This Old House

Kevin

Today on "This Old House"...

Tom

These 6x6 columns get trimmed for a finished look.

Kevin

There's a forest in Pennsylvania where all the hardwood flooring for our house comes from, and all of it was harvested sustainably.

Norm

And I'm gonna try a new way to install stair treads.

Kevin

What happened to all this plumbing here?

Richard

I've never seen anything like this before.

Roger

There's already rot going on in that trunk.

Kevin

So what have you found up here?

Tom

Well, a bit of a surprise.

Richard

It's really the classic plumber's lament.

Kevin

Nice!

Tom

It is right on. The money's in the detail.

Richard

Oh, that is beautiful.

Kevin

Hey, there. I'm Kevin O'Connor. And welcome back to "This Old House" here in Newton, where you can see we are making a lot of progress. The board and plaster guys have swept through the house, and most of that is done. The hardwood floors are going down. And right here in this space, the number-one job was to open up these three rooms -- kitchen, living room, dining room -- all into one, Tommy. And to do that, that meant a bunch of beams.

Tom

It sure did. A bunch of beams that, if you look up top, they're plastered right now.

Right. -Tom

And to support those beams, we have these 6x6 fir. Now, those beams are actually engineered lumber. They call it LVLs. And there's a beam here, a beam there, and another one there. Those beams are actually carrying the second-floor outside wall and the roof, and this beam is carrying the interior floor level all the way up to the ceiling.

Kevin

And so what's driving the decision behind the posts here, 'cause you've spanned bigger distances than this.

Tom

Well, absolutely. But the idea of it is, the shorter the span, the shorter the beam.

Kevin

Oh, so you want to tuck that up and hide it?

Tom

Right. So we want to accent it and make it look a plaster beam. So we gotta dress up these 6x6s. These 6x6s are fir, and they're not meant to be seen.

Gotcha. -Tom

So we're gonna cover them up.

Kevin

So you and Mattie are gonna hide those and dress 'em all up nicely?

Tom

Right. We're gonna use this material right here. This is basically -- figure it as like wood flour put together with resins. And it really holds up well. It doesn't expand and contract like regular wood, the miters go together really nice, and it paints beautifully.

Kevin

All right, well, see if you can keep up with Mattie, and I'll leave you guys to it.

Thanks. -Mattie

Thanks, Kevin.

Tom

All right, so get that going... All right, it's looking good. Now, this is gonna get painted up top here. This top is gonna get stained as an accent piece, and the cabinet below will get painted. I think it looks pretty good.

Mattie

Looks nice and neat, Tom. Great job.

Tom

Not bad for your first job, Mattie.

Mattie

Exactly.

Kevin

Since day one of this project, we knew that Liz wanted to make a stained-glass window for her mudroom. And this is the studio of her stained-glass instructor, Michel L'Huiilier. Hey,

guys. -Michel

Hey, Kevin.

Kevin

Michel,

nice to meet you. -Michel

Pleasure to meet you.

Kevin

So, Liz, good to see you again. Love this cute little studio you've got here.

This is terrific. -Michel

Thank you.

Kevin

So you are well under way with this beautiful piece of work of art here.

Mm-hmm. -Kevin

Where does this process start?

Michel

Oh, it started with a sketch -- a small sketch.

Kevin

This is not a sketch, this is a full-size rendering right here.

Liz

Right. Yep. I started with a hand sketch. Put it in the computer, traced over it so I could enlarge it to the window size.

Kevin

Gotcha. Okay. And how do you end up with the colors?

Michel

Just sticking with one sheet of glass would be kind of boring, especially when you want to talk about leaves and the way they catch the light. And so, once we refine this, then I was able to look in my studio and find the sheets of glass that she wanted to use. For example, we use this French glass here, which is a flash glass. We just try to find a glass that's got a lot of character and a lot of movement.

Kevin

So a simple design, a full-scale design. A lot of work on what the glass is.

Michel

Yes,

we did go back -- -Kevin

And then you get to work?

Liz

Yep, yeah. Then I went to Michel's class, and we took this drawing, made copies of it, and made a template that you cut the glass around. So...

So this tells you how... -Kevin

Oh, wow. You've got actually -- this is like a piece of thick paper here. You've gotta cut out every single piece in paper.

Liz

Yes, everything in paper, and then that tells you how big the glass needs to be. And then you want to make sure that the glass is exactly the size of the paper, otherwise, it will not fit in the space.

Laughing

Right. -Liz

And you can't have an expanding window. So I actually have one more piece left, but we grind it and then put this copper foil on.

Kevin

I'd love to see some of that. Can you grind it for us?

Liz

Yeah. I've got one more piece to go. So this is the grinder here. It's got a wheel and a grinding blade. And then it also uses water to keep the dust down.

Kevin

Nice.

Liz

So now we clean it with some alcohol, and then we can apply the copper foil.

Kevin

And the foil that you talk about, what is that for?

Liz

That is to hold the solder to the piece of glass. So that's what keeps it all together. So you want to put the glass on as centered as you can. Then you do the sides.

Kevin

Oh, yeah. You can actually see it just sort of tightening up there.

Liz

Mm-hmm. Let's see if it fits.

Like a glove. -Liz

There we go.

Kevin

So on to soldering?

Liz

On to soldering.

All right. -Michel

So I'm going to start at the top of the line. And what I want to do is... feed the solder through the back of the soldering iron.

Kevin

And so, the solder, we know, is sticking to the copper, and the copper is adhered to the glass. So that's connecting everything?

Michel

Yes.

Kevin

Brilliant.

Michel

The solder doesn't attach to the glass.

Kevin

Oh, yeah, the getting it flat, that definitely helps. So once you've actually soldered this entire side, Michel, does the other side have to be soldered, as well?

Michel

Yes. We need to flip the panel and then do the same process on the other side.

Kevin

Wow, painstaking. So you guys actually have a lot more to do here.

Liz

Oh,

yeah. -Kevin

I'll leave you to that. But I can't wait to see this in the house.

It's gonna be exciting. -Michel

Very exciting.

Kevin

All right, thank you, Liz. Thank you,

Michel. -Liz

Thank you.

Michel

Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin

Our homeowners want oak floors here in the kitchen and in the in-law suite above the garage. And there are a lot of suppliers for hardwood floors, but they're not all created equal. And our homeowners, well, they actually chose a supplier that takes special care when they harvest their trees. So the other day, I went to the hills of western Pennsylvania to check out the operation. I am about an hour and a half north of Pittsburgh on a large forestry operation owned by the Hickman family. The Hickmans have been cutting trees from this land for four generations to feed their sawmills. But it's the way that they cut the trees that has brought me here. The Hickmans will only cut trees in a sustainable fashion. Jessica, nice to meet you.

Jessica

Nice to meet you, Kevin.

Kevin

Thanks for having me out here.

Jessica

Yeah, thanks for coming out.

Kevin

So tell me about this sustainability and your guys' certification. What does that mean for your operation?

Jessica

Yeah, it's really important for us to be sustainable. We're FSC certified.

Kevin

So that Forest...

Jessica

Forest Stewardship Council.

Okay. -Jessica

Basically, we want to make sure we're growing

more than we're harvesting. -Kevin

Oh, really?

Yeah. -Kevin

So there's more growth coming out of this forest than what you're taking out.

Jessica

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we recently cut here, and you can look out, and there's still a lot of trees, you know?

Kevin

Yeah, okay. You know, this does not look

like a logging operation at all. -Jessica

Yeah.

Kevin

What else does it mean to be certified?

Jessica

We'll leave standing timber that's dead, like, for a den. You know, if there's critters that are living in it, we'll leave that dead tree for living animals. So that's part of it, as well. Also, you know, what goes to the marketplace. You know, that's a big thing with the FSC is so that you, as a consumer, know that you're purchasing products from a sustainable, well-managed forest.

Kevin

So you're required to have some sort of a chain of control?

Jessica

Absolutely. There's a lot of paperwork with it, absolutely. So back in the 1940s, my great-grandfather actually clear-cut this property during the war, you know? So my grandfather here -- this is Pop Larry.

Kevin

Pop Larry, nice to meet you.

Larry

Nice to meet you,

sir. -Kevin

Pleasure.

Jessica

This is Kevin.

Kevin

So, clear-cut at one point by your dad.

Uh-huh. -Kevin

And then it looks like you changed up the routine.

Larry

Well, yeah, it regenerated very nicely. And not only that, but it maintains a continuous supply of product throughout the year. And what we do by doing that is maintain a certain cubic feet per acre, which creates the maximum growth.

Kevin

So what is coming down today? Is this one of the ones --

Larry

Well, we selected this tree right here because it's a mature red oak. So, by taking this out, it'll let the sunlight in and it'll release seedlings. And they'll start to grow. It's a continuous process cleat from the acorn up.

Kevin

Okay. So now that you see it down, what do you think of that piece of lumber?

Larry

I think it's beautiful. I think about 700 square feet of flooring

could be made out of that log. -Kevin

Really? Can you guess how old that is?

Larry

It's probably 80 years old.

Kevin

So that came up from the original clear-cut?

Larry

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jessica

And so, that's a large enough log to quarter saw, right?

Larry

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that log we'll quarter saw.

Kevin

Along with this harvest, Jessica and I made our way to the sawmill, run by her brother Jake.

Jake

It goes from here straight to the debarker.

Kevin

To prep the log and to protect the downstream mill blades, the debarker makes short work of the coarse exterior, which, in turn, is sold off to landscapers as mulch. From here, the logs progress inside to the mill and are turned into cants by the head saw.

Jake

A cant is a log that's been squared on all four sides. Makes it easier for the resaws to cut it.

Kevin

Clean operation.

Jake

Yeah. All right, so this is the big resaw. This is where the cant comes after the head saw. So the guy marking the board is giving instructions to the guy in the box, telling him how to cut it.

Jessica

'Cause each one of these cants that we have up here, some of them are gonna be plane sawn, and some of them are gonna be quarter sawn. You know, so every one is different, and that guy marking it is giving the direction.

Kevin

So now you're just cutting one board at a time?

Jake

One board at a time. Comes back around and cuts one board again. The boards come down, and some of them have wane on them, which is bark or lack of wood. They go through the saw and clean up the sides.

Kevin

And so, what's going on down here?

Jake

So down here, these guys are basically doing what the marks tell them to do. They're separating the lengths. And from down here, it's ready to be dried.

Kevin

Man, this is a lot of wood.

Jake

Yeah. So this is where it comes to get dried. It may not be the most exciting part about what happens at the sawmill, but it may be one of the most important parts.

Kevin

Right.

Jake

And it might sit in the air drying yard for up to a year.

Kevin

Wow. So, I mean, how wet is the wood when it's green? Like, what percentage moisture?

Jessica

It could be 80% moisture content, and then we need to get it dried down to 6% for our flooring. That's what we dry it to.

Kevin

So air dry and then eventually into a kiln?

Jake

Right. The kiln is right behind this stack of lumber.

Kevin

Yeah. How long can our flooring be in the kiln?

Chuckling

About a month. -Kevin

Oh.

Jessica

Yeah, the quarter sawn flooring that you guys have, that can, you know, take up to two months if it was green going in.

Kevin

So a lot of drying goes on with this wood.

Yep. -Kevin

And once it's dry, we're off to where?

Jessica

We're off to the flooring plant.

Kevin

Now dried, our rough-sawn lumber begins to be dressed out to flooring. It gets scanned, sorted, planed, and trued before heading off to a finer milling. Jessica and I meet up with her dad, who'll take us through the milling process.

Dennis

So what we have here is what we saw at the lower building. Rift and quartered white oak surfaced to 15/16s, ripped to 4 1/2

inches wide. -Kevin

Okay.

Dennis

Ready to come into the molder. Okay, this molder is a six-head machine. Six different heads in here. The jack is picking which face. Comes through upside down. First head is just a hogging head, takes a little bit of wood off.

Off the face side. -Dennis

Off the face side.

Kevin

Yep.

Dennis

Second head puts the groove. Third head puts the tongue. The fourth head is just a hogging head, taking some off of this, the bottom side. The fifth head puts the relief cut on it.

Yep. -Dennis

And then the last head is just a finish head on the face. So, what's happening here is Tim is chopping out unsound defects. Okay? We've got a clear grade, we've got a natural grade. Some lots would be allowed in. What we're chopping out is anything that you wouldn't want in your floor.

Kevin

A check, a split, maybe a hole in the wood.

Exactly. -Kevin

Okay.

Dennis

So after the chop saw, the flooring comes out here. These guys are doing the grade separations.

Kevin

That is some good-looking stuff right there.

Dennis

Yeah, pretty nice stuff. Okay, Kevin, so this is our last step. Air grabs the board. We have a saw cuts it square. There's two horizontal saws that put a tongue on each side. The rollers take it to the other side, same thing happens. The groove is put on the opposite side. From there, it goes over, is made in a nest of bundles, packaged, ready to put on a truck.

Kevin

Next stop, our house, huh?

Dennis

Next stop, your house, right.

Kevin

Thank you very much. Thank you to the whole family. We love knowing where our hardwood floors came from.

Dennis

Cool.

Richard

As part of our Generation Next initiative, we're trying to convince young people to consider the building trades as a career path. It was 100 years ago the federal government first started funding vocational education. But today's vocational schools are nothing like they were when I grew up. This is Essex Agricultural and Technical High School, and the variety of the curricula that's being taught inside this building is amazing. In addition to traditional high school course work -- English, math, and science -- they also have classes in equine science, culinary arts, graphic communications, automotive technology. This lab teaches the skills needed to start a career as an electrician. But we came here for the plumbing and HVAC shops. As you may know, two of the students from here are actually working with us on the Newton "This Old House" project. And Jim Russell's our plumbing instructor here. Hey,

Jim. -Jim

Hey, Rich, how you doing?

Richard

Nice to be here in your laboratory.

Jim

Thank you very much for coming.

Richard

Take us through what's going on here.

Jim

So, basically, we're trying to mimic the outside world in this shop atmosphere. And we can do all that with these booths that are here.

Richard

Great. Everything they might find out in the real world.

Jim

Everything they might find. Let me show you. Cedric here is installing a shower valve.

Richard

All right. So, Cedric, what do you got? Oh, you got -- Here's what you're trying to match there.

Cedric

Yeah, I'm trying to match this on to here.

Richard

So you drilled the studs and anchored everything?

Yes. -Richard

Good, nicely done. That won't make any noise in the wall, too, will it?

Nope. -Richard

Good job.

Jim

Let me take you over here. These two students are installing a toilet.

Richard

Hey,

guys. -Student

Hey, how's it going?

Richard

You guys do the drain work here, too?

Student

Yes,

we did. -Richard

What did you use?

Student

PVC.

Richard

In the old days, we used to pour hot lead.

It's a lot easier with PVC. -Student

I bet.

Jim

We also have them use cast iron as well as the PVC, because they need to know how to use all the fittings and transitions and so forth. And it's not just plumbing, either. We also teach heating, basic hydronics, high-efficiency boiler.

Richard

So a heating boiler right here, all the proper piping.

Jim

Yep. These girls are hooking in a heat cell.

Richard

They got the smart people doing the heating. I'm getting cold. So, guys, look, I hate to stop you from all your work. But I wanted to take a couple minutes just to say thank you. Thanks for letting us come visit you guys today. Jim's not listening. Are you learning enough here to get on into the trade?

All

Yes, most definitely.

Richard

That's great. How did it happen? How did you choose to come?

Student

Came here for carpentry, didn't know what I wanted to do, came into the plumbing shop, found Mr. Russell. He was really nice, and I just enjoy working around here.

Richard

I still think it's magic when you do a plumbing system and you got hot and cold water where it should be, it's clean water you can trust. The waste goes away, right? Everybody's so happy, it's like magic, isn't it? And when you first hook up a heating system, you flip on the switch, and people think you're a genius. I wish you guys the best. I'm really excited for you. This is not your father's vo-tech school. They're teaching real-life skills in the trades. And for many of these kids, they're also helping to build them a career.

Kevin

The oak flooring milled for us in Pennsylvania is down in the family room and throughout the kitchen. But in the mudroom, well, we're actually putting down a cement tile. We saw our homeowner design this on a computer. It's a great room for it because there's a lot of traffic. You can come in from the outside, from the porch right here, you can come in from the garage up into this space. Also, Joe's parents have got some room above the garage, and you'll be getting to that up this beautiful staircase you're putting in, Norm.

Norm

That's right. This is all, you know, wood. It's got skirt boards made out of poplar, risers made out of poplar, and then some nice white oak treads. And a big, heavy newel post right here.

Kevin

Poplar gonna get painted, oak gonna stay stained?

Norm

It'll be stained or clear finish.

Kevin

Nice. Okay.

Norm

So there's two more treads to go in, and they're not between the two skirt boards. As you see with this one, they're gonna extend by because of the newel post. So what I'm gonna do is, first I want to cut this to length because if you see, I push it up against the skirt board. One, the skirt board may not be perfectly square. So we had a little extra wood, so I take this block, put it between here. Make sure this back edge stays just flush. It's gonna go into a groove after we cut it. I take the same block over to the other end. And if I put it up against the skirt board, I can use my utility knife just to score the top of the tread, and that's exactly where I want to cut it. Very accurate, even better than using the pair ascribed. All right. Let's see how we did. Get it into the groove. Take the mallet...

That's nice and tight. -Kevin

Ooh, that sure is.

All right. -Kevin

So it fits well. Now, in terms of fastening, Norm, 'cause, I mean, I can tell that you didn't want to see any of the fasteners on these treads.

Norm

Right,

right. -Kevin

What's the process?

Norm

Well, Mattie, who's working here, doing a lot of finished carpentry, showed me a new way to put these treads in. You know, we're learning from our own craftspeople,

which is great. -Kevin

Who knew?

Norm

So what he showed me is you use blocks like this, and you actually attach them to the bottom of the tread with this edge being right behind where this riser is. And then once it's all glued and you set the tread in, you can drive screws through just under the tread, and they go into this block, and they hold the tread in place. Those screws will be covered by the skosh molding later.

Kevin

Cool. Okay.

Norm

All right, so the first thing I have to do now is I have to take a pencil and draw a line at the front of the riser so I know where that is. All right, so now here are the blocks. I've actually drawn a line that's 3/4 inch back just using the block itself. And what we want to do now is we want to put a little bit of glue on these.

Kevin

That 3/4 represents the thickness of the riser?

Norm

That's right.

Kevin

So now we're inbound of that. Cool.

Norm

And so, we'll put this... Okay. I want to be between these two marks. Just line it up with that. And use a couple brads to secure it first.

Nail gun fires

Norm

All right, so it doesn't move. I'll do that first, and then we'll finalize it with some screws. So now we want to put some glue in this groove. Okay, and I want to put some on the top of this and trim board. Okay. Now, on the stringers, we're actually gonna use silicone.

Kevin

Why not glue?

Norm

Well, that's another tip from Mattie, and it's a good one. So we'll put a nice bead down. And once the tread is set in there, the silicone, the advantage of the silicone over anything like construction adhesives, which is often used, is that it's flexible, and it will stay stuck to the stringer as well as the bottom of the tread. So if there's any movement, it kind of softens the stair, yet it holds it all together.

Kevin

Oh. The no-squeak solution.

Norm

That's right. Now we gotta get it back in there. Get started. Make sure it's down there. Then we gotta get those blocks to just...

Kevin

That is a tight fit.

Norm

All right, now we gotta put some clamps on it before we put the screws in. We'll put one in each of these openings. There you go. All right. That does it.

Kevin

Well, look at that, huh? Boy, that is seamless and tight everywhere.

Right. Came out well. -Kevin

That's gonna be great. Nice job. So what do you got coming up next week?

Norm

Well, Joe is gonna help me repurpose an old door.

Kevin

Nice. And wait till you see what Roger's got in store for us -- a prefabricated stone wall.

Norm

Prefabricated?

Kevin

Yeah, it's unbelievable. So until then, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

And I'm Norm Abram. -Kevin

For "This Old House." Prefab...

Kevin

Next time on "This Old House"...

Norm

All right, let's put the door in the opening. Let's see how it looks. Make sure it's up against the side of the jamb nice and tight. I got some help re-hanging an old door.

Roger

You've heard of mobile homes. How about mobile stone walls?

Man

These are each about 6,000 pounds.

Tom

And we saved this old corner cupboard, and now it's time to bring it home.

Norm

That's next time on "This Old House."