This Old House

Kevin: The year was 1893.

A Scottish immigrant in the textile trade settled in Westford, Massachusetts, and built a family home.

And starting today, it's gonna be restored to its original glory.

We're back home for the final project of season 46 of "This Old House."

Man: Ahh.

That's it.

Kevin: Are you guys gonna miss Jersey as much as I am?

Be honest.

Tom: I'm not gonna miss the ride.

Kevin: Well, thanks for driving, Jenn.

Jenn: Any time, guys.

Kevin: Appreciate that.

Jenn: Finally here.

Tom: It's good to be back.

Kevin: That was a long one, right?

Jenn: That was a long one.

We're here, though.

Kevin: We are.

Richard: Check this place out.

Kevin: Hey, there.

I'm Kevin O'Connor.

And welcome back to a brand-new project for "This Old House."

Today we are in Westford, Massachusetts, a town that's about 35 miles northwest of Boston and fewer than 10 miles south of the New Hampshire border.

It's a town that's known for its rolling hills, apple orchards, and even a small ski area.

There's about 25,000 people in town, and I would venture to say that most of them are familiar with that yellow house.

It sits right in the center of town.

It was built in the late 1800s as a Colonial Revival, and a few years back, it suffered a three-alarm fire.

Well, a new family has purchased it, and their intention is to renovate and revitalize this historic gem.

Hey there, Charlie.

Charlie: Kevin.

Kevin: How are you?

Charlie: Good.

Uh, where you been?

Kevin: Oh, really?

You're gonna give me grief?

Charlie: You ride up and down the East Coast?

Kevin: Well, we just drove up from New Jersey via Nashville.

So on the road quite a bit, but I'm glad to be here.

Charlie: Well, I'm glad you're here.

So let me introduce you.

Charles, Dianne, Emily, and her boyfriend, Ethan.

Kevin: The homeowners.

Very nice.

Nice to meet you all.

I'm very taken with the house.

This portico was quite a statement.

Dianne: We love it.

Kevin: Terrific.

Dian: We're gonna keep it.

Kevin: Are you?

Dianne: Oh, yeah.

Kevin: Why did you buy it?

It's 130 years old, and it had a fire.

What was that all about?

Dianne: Um, crazy passion.

I've always known the house, and so always driving by it.

And when I realized what happened, I was like, hmm.

Something went off.

It might fit the bill for our family.

Kevin: So you saw an opportunity and you were smitten.

Dianne: Oh, yeah.

For sure.

Kevin: Okay.

So I'm looking at four of you, two generations.

Emily, who's gonna live here?

What's the story?

Emily: So the plan is that Ethan and I will live here.

Um, there's a barn in back that actually will be an in-law for my parents.

Kevin: You get the barn.

Charles: I get the barn, yeah.

Dianne: Yeah.

Kevin: That's how it goes.

Well, that's pretty cool.

Emily: Yeah.

We wanted a house with history, a house with a story.

And this was really something special to us.

Kevin: Are you handy?

Are you gonna throw in?

Charles: I am very handy.

I'm looking forward to working with Charlie.

Charlie: I just found that out.

Kevin: And he's thrilled.

Charlie: I'm thrilled.

Kevin: He's thrilled.

Well, as I said, I'm taken by the outside.

I'd love to see the inside.

Who wants to give me the tour?

Dianne: Hey, Emily, let's go.

Emily: Let's go.

Dianne: Let's go show them the first floor.

Charlie: Well, I'm gonna grab Ethan and Charles and show them out back about the siding I found.

Kevin: I'll catch up with you guys later.

So you saw it and you couldn't say no, huh?

Dianne: No.

And here we are.

Emily: Absolutely couldn't.

Kevin: Oh, well, there's so much to love.

Dianne: Yeah.

Kevin: Wow.

Emily: I mean, come on, this is a grand staircase.

Kevin: This grabs me even more than the portico.

That is spectacular.

Emily: Yeah.

So it's technically not up to code, but we did get a letter from the Historical Commission to leave it as is.

So we are very, very excited about that.

Kevin: Well, it's intact, too, after all of the damage.

Emily: It's in perfect condition.

The spindles are absolutely to die for.

Kevin: Who took it back to the studs?

Emily: So we think that the previous owners that owned it when the fire happened about eight years ago, they took it back down to the studs because there was so much water damage from the fire.

So when we walked in, it was pretty much a blank canvas.

Kevin: Okay, so let's go through it, if you will, and tell me sort of, you know, if there are things that are gonna stay, how you're gonna use it.

I mean, you've got some great details here.

Emily: Yeah, we're definitely gonna leave a lot of the headers because of the beautiful detailing.

Some of the actual regular framing might go, just to fit some of the windows in.

Kevin: So side casings might go away.

Well, I think Charlie will tell you that he'll be able to replace those, you know, either replicate them or find that they're still made.

And so what -- a front parlor back in the day?

Look at the height of the ceilings right there.

You can just tell it was built in the late 1800s.

Emily: Yeah.

It's absolutely beautiful.

Kevin: You've got a double-wide opening here.

And look at the fireplace and the built-ins and such.

Emily: Yeah.

It's gonna be absolutely beautiful.

We love the stained glass.

Um, that's probably not original to the house.

We're probably thinking what is on the floor -- it was here when we first arrived -- is probably more original.

We haven't really 100% decided what we want to do because we love what's there.

But we also may want to stick those original pieces back in.

Kevin: I wonder if those are curved on purpose or just waterlogged?

Dianne: I think it may be they melted a little with the fire.

Kevin: You do?

Dianne: Yeah, yeah.

Kevin: Just sort of... Dianne: I think it melted.

Kevin: ...slumped down right there, okay.

And the fireplace -- spectacular center focal point.

You can probably imagine yourself sitting in front of that someday.

Emily: Oh, yeah.

Nice and toasty.

The fireplace is definitely another one of those pieces where it's just so beautifully crafted.

Kevin: I love the fact that you can only see the beautiful stuff and ignore everything else.

Emily: Of course.

Dianne: Of course.

Kevin: You're our kind of people.

Show me back here, please.

Dianne: Okay.

Well, this is our dining area.

Large room.

Kevin: Very large again.

Dianne: Yep.

And we have our lovely wainscoting, which we absolutely adore.

Kevin: So this stays?

Dianne: We're gonna keep that for sure.

Kevin: All right.

So dining here.

You've got a beautiful bay window.

Oh.

And there's, uh -- look at that.

There's your barn.

Dianne: Yep.

That's where we're gonna age in place.

Kevin: All right.

And so a pretty nice wide-open space.

Dianne: Yeah, I think originally that there was a wall and that it was a smaller kitchen.

Kevin: Right here.

Dianne: Yes.

I think it was taken out in the '80s.

I like it open at this point.

Kevin: And a beam up there could have been put in after the fact, but either way, that gives you the big opening.

Dianne: Exactly.

Kevin: Working kitchen on this side.

Dianne: Yeah.

We're thinking pretty minimalist, potentially an island.

Kevin: So you're not gonna be actually living in the house.

Emily is gonna be.

But you're on the design team?

Dianne: Yes.

Exactly.

Emily: Oh, yeah.

We definitely have a same vision, which is wonderful.

Kevin: Well, lead on.

Show me what you've got back here.

Emily: Back here, we have a full bathroom.

Kevin: Ooh.

Tucked underneath a back staircase.

Favorite features of an old house.

So, not a full bathroom now, but you hope to make one, or was there one here?

Dianne: Previous to the '80s, there was not a bathroom here.

Kevin: So originally, no.

Dianne: Correct.

Kevin: Then there was.

And now it's gone.

But you're gonna put one back?

Dianne: Yes.

Kevin: But it's a big space for a full bathroom.

It'd be nice to have something downstairs.

Dianne: Yep, we're gonna utilize that.

Kevin: Lots of windows.

It's huge, actually, this way.

Emily: Yeah.

Kevin: Does the doorway stay?

Dianne: That's gonna be sealed up so that we can utilize that wall space.

Kevin: Oh, sealed up there.

Okay.

Right.

So you've got some more trim work maybe you can move.

And then this tucks in underneath that original front staircase, someday ready for a wedding?

Emily: Oh, yeah.

Kevin: Oh!

And look at this detail.

Dianne: Yeah.

Kevin: How adorable is this?

This is something that would never be built today.

Emily: Nope.

Kevin: And you'll keep it?

Dianne: Oh, that's staying for sure.

Kevin: Yeah, all right.

And then wide open to the second floor.

What am I gonna find when I go up there?

Dianne: Well, there's two bedrooms to the right.

We may use one for a media room.

And then the primary bedroom with a huge built-in closet and a bathroom right above this one.

Kevin: I'm gonna go have a look, but I appreciate the first-floor tour and the lay of the land.

Dianne: All right.

Emily: Take a look.

Kevin: I'm gonna go up this grand staircase.

Boy, and it is grand.

It is so spacious.

Interesting that tucked behind it is the back staircase, which you can see because the walls are down.

This will be the full bath, as Dianne told me.

And from here, you can see sort of the full breadth of the balustrade and how generous this whole staircase and landing area is.

Oh, that's a nice treat.

So there's a flat roof over the portico, so they might have a porch there.

This front bedroom -- guest room right there, and in the back of the house, a big primary suite, eventually.

Bay windows with another view of the barn.

And, Pops, how are you?

Tom: I'm good.

How are you?

Kevin: I'm good.

I'm very taken with the house.

Boy, you can tell it was a gem back in the day.

Tom: Oh, I love these old places.

It was a beauty, that's for sure.

Unfortunately, the roof burnt off of it.

Kevin: Obviously, right.

So, have you figured out what's going on here?

Tom: Well, maybe a wiring problem.

I don't know what the cause of the fire was, but it looks like this was a real hot spot right here.

You can see how the subfloor is just charred and burnt right away.

Kevin: So that went right through.

Tom: Right through here, and you can see some plywood was put on the floor.

Look at how deep the burn went.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Tom: I mean, some of this section is just gone.

But if we walk over here into this floor, you can see that the fire was still roaring pretty good right here.

Kevin: Oof!

Tom: See how bad the char is on these joists?

Kevin: Boy, it's just eerie, huh?

Tom: It went right across, got the underside of the floor boards upstairs.

Kevin: So if it starts in that corner and we have charring here, and then it kind of cleans up a little bit, but I see it jump over here.

Is that -- Tom: Well, it jumped over here.

Maybe something on fire that was on the roof, But probably burnt this roof right off of this.

This is a newly framed area here.

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

Tom: But see, this beam looks like it's in good shape here, but if you look at the backside, that's all charred, so that's gonna have to get replaced.

Kevin: Right.

And then it just shoots down one lone bay.

Tom: So, yeah, you can see how the hole in the subfloor right here pulled the flame right down and into this bay.

There was probably some type of a crack or something above the beam over that wall, and it probably caused some type of a vortex where it pulled the air right across inside the stud bay.

And it burned pretty good right here until the flame started to soften or get less right there.

And then eventually they got it to go out.

Kevin: So how much charring is acceptable, Tommy?

And when do they have to be replaced?

Tom: Well, if you were to take a knife or a screwdriver or whatever, and you poked it into the side of the joist and measured how deep it went in before you hit structure, like 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch is when I start to think of the structural integrity of that joist has been compromised and it either has to get replaced or sistered.

Now, in this case, the plan calls for these joists to get sistered, not taken out.

Kevin: So you're just a little bit too familiar with how this place burned.

Where were you eight years ago on that Thursday?

Tom: I guarantee I wasn't here.

Kevin: Okay.

And nothing to see in the attic or upstairs, because the roof, everything's gone up there.

Tom: Everything's gone.

It's covered with rubber.

The stairway to the attic is still there, but, unfortunately, we can't get up there now.

Kevin: Good.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Tom: My pleasure.

Kevin: You know just a little bit too much about how things burn.

I'm just saying, it's a little unsettling.

Tom: It's interesting to see how it all happens, though.

Kevin: You a firebug at heart?

Tom: I was not.

Kevin: No?

Tom: Still not today, either.

Richard: We're down here in the basement.

We found an original artifact.

This -- a steam boiler from 1893.

Now, this would have been a luxury item back in that day because up to that point, houses were heated mostly by fireplaces.

So this would have been a big deal.

And this was a steam boiler where water would sit right here.

And then it would have had a sight glass.

You'd see this and there'd be a piece of glass.

You could see the water level, and the water would get heated, and it would get heated so much that that water would turn to steam.

And when it does, it would expand in volume.

And now steam would move quickly up through all the pipes, and it would move up through up into radiators inside the building.

It would have had little vents on it, and the steam would give off its heat to the room.

It would condense back to water and start again.

Now, where the unit was, was right here.

You can see the outline.

You see it right here.

And then it would have been fired by coal, not oil, not wood.

And the coal bin would have been here.

There would have been a wall right here and a wall right here.

And here's the coal chute.

They would have dumped this thing in, and this thing would have been filled up to here.

Now, the coal didn't get out of this bin automatically.

It had to be done by somebody, and the owner of this house probably wasn't the person that did.

It would have been a caretaker.

Somebody would have had to tend the fire all day long in the winter and go into here and keep this thing -- and you had to keep that burner going long enough so that you could keep making steam.

It couldn't just go to low idle if you wanted to make steam, so it was a big deal.

So now, back then, why was it big?

This building never had any insulation.

Not a stitch when it was first built.

They would have, over time, maybe added corncobs and newspapers to try and insulate it.

And they had single-pane windows that were leaky and terrible.

So what are we gonna do?

Well, you look at a building like this and you say, "That fire was -- oh, it was terrible."

Well, wait a minute.

It made everything disappear.

A lot of times people do a remodel and they sort of become prisoners of what exists in the building already.

Do they have pipes and radiators?

Okay, we got to tie onto that.

Do we have ductwork?

Are we gonna reuse it?

In this case, this is a clean, clean palette.

So what are we gonna do?

First of First of all, we're gonna insulate.

Insulate like crazy, like nobody ever dreamed in this building.

Make it tight.

Then we're gonna get fresh air into the building to make sure people can breathe.

Once we do that, we come up with a size.

Then you go, "All right, how are we gonna live in the building?"

Let's look at the zones we might do.

And then you got to say, "How are we gonna deliver heating and cooling?"

Is it gonna be ductwork?

Is it gonna be water?

Is it gonna be a combination of both?

What about the fuel?

Is it gonna be electric or gas?

Will it be a heat pump or more conventional equipment?

But when we're done, if we use this size of boiler as the metaphor for the amount of heating power in BTUs we used to need, once we do all the changes to this building, we're only gonna need about this much heating power.

We're gonna save some energy.

Jenn: So, David, can you tell me about the first homeowner who lived in this house and the history of the house?

David: So what we know from research done by Bob Oliphant, a historian in town, was there was a house likely in the front yard closer to the street as early as 1831.

Sometime around 1850, transferred owners.

1893, Allan Cameron buys it.

Allan Cameron worked at the Abbot Mill.

Jenn: Okay.

He's from Scotland, correct?

David: He's from Scotland.

And he was in the textile industry, which is a prominent industry in Westford.

In 1893, he buys it, builds this beautiful place, and apparently gave it to his son as a gift.

And Donald was the one who lived here.

Jenn: Okay.

David: Fast forward.

