This Old House

Kevin

Today on This Old House," a vintage lamp post lights the way to our new home.

All right. There we go. Heath

Looks great.

Roger

We'll add some green to our mud-filled front yard.

Richard

And there's no town water here, so how do you get the water to this house? From 500 feet below my feet.

Tom

Looks pretty bad right here.

Norm

Are you kidding me? Is this place really worth saving?

Richard

We can do better than this.

Tom

Time to get to work.

Kevin

Nice and easy, nice and easy. Everybody together.

Grunting

Kevin

Oh, yeah!

Roger

The right plant in the right place.

Kevin

Good!

Richard

It's state-of-the-art, perfectly square. All in all, a good day's work.

Kevin

Just blink your eyes and something new shows up here in our reproduction farmhouse on Boston's North Shore. Hi, there. I'm Kevin O'Connor, and welcome back to "This Old House." You can see that a lot of the finishing details are starting to go up. This is the mud room, and check out the beautiful paneling that we have all throughout. This is 1x8 poplar boards. Now, they were milled for us up in the factory in Vermont and then installed here on site. And you can see that we have this horizontal shiplap look all throughout the mud room. Now, it the same detail that we're using here in the living room just on this wall. This'll be continued all the way up to the top and then finished with a crown. The mantelpiece just went in today. We've got a little bit more crown to do, and then down here on the first floor, we are still waiting for the hardwood floors to show up and get installed. Hey, Erik. How are you?

Erik

Good.

Kevin

And I think we finished off the den. We did. We've got the bookshelves in and we've got all the paneling done in there, and that looks terrific. So handrail today?

Erik

Handrail today. We're gonna set the new one. We got the handrail up top going.

Kevin

So the staircase itself went in in, well, what, about a half-hour?

Yep. -Kevin

That was fast.

Erik

It was.

Kevin

You expect the handrail to go as quickly?

Erik

I do. We got a lot of this stuff from the factory. We've already set the top newel, gotten that taken care of. We're gonna get this bottom newel in, the rail, and these balusters. As you can see, they've already notched out this newel, cut out this tread, and this is all stuff that we'd have to do if this didn't come from the factory.

Kevin

And because they did it up there, I mean, look at that perfect fit.

Erik

We got this really nice fit. We're gonna attach it from underneath the subfloor and behind the riser here that we can access from behind the basement stairs.

I'll give you a hand. -Erik

Sounds good. From the basement, I'll drill a pilot hole into the bottom of the post. Kevin shims the post to level it. Next, we'll enlarge the pilot holes, and finally, attach the newel with lag bolts from below, then through the riser. Let's do it right there.

Kevin

Okay. Last one. I'll set this base in for you.

Erik

Take a look.

Kevin

How's that look?

Erik

Looks good to me. I just got to nail this off, fill in between these balusters, but other than that, we're good to go on here.

Kevin

So the railing system took a little longer than it took us to put the entire staircase in, but still pretty fast.

Erik

Yeah, and look at the end result.

Kevin

It looks beautiful. Nice job, Erik.

Erik

Thank you.

Kevin

Out front, our hardscaping starts with this granite stoop right here, which then steps down to the brick walkways -- a traditional material -- and this whole plan was put together for us for Kim Turner. Hey, Kim. How are you?

Kim

Hi, Kevin.

Kevin

Hey,

Manny. -Manny

Hi, Kevin.

Kevin

So what are you guys working on here?

Kim

So we have our light post going in today.

Kevin

Oh, nice. All right.

Kim

So we want to make this house look like it's always been here, and the best way to do that is to use traditional materials -- brick and granite. But the granite we've selected is reclaimed, so it's not fresh quarried, but it's got a story to it.

Kevin

Similar to what you guys specced for out back.

Kim

That's right.

Kevin

And each one of these pieces of stone has got its own story, right? What's this guy's story?

Kim

So this one came from an old bridge embankment.

Kevin

Oh, cool. And what's Manny working on here?

Kim

So we have a light that's coming to affix to the front of this, and it's pretty rough so we need to smooth it out, so he's grinding it down.

Kevin

Well, let's see him smooth. Okay, Manny. How do you think you did?

Manny

I believe we're ready to do a quick test here.

Kevin

All right. Looks pretty flat. So...

Manny

Here's a light.

Kevin

Hey,

Heath. -Heath

Hi, Kevin.

Kevin

So this is the beauty that's going in. Look at this thing, huh? Handcrafted for us up at the little shop in Vermont, and you had a little bit in the say of this.

Kim

I did. So we selected a fixture that complements what's going on the house, but we scaled it down to fit this light post.

Kevin

That is a beauty, and how'd we do with the fit? Heath, what's your process to get this thing in?

Heath

So our process now is to check the fit and make sure everything sits nice and flat, which it does.

Kevin

That's cool.

Heath

Then we'll take the template. This'll allow us to drill our mounting holes for the fixture.

Kevin

We've got four of those in the corners. Right.

Heath

And then once we're done with that, we'll put a snake through the hole that's already been drilled from the quarry.

Kevin

Boy, that's great. About an inch-wide hole all the way through this piece of stone.

Heath

And then Manny will stand the stone up.

Kevin

All right, let's get this thing on.

Manny

All right.

Kevin

Holes work out for you there all right?

Heath

Worked out well.

Kevin

Beautiful, all right. You got a snake?

Heath

So now we're gonna put the snake through.

Kevin

All right. Nice to have that hole pre-drilled. So, Manny, the snake's gonna go through. You ready to kind of lift this thing and start moving it?

Manny

Yes, we are. We're gonna tie up the chain and bring the machine over and ready to rock and roll.

Kevin

Got it. All right, so your process, in terms of thinking about where this goes...

Kim

Yeah, so we're gonna orient it so the light is illuminating the walkway.

Kevin

Facing this way, obviously.

Kim

Exactly. And we're setting it back about three to four feet from the edge of the driveway so the plow doesn't hit it.

Kevin

And how far in the ground are you gonna sink it?

Kim

So the post itself is just under eight feet. We're gonna sink it about three so we have five feet exposed.

Kevin

Puts it at the right eye level?

It's the right level. -Kevin

Okay. That's gonna make a statement, right?

Kim

Sure is.

Kevin

Does the stone look okay, Kim?

Kim

Great.

Kevin

Oh, there it is. So, Heath, you gonna wire this now or we gonna set the post?

Heath

The next step is to pour the concrete to set the post.

Kevin

That must be you,

Manny. -Manