I do. Richard

Okay. I want you to turn that off, and I'll go get some tools and we'll do a little bit of exploration.

Logan

Sounds good. All right, Richard. Water's off.

Richard

All right, good. So, I've put a drop cloth in here. I want to protect the tub, but I also want to make sure none of these small screws fall down that drain. All right. So now let's just be sure that that water is indeed off. It is, great. Okay. So, our excavation begins by taking the handles off. Many times on these, uh, handles, there's a little thing called an index that says either hot, cold, or an arrow. But this doesn't. It has these exposed screws. So let's start with your wrong one. Okay. All right. So, these are called the escutcheons. These are the correct ones right here. And these are put on clockwise. And so to get them off, you just go counter-clockwise. And sometimes it's hard to do. It looks like -- see this? Looks like somebody used a big pair of pliers and scored that up. Was that you? Did you do that last time?

Logan

It wasn't me, I promise.

Richard

Okay, there's one. That one's nice and loose. This is not right. Look at this. This escutcheon should come off separately from the stem, and this whole thing is turning. That might be part of your problem, why you were leaking down inside the wall. Okay. That should've looked like this. Okay, so now let's do the last one. And this one's definitely too loose, too. It doesn't have a gasket there. Okay. So, there's one more to get out. Now, in this case, you could get pliers on it and get right onto that gland. But in many cases, this valve body is way back inside the tile. So they make special tools for this. This is called tub sockets, all the different sizes you might find. Let's try this one. Okay. There you go.

Logan

Great.

Richard

All right. Okay, so here's our cold stem. All right. So, all the parts are out of our valve body. Let's see what we got. Oh, good. So, Logan, here is your shower valves. All right. So, here's the three valves. Here's the new stem you got. Here's the -- the hot, the cold, and here's that diverter.

Uh-huh. Richard

As I mentioned, the hot and cold come this way to the diverter, down to the spout. Now, these stems, they all look very similar. But they all have one basic function. This is a cutaway of what it looks like --

You like cutaways. Richard

I do. I like cutaways. So,

I'm gonna give you this. Logan

Okay.

Richard

So, behind the valve body is full city water pressure. This is called the seat. And this stem unit's only job is to make sure this washer holds tight against that seat so in normal mode, it's closed off and no water goes anywhere. Let me just turn this over, and you can see right here that here's the thread. So whenever -- when you turn the handle, it lifts it off of the seat. When you close it, it goes onto the seat. And that's really the only action we need from this stem unit. So, it's an important thing to make sure that the water only goes out through the spout or showerhead. So you can see there's a gland right here, and there's a bonnet right here. Well, between those two parts, you see this right here?

Logan

Oh,

yeah. Richard

There's a little gasket called a bonnet gasket, right here in our bonnet packing. And we have to tighten this enough to compress this so that as we move this, water doesn't leak up here, it only goes this way. All right? So that's the basic function. Now, there are hundreds and hundreds of different

stem units on the market. Logan

Okay.

Richard

Now, I'm gonna move this diverter out of the way. And look at the comparison right here. This is your original, and this is the new one. Do you see differences?

Logan

Well, it looks like the threads are a little different

here and here. Richard

Excellent. They're longer here and shorter here.

Logan

And it looks like maybe the washer may be a different size.

Richard

Way bigger here and way smaller here. But it's also a different length. And look at this. The splines are different.

Logan

Oh, yeah.

Richard

Now, there are 20 different splines, at least. So you can't just take one handle off of one manufacturer and move it onto another one, okay?

Logan

Huh.

Richard

So, we can find the right parts, the original parts, I'm sure, for this valve body. But I don't think that's what's causing the leak that you talked

about down in the crawl space. Logan

Really?

Richard

I think that had to do with the diverter.

Logan

Oh.

Richard

Now, the diverter's role is to sit in the middle and when the water comes from the hot or the cold side, it lets the water, in normal operation, fall down into the tub spout.

Logan

Okay.

Richard

But when you turn it this way and close off one port, all of a sudden, the water can't go down the spout. It has to go up to the showerhead, okay?

Yeah. Richard

But wh-- If you remember, when I backed off that escutcheon, remember it was so loose, and it didn't even have a gasket here. I think what was happening is every time you open hot or cold, the water came this way. Instead of falling through the tub spout, it actually fell right inside the wall and down into the crawl space, all right?

Logan

Okay.

Richard

So I'm gonna take these original parts and pieces. And since we have it this far back, let's replace seats, stems, escutcheons, handles, and put you back in business.

Logan

Sounds great.

Richard

All right. All right. So, the good news is I found the parts we needed. There was this little specialty plumbing wholesaler that's just repair parts, perfect. So let's get started. So, we're gonna replace the seats. Now, they come, uh, brand-new right here, and you can see there's a -- a square inside. There's special wrenches made for all the different varieties of seats.

Logan

Okay.

Richard

So let's just be sure I get this in here correctly.