A fire happens.

Jenn: Eight years ago.

David: Yeah.

And for the next couple years, it sat.

And then in 2018, the town came forward and bought the property.

Jenn: Okay.

David: And one of the things that we found out is that a majority of people wanted it to return to private ownership.

Jenn: Mm-hmm.

David: And then the new homeowners, which we're grateful to have, came to the Historic Commission to work out details that would fit with the preservation restriction... Jenn: Okay.

David: ...and also get their modern updates.

Jenn: It's gonna be a huge project, and I think we'll be able to pull it off.

David: It'll be great to see progress on the house that was almost burned to the ground.

Jenn: It's gonna be a new beauty in town.

Charlie: We're gonna probably take these off and see -- Kevin: Hey, guys.

Charlie: Hey, Kevin.

Kevin: Siding looks good.

Just a little bit of paint?

Charlie: A little bit of Mauro's love, and we'll be right there.

Kevin: That is in really bad shape.

Charlie: It is, but we have to take it all off anyway, because we still have to deal with the strict energy code.

But what we are gonna save is all of this granite that's on the foundation.

Kevin: So, Charles, just with regards to the siding, first, do you know what you want and where you want to go to?

Charles: Yes, I do.

I'm looking for something with low maintenance and something I don't have to really take care of it for a long period of time.

Kevin: Are you thinking, like, a composite siding?

Charles: A composite siding.

That is correct.

Because it's pre-finished.

And it's -- once you install it, it's done.

Kevin: Yeah.

Okay.

Love the foundation.

Really elegant, you know.

It's got a big, robust look to it.

Charles: Yeah.

Charlie: Big pieces.

So this is really quarried locally in Westford.

Kevin: Oh, nice.

Charlie: Westford granite.

And if you look right here, this is where they drilled it.

And then they put the wedges and feathers in, and that's how they split it to get the face you see.

Kevin: That's a very nice piece of granite, too.

That thing's huge.

Charles: Yeah.

It's one of the smaller pieces that we have.

Kevin: Now you're just showing off.

Charles: Yeah, hey.

[ Laughs ] Kevin: So before we continue with the house, the plan for the barn?

Charles: Yeah.

We're gonna end up renovating it to have my wife and myself move in as an in-law apartment.

Kevin: So, in other words, phase two.

Charlie: And believe it or not, this is where our solar field's going, over here.

Kevin: So on the ground, huh?

Why not up on a roof?

Charlie: Well, we don't have enough square footage.

Hip roof, dormers on the front, in the back.

Kevin: How big is it?

Charlie: 16.5 kW.

Kevin: Pretty big.

Charles: And that's not even big enough.

I could go 25k.

Kevin: He's a go-big-or-go-home kind of guy.

Charlie: And believe it or not, on this side up on the left side of the window this side, the right side on that window, garage door opening.

Kevin: Oh, no kidding?

Charlie: Yeah.

Kevin: All right.

It's funny.

Back here, the granite foundation is smaller block.

Charlie: Right.

We're gonna end up repurposing that in other places on the property.

Kevin: That is cool.

And the other thing I liked that I noticed when I first got here, that right there.

Charles: Yeah, we'd like to keep that and see if Charlie can repair it.

Charlie: It's really gonna be a Mauro thing like he does out front when we save all that, too.

Kevin: Yeah.

Yeah.

Charlie: I'll pass the buck.

Kevin: Well, that's a little roof.

There used to be a much bigger roof up top, Charlie.

Charlie: Yeah.

Kevin: Gone from the fire.

What's the plan?

Charlie: Well, we're gonna bring everything back to original, so it's gonna be a hip roof with a widow's walk that will be accessible.

So since you're done touring the East Coast... Kevin: Right.

Charlie: ...we have a tight time frame -- surprise.

But we're gonna bring staging in next.

And then Tommy and I are gonna start ripping this roof off with the crew and start hitting it hard.

Kevin: So that's the next order of business.

