This Old House

Kevin: Today on "This Old House"... Zack and his guys built this full-scale model.

Zack: Here it comes.

Kevin: ...to show that when it comes to a sewer line, bigger isn't always better.

Zack: And we'll show you how to fix creaky old stairs like this.

Camille: And why ordering your finishes early can save you time and money.

♪ Man: That's it.

♪ ♪ ♪ Kevin: Hey there, and welcome back to "This Old House" and to our project here in Essex County, New Jersey, where we are working on this late 1800s Dutch colonial for our homeowners, Ethan and Harley, who are moving from across town and eventually into this house.

So since we were here last time, our plumbers have finished the rough plumbing, and that meant that our electricians could get started and they have gotten pretty far along.

And we've always had air-conditioning upstairs, but never downstairs.

So the HVAC guys have come to give us duct work all throughout the first floor for A.C.

Basic lay of the land -- Going to come through a back door right here into a new mudroom that'll take you into this family room that has got a new roof that has been framed, a couple skylights been put in, and then from here you can go up a couple steps to what's going to be the new kitchen or a couple steps to the front of the house or down to the basement.

Hey, Zack, how's it going?

Zack: Hey, Kevin.

Meet Quinten, our summer intern.

Kevin: Quinten, nice to meet you.

Quinten: Nice to meet you.

Kevin: What's your story?

Quinten: I'm a senior at Montclair High School, and I'm doing an internship here over the summer.

And in the fall, I'll be studying engineering.

Kevin: Spend a little bit of time on the jobsite, and Zack put you in a ditch.

Zack: Yeah.

What could be more apropos?

Kevin: Welcome to the job.

Well, nice to have you.

Quinten: Thank you.

Kevin: And what is with the ditch?

I thought we were done mostly with all the mechanicals.

What's going on?

Zack: Yeah.

So we're all pretty much done with everything above us.

But the sewer previously exited the back of the house, took a 90-degree turn, and then went from the back all the way to the street.

So we decided we would just bypass that section, come this way with our new pipe, because the old one was clay and had roots in it and wasn't really salvageable anymore.

Kevin: So shorter run, obviously, I get that.

But digging a trench through the concrete and then down a foot and a half is easier than just working with the one that already exists?

Zack: It is because there's roots out there, close property line, and we would have had to move the HVAC condensers.

So this is actually less work, even though it's still a good bit of work.

Kevin: Okay, so we getting close to putting something in?

Zack: We are.

We'll probably get the sewer connected outside today, and then we can do the inside work tomorrow or the next day.

Kevin: Alright.

Good.

Zack: But my plumber Craig's got something to show you out back.

Kevin: Alright, sounds good.

Let's do it.

Zack: Alright.

Kevin: Nice to meet you, Quinten.

Zack: Got it from here, Quinten?

Quinten: Yeah.

I'm good.

Zack: Alright.

So before we put a sewer in the ground, we thought we'd show you this mock-up that we built here in the yard.

Kevin: Full-scale model in the backyard.

Zack: Yeah.

So it's got sweeps and turns and all the bits and pieces of a regular sewer, and it's pretty functional.

Kevin: Craig, you don't have much going on on the weekends.

Do you?

Craig: No, clearly I don't, Kevin.

Kevin: Good to see you again.

Craig: You too.

Kevin: So can you tell me about this craziness that you've built here?

Craig: So basically I was going to explain to you how a toilet works when you flush it with volume and velocity from point A to point B, which would be the city main.

I figured it would be easier if we just built this little mock-up and demonstrate what actually happens when you flush a toilet and the journey it takes out to the street.

And we're going to start with what would represent the second floor toilet bowl.

Come down through the three-inch, which would typically be inside of a house.

Underground, inside the house, would be the four-inch.

And in a house this age, you would transition to six-inch, which we have over there, and we added some clear pieces of pipe so you can see the difference in flow and, you know, volume, et cetera, as it makes its journey out to the street.

Kevin: So when the house was built over 100 years ago, what was in the house for plumbing?

Craig: Four-inch cast iron inside the house.

Outside the house it would transition to six-inch clay.

Kevin: That was it?

Craig: That was it.

Kevin: And now when you're done with this renovation, what are we going to have?

Craig: So the remodel is going to have three-inch through the house and then four-inch out to the street.

Kevin: So you're going smaller on the inside and the big sewer line outside, you're going smaller as well?

Craig: Right.

Everybody thinks bigger is better.

Kevin: Yeah.

Craig: In this scenario, it's not.

When you flush a toilet, the water is automatically going to disperse.

So when you have that volume of water coming down the pipe, the more water you have, the better because you're carrying those solids out.

Kevin: So that's interesting.

We've heard from Richard on many occasions that it's the liquid that helps move the solids.

Craig: Correct.

Kevin: And he talks about the fallacy of people thinking that a steeper pitch helps.

Craig: Right.

Kevin: Maybe move it faster, move stuff.

And he's like, no, no, no, you can move too fast.

And the water could leave the solids behind.

Craig: Correct.

Kevin: Similar effect when you take a small pipe and make it big?

Craig: Similar effect.

You want a slow-moving process with as much water as you can possibly get in there.

Kevin: Well, listen, you built it and you've got clear things, so I want to see it.

Who's flushing and who's watching?

Craig: I think we send Zack up there and we'll go through some scenarios.

Zack: Okay.

I'll be the flush guy.

Kevin: Go be the flush guy.

Maybe we pull out here and you can tell me exactly what I'm supposed to be seeing.

Craig: So I thought we'd start back when the house was built around the 1890s.

And we'll start with a five-gallon flush.

Kevin: Yeah.

Craig: And we're going to put a little bit of tracing dye in there so we could actually see the effect as it come through.

It's a non-toxic sewer tracing dye.

Kevin: Okay.

Craig: And we're going to throw some paper in with it to try and mimic the results of a flushing toilet.

Kevin: Zack, you got a five-gallon for us?

Zack: Yep.

Kevin: Alright, drop it, please.

Craig: Alright, here we go.

Oh, we have nice volume and flow through that three-inch.

Kevin: Ripping through the three-inch.

Craig: Still good movement in the four-inch.

Solids are out front.

Kevin: Almost -- Almost halfway up that pipe.

Craig: Yeah.

Kevin: At the max flow.

Craig: Yeah.

Kevin: And let's see how we do with the six-inch.

Oop, gets there.

Craig: Still have a good amount of water in there, good flow.

And that's what we would typically find in 1890 with a five-gallon flush toilet.

You keep the old sewer from 1890 and we add a less volume toilet, it's going to be a different scenario, I think.

Kevin: So can we flush a smaller amount?

We're going to go to a 3.5-gallon next.

Kevin: Which would have happened when?

Craig: Somewhere between the '70s.

I think it ended around the '90s with the Water Conservation Act.

Kevin: Zack, how about a -- how about a 1977 flush?

Good year.

Zack: Alright, here it comes.

Kevin: Drop it.

Craig: Alright.

Here we go.

Yep.

Good volume.

Good flow.

Kevin: Ripping through three inches.

Craig: Even in the four-inch, solids are getting pushed along.

Kevin: Yeah.

A little lower, a little slower but plenty.

And let's see how we do on six.

Craig: Still moving.

Kevin: Yeah, yeah.

Craig: Solids still out front.

Slowed down a little lower but still moving.

Kevin: So six-inch still works.

And what are we flushing today?

Craig: So now we're going to move on to a 1.28.

Kevin: That's where we're at with most toilets.

Craig: That's what we have with most toilets these days.

Kevin: Zack, you got a nice 1.28 2026 flush for me?

Zack: Here it comes.

Kevin: Beautiful.

Craig: Still good movement in the three-inch.

Kevin: Yeah, three makes it move, 100%.

Craig: Considerably slower in the four-inch.

Kevin: Wow.

A lot slower.

Craig: Still moving.

Kevin: Yeah, yeah.

Let's get a closer look on how we do with six because that was going slow.

Craig: So as you can see with the six-inch pipe, with a modern-day 1.28 toilet, this water is just trickling through.

We haven't even seen any paper start to come through yet.

Kevin: So does that mean we end up with a backup because the solids are somewhere in the...?

Craig: Not necessarily because in a house you're going to have a sink and you're going to have laundry and you're going to have other things running.

If something gets caught up, some other water is going to push it out at some point.

Kevin: Okay.

But we do now know that six doesn't really help us with the low-flowing toilets and four actually works.

That's all we need.

Craig: Right.

And that was our point here.

Kevin: And that's what we'll put in today?

Craig: Today we're going to put a four-inch sewer in place of the six-inch sewer.