Logan

Okay.

Richard

Just give it a little tap... just to seat it. And then, I have a special ratchet. All right. So, let's put the new ones in. All right. So, let's put our new stems in. There's our diverter. Snug them up with the tub socket.

Logan

Okay.

Richard

Tight, but not too tight. Okay. So now these glands are tightened up, but remember that bonnet packet I was talking about?

Yeah. Richard

Now look at this. See how loose this is?

Logan

Yeah.

Richard

I don't want water leaking out right there.

Logan

Okay.

Richard

So I'll an adjustable open end and snug up that bonnet. Much better. So, we have our parts and pieces in place. The next piece is the trim. Now, there's a threaded adapter, so that'll go inside that bonnet. And that can thread in a fair amount. And the escutcheon also has a thread on the inside of it, so that I can adjust this escutcheon right back against the tile. If it doesn't, I can cut it shorter. So there's where our adjustability is to make sure it's tight against the tile. All right. Time for our handles next. These are X-arm handles, so we're gonna set them so you can read what label it is, hot and cold. And while I do this, why don't you run down and turn on that main water supply?

Logan

Will do.

Richard

All right. With that, all the handles match. Looks like it did back in 1960.

Logan

Looks perfect, Richard.

Richard

I don't have to come back for another 50 years, at least.

Logan

Well, I hope we see you in Nashville again before then.

Richard

All right, my friend. Thanks.

Kevin

You've got to give the homeowner an "A" for effort. He did a lot of work on that house. Although, he did get tripped up by just the smallest little part.

Richard

That's right. So, the biggest part of this job is to find the right replacement parts.

Kevin

Sure.

Richard

So sometimes, you get really lucky. You look, and then right on the handles might be the name of the manufacturer. And if you know that, you go out to the home center and, again if you're lucky, you might see a kit like this. And this has got everything in it. So in this kit, has got everything you see right here. It's got the three replacement handles, the escutcheons, the stems, the diverter. You got even the wrench to pull these --

the stems out of the wall... Kevin

Wow.

Richard

...and the seats. Now, also in the kit is one part that's really important. I didn't show you this in the piece. This little cap thread gasket goes right here, so when you make it into the wall, it makes a tight, watertight seal so it doesn't drip inside the wall.

Kevin

Beautiful. So you get the parts and the tool.

That's right. Kevin

Now, if you pull this out and you don't find the manufacturer's name, what are you doing then?

Richard

Well, then you go out to the home center, and there's a magic book. It's the greatest, 200 pages. And you take this and you -- you start with the length, and that tells you where to go. And then you match it up. And you match the thread right here and the length and the spline, and it'll say this is the part you need, this is the manufacturer. And again, if you're lucky, that part is in a bubble pack right there on the wall. If not, you have to go to a specialty plumbing, uh, wholesaler that has, uh, repair parts. And there's always, in every market, there's at least one. You can find it.

Kevin

And there's some guy back there who knows all of this.

Richard

He looks at it and goes, "Oh, I know exactly where that is."

Kevin

That's what you want.

Richard

So in this case, we were okay to repair this. But I just want to make one call-out, that this type of valve is not in favor anymore. You know, it's a three-valve, so you can mix a little hot and a little cold. It comes out through the showerhead. And then if somebody flushes a toilet...

Hmm. Richard

...there's a drop in pressure, and you get completely scalded.

Kevin

Once the pressure of the cold goes down, you get too much hot coming through.

Richard

Right. That's right. So if they had kids, or if we were doing a new bathroom -- 'cause in most jurisdictions, you have to have a pressure-balance shower valve. Now, if we're gonna replace just the valve, I want to show you, you could open up the tile wall and pull out that three-valve and pipe in this mixing valve inside the wall. But what are you gonna do? You're gonna have three holes, right, where the tile is. So you chip away the tile. And look at this plate. It's so cool. This plate would cover over where those three holes were -- one, two, three.

Right. Richard

It'll hold it.

Kevin

This one goes in the middle.

Richard

Right, there you go. And then that trims over the top, and that's that. So it's the perfect, uh, upgrade for a bathroom to make it safe if you have kids.

Kevin

Right. In this case, that was not necessary. Simple repair,

no kids. Richard

That's right.

Kevin

Okay. All right. Well, that's why they're writing us -- 'cause they get good information like that.

Hope so. Kevin

So, thank you. So until next time, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

I'm Richard Trethewey. Kevin

For "Ask This Old House." So it all came down to one little part.

Richard

Just stop. Give me that. You're gonna lose it.

Kevin

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

Richard

Most water heaters have a 5- to 10-year warranty. But now, there are some with a warranty for life. I'll explain.

Tom

And there's more than one way to build a box, and we'll show you how to build it. The trick to this is making the jig.

Scott

And if you're re-pointing brick, you're gonna want the new mortar to match the old mortar. And I'll give you tips on how to do it.