I love it.

You see what I have to put up with?

I'm working.

He calls it touring.

Tom: Right there.

Charlie: All right, for the last couple of days, the guys have been setting up staging around the entire perimeter of this roof.

Tom: Yeah, well, the nice thing about the staging is, number one, safety reasons.

And when it comes time to frame the roof, they're gonna be nice and comfortable.

And when you're nice and comfortable, you're gonna do a good job.

Charlie: That's right.

So we're gonna take this down because it's probably, what, 14, 15 feet off the roof.

It's got to come down anyway.

So we might as well start getting rid of it now.

Tom: All right, so now you can see basically where the chimney was rebuilt.

Oh, probably some -- who knows?

-- 40 or 50 years ago?

Charlie: Yeah, probably.

Tom: Yeah.

Now you can also see Charlie's taking off the counterflash with the brick, and behind the counterflashing, you can see the old mortar that was built up.

And that same basically mortar mix that was below the roof line was up here.

And that's probably why the chimney failed.

Now that we're into the old section, watch how easy the bricks come apart.

All right, so you can really see how the brick just gets loose off of this old mortar, just falls apart.

The other thing that's noticeable is right here.

This was an opening for a coal stove.

So they probably heated this part of the third floor up here with a coal stove.

But interesting enough, look inside the chimney.

No liner, and building code requires a liner now.

But years ago, they didn't line them.

Lots of times they would just parge the inside, but over time the parging would fall off.

See how I can just break those off with my hand?

Charlie: Yeah.

Tom: Yeah.

Look how crumbly that is.

Charlie: Look at that.

Tom: A lot of lime and a lot of sand.

It's almost like it's still wet.

Charlie: You know it.

Wonder what Mark would have to say?

Tom: [ Laughs ] I know Mark would look at it, and he'd give me the ratio of the mix.

Charlie: Yes.

Well, I think this is good enough.

We should probably start in that roof.

It's getting hot up here.

Tom: Let's get a broom and get this cleaned up and we can open it up, see what we have.

Charlie: Sounds good to me.

Well, the town put this temporary rubber roof on about six years ago, and I'll tell you, it really protected this building.

Tom: Well, it was smart because it's been like this for six years, and all the rain and the weather and the snow would have ruined the interior of the building.

So what we want to do is we want to assess the situation from above.

We've looked at it from down below.

We know there's a problem.

We want to see how bad it is.

So we're gonna cut the rubber roof back, fold it out of the way, look at the issue, and then cover it back up.

Charlie: Oh, yeah.

Tom: It was definitely the hot spot.

Yeah.

You can see it right here.

That's definitely destroyed.

But it burnt right through the subfloor and probably the finish floor, too.

And it came out into the little bit of a wall cavity.

You can see that because this is the gutter.

The sheathing's gone.

I mean, good thing the fire didn't go down and take the building, just the roof.

We can fix that, easy.

Charlie: Yeah, we can fix that.

Tom: Absolutely.

All right, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna open this roof up in sections, repair and replace all the damaged structure, cover it back up, and move on to another section.

Charlie: And once we get this all framed and the subfloor down, the roof built, water-protected, I can get my subs in here.

And that's really priority number one.

Tom: Absolutely.

That sounds great.

All right.

Till next time, I'm Tom Silva.

Charlie: And I'm Charlie Silva.

Tom: For "This Old House" in Westford, Mass.

Charlie: Well, we'll get the rest of this peeled back.

We'll get this stuff removed.

Kevin: Next time on "This Old House"... Tom: Here in Westford, we're framing our hip roof and our big widow walk.

Kevin: Then we'll learn how these old walls will get an upgrade courtesy of a building science pro.

Mark: And to give this house a garage, we're going to cut through this foundation.

Look at how clean that cut is.

That's great.

Kevin: That cut's so clean, I'm thinking of places I could put a garage door in.

[ Kevin and Mark chuckle ] That's next time.