Kevin: Great.

And I see your crew has been prepping everything out front so we can install the new line from the street to the house.

And since you're going through the old six-inch clay pipe, you won't have to dig up the lawn.

Craig: Correct.

Kevin: Craig, how long a pipe are you working?

Craig: It's about 80 feet.

Kevin: So he takes one end and does what?

Craig: Goes into the bursting head.

Kevin: I didn't see glue.

I don't see any mechanical fasteners.

Craig: It works just by pressure.

So this part here, there's a mechanism inside that expands.

The harder you pull on that, the more that expands.

And it just locks inside that pipe and smashes it to the outside of this.

Kevin: Bursting heads on this side of the line.

You've got a long cable in your clay pipe.

Craig: Correct.

Kevin: So that cable is pulling a new four-inch pipe over to the house.

Craig: Correct.

As you're pulling it, you're splitting the old pipe out of the way and you're dragging this new pipe behind it.

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

That's definitely in.

I heard it burst, too.

What's on the other side of the line pulling it?

Craig: It's a 30-ton hydraulic piston that just kind of goes up and down.

It works on hydraulics of the machine.

And it's about a foot-ish per pull.

Kevin: You're pulling a foot or two.

Reset, pull.

Craig: Yeah.

And that's it.

So basically we're on -- The next 60 or so feet is just rinse and repeat pulling this thing through the old line.

Kevin: Cool.

Craig: Alright, Kevin, so now that we have our four-inch sewer in place outside, we're going to push this pipe through the hole in the wall so our guys can make the connections outside.

Kevin: Beautiful.

Craig: And now we're going to have four-inch from inside the house underground all the way out to the city sewer.

Kevin: Beautiful.

And then on the inside, we've got all of our fixtures attached to the three-inch stack, which you'll tie in to your four-inch sewer?

Craig: Right.

Kevin: And you'll have good flow in the house and out of the house.

Craig: That's right.

Kevin: Alright.

And we've got a young apprentice, Quinten, who's going to be psyched that he was part of this project.

Craig: Yeah, I'm sure he will.

Kevin: Thank you, Craig.

Craig: Thank you.

♪ Zack: So here on the main set of stairs, they've gotten pretty creaky over the last 130 years with all the traffic coming up and down.

What's happening is these treads are coming away from these risers.

And the nails that connect those two together make a creaking noise as they travel in and out of the wood as you apply weight to them.

But worse than that, the tread has actually come out from the stringer here.

So I can actually move this whole thing out and in, and that's actually pretty dangerous.

So luckily we removed all the plaster from the bottom during the demo phase, and now we can fix everything and tighten everything up to hopefully make it nice and safe.

Okay.

Justin, what did you figure out down here?

Justin: Hi, Zack.

Um, well, I'm just temporarily securing the staircase, and we've got two issues that we're going to solve.

The first thing is we're going to resecure the riser and the tread.

Zack: Right, yeah.

Justin: And then next we're going to try to address this broken stringer.

But the first thing we're going to do is we're going to remove these three nailers.

Zack: Alright, Justin, I'm going to cut through these.

So it's a little easier to remove.

[ Buzzing ] [ Clunking ] Okay.

Now let's see what we can see down here.

I don't think we can fix this.

This is nothing holding this together.

So we're definitely gonna have to come up with another solution there.

Justin: I think we should take a two-by, slide it up under here and then secure it with some screws to either stud.

[ Whirring ] Zack: So now that we've got our blocking installed, we can put an inch and a half inch spacer there and connect a triangular piece of wood, which is going to support the tread and the riser in the area where the stringer was compromised.

Now we can screw that with a little bit of glue, kind of tie this all together.

Next, we can get on to fixing the squeakiness by connecting the riser to the tread using screws.

I'm countersinking holes so this wood doesn't split.

[ Whirring ] So I'm going to take the blower and I'm going to blow into this gap to get all the crumbs of dust that might potentially keep this joint from coming together nicely.

So now we're going to fasten the riser to the tread using three inch structural screws.

[ Whirring ] So, these blocks are going to affix to the bottom of the tread and the face of the riser.

And we want to drill a hole through that block such that the screw can slide easily through there, because we want the threads to really pull this in.

I'm going to put some glue on the underside of the staircase, and Justin's going to screw in the blocks.

These blocks are going to help hold the tread and the riser together and really bind everything into one piece, and it'll keep it from squeaking.

Alright.

I'm going to screw these nailers up for drywall.

Alright.

That looks good.

Justin: Zack, let's check out these steps.

Zack: Alright.

How do they sound?

Justin: They sound much better.

Once this glue dries, I bet you we won't have any squeaks.

Zack: Yeah.

And the bottom looks like it lines up like original.

Justin: Looks great.

♪ Kevin: Charlie, how are you?

Charlie: Hey, Kevin.

Kevin: So, still fussing with this pocket door project, huh?

Charlie: Yeah, it's quite the project.

Kevin: Well, I mean, I get it, right?

The homeowners wanted to save the originals, which I don't blame them for that.

But they weren't working.

Charlie: No, there was a lot of debris in the pocket, and they were just really hard to pull in and out.

So they've got young kids.

This is going to be their family room, and we wanted to kind of give them an option for functioning pocket doors as we're renovating this house.

Kevin: Yeah.

You can shut the kids in.

Why not, right?

Charlie: Yeah.

Kevin: So these are the doors that you're saving.

Beautiful, five panels, hardware.

How'd they work?

Charlie: So this is a different system than I've seen before, but the -- the doors actually rolled on a bottom track.

So you can see in the bottom of this door, there's these old, almost like train wheels.

And it would ride on this brass inlaid track in the floor system.

So you can see down here, I've taken one of them out.

Kevin: Okay.

So, spins.

Oh, look at that.

It's got some play back and forth inside of the mechanism.

And then you're saying that was in here?

Charlie: That was in here.

This was inlaid into the floor.

But unfortunately it was damaged and had a ton of debris in it.

Kevin: Okay.

So not going to save it.

No shame.

But we want the doors to work.

That's going to make it worth saving them.

What are we going to use?

Charlie: So we're going to replace it with this top trolley that has a soft-close mechanism.

It's going to be a much smoother operation.

Kevin: Door hangs off of the hardware attached to this.

And then this sits in a track which has already been installed?

Charlie: Yeah.

As you can see, I've, you know, I've done some math over here to figure out where I need to hang this track based on the heights of the door and the build up of the floor.

Kevin: This is going in there.

Charlie: That's correct.

So I basically opened -- opened up the wall essentially.

Kevin: Can I stop you there?

Charlie: Yeah.

Kevin: Is there a way to do this without opening up the wall?

Charlie: No.

Kevin: There really isn't, right?

Charlie: No.

Kevin: Yeah.

Okay.

Charlie: And you know, what I've heard is when you got to open a hole in the wall, you might as well make it big enough to work in.

Kevin: Yeah.

Charlie: If you make a tiny hole, you're just going to make it bigger or be frustrated.

Kevin: Yeah.

Okay.

Charlie: So opened up the wall and I figured out that I need to set these 2x4s at this height, perfectly level all the way across.

I've installed them perpendicular to the existing framing, and I've factored in a build down of the 3/4 plywood to create a nice substrate to screw the track to all along the way.

Kevin: Okay.

So our job now is to get all this hardware set with the doors so that we're at the right height and everything moves properly.

Charlie: That's correct.

Kevin: Alright.

Let's figure that one out.

Alright.

Charlie: So you can see here, this looks like a 2x4, but this is representative of our door, the door being, you know, 60 pounds or whatnot.

I don't want to be lugging it around as I'm kind of fine-tuning this hardware.

So I've got this little trick.

I cut a 2x4 to 30 1/2 inches, which is the width of those doors over there.

So I'm going to use this to set the trolleys and the hardware, the stops, the limits to get me within range.

This will be just much lighter and easier to work with.

And then we'll transfer these brackets to the door when we know everything works.

Kevin: Nice.

Charlie: And then we'll do the same thing on this end.

Okay, so now that we got these brackets mounted, it's time to feed these stops and trolleys into the track over here.

Kevin: I've done this before.

Charlie: An important thing is there's an order that they need to go in.

So we're going to start with this stop mechanism that goes in the wall cavity.

and we're going to push that all the way to this end here.

Okay.

Then we need to feed in a trolley in the right direction just like that.

Okay.

We can push that down the way.

And that's correct.

That'll be the -- the front one.

Kevin: This is going to be the bumper on this side.

Charlie: That's perfect.

Okay.

So we'll reinstall these screws.

Another one right here.

Kevin: So, these are fixed, these little bumpers.

This is what you want the door hardware to bump into.

Charlie: That's correct.

So I'm going to fix this end stop here in a rough location.

Kevin: Okay.

Give it that side first.

Charlie: Yeah.

We'll do -- We'll slide this in.

I'll give you this little offset wrench here.

And then we can lock this mechanism.

Okay.

And we can lock that mechanism.

Kevin: And then the idea is that we want to set that far stop so that this sets essentially flush with the side jamb.

And this center stop sits so that this is right on our center line.

Charlie: That's exactly right.

Kevin: Alright.

Try that.

Let's see.

Oh, yeah.

That'll do it.

Okay.

Now on this side we're going to need to... Charlie: It looks like we need to move the stop about 2 7/8.

Kevin: And I'm calling it.

That's nice.

Charlie: Same thing other side.

Kevin: That's it.

Charlie: Great.

Kevin: Take this hardware off, put it on a door, same hardware, second door, and then we can hang those.

Charlie: That's exactly right.

Let's do it.

Okay.

Come on down.

Kevin: Loading.

Charlie: That's how it's supposed to go.

There it goes.

Kevin: Huh?

Alright, let's see.

Let's see what you look like on your side, Charlie.

Bring them together.

How about that, huh?

And then you've got a mock-up for the finished floor height.

Charlie: Yeah.

So we're going to go over these subfloors with 1/2-inch plywood and then we're going to go over the top of that with 3/4.

So you can see the bottom of the door is coming in at a good plane to the floor.

Kevin: Look at you.

That's awesome.

Okay.

Charlie: And then over here, once the homeowners select the finished stop molding, we can make a final adjustment so it flushes up, and then the drywallers will be able to close up the walls.

Kevin: Lookit, 130-some-odd-year-old pocket doors saved.

Charlie: Not bad.

Right?

Kevin: That was awesome.

Nice work, Charlie.

Camille: Usually one of the biggest challenges I have on our projects is having our homeowners make decisions on time and getting material on-site before we need it.

But Ethan and Harley knocked it out of the park on this one.

Zack: I know.

For example, this vanity was here weeks before we started demo, which allowed us to put it in the space and see how it looked.

Camille: Right.

And that's how they discovered it really is a little bit too big, right?

It's going to hide that beautiful mosaic floor that's going to be in there.

Once we have the toilet in, it's just going to feel too tight.

Zack: Right.

And these pivots happen all the time during construction in our projects.

But if they happen at the end of the project, it's delay.

We're cutting the wall open to move plumbing.

But because they realized this early on, they had plenty of time to talk with their designer.

They picked out another one.

No problem at all to the schedule.

Camille: Yeah, and that new one's already on-site.

So if you want to help me, we can move this out.

And then let's see how the new one looks.

Zack: Great.

Alright, Camille, what do you think of that?

Camille: Beautiful, I love it.

I think a console sink is such a better use of the space.

It's more historically accurate to the age of the home.

We're going to have nice brass legs there.

They're going to have a spot to hang the towel on the side.

It's going to work so much better.

Zack: Great.

You want to snap a picture of it?

Send it to Ethan and Harley?

Camille: Let's do it.

Alright.

Kevin: Hey, Camille, Zack, how are you?

So, how'd you guys make out in that bathroom?

Camille: I think we got it figured out.

Ethan and Harley, rock stars.

Kevin: Good, I love it.

So, what do we got coming up next time?

Camille: Well, next week we have rough inspections, and we're going to just sail through those.

Kevin: I love that optimism.

Zack: I know.

Uh, we got insulation, so we got insulate the, uh, the roofs and the walls and we already got some noise attenuation around the bathrooms.

Kevin: Beautiful.

Alright.

Well, all that and more.

So until then, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

I'm Camille Dettmore.

Zack: And I'm Zack Dettmore.

Kevin: For "This Old House" here in Essex County.

♪ Kevin: Next time on "This Old House"... Wallpaper removal in older homes is unpredictable.

It could take minutes or days.

We'll tell you why.

Man: It's definitely something that requires some patience.

And we got to go little by little.

We're trying to leave it as clean as we can to make it as easy as possible for the next trade to come in and prep these walls.

Zack: Then I'll show you how we take 130-year-old lumber and turn it into new southern yellow pine floors.

Man: Check that out.

Zack: That's amazing.

Look at how tight those growth rings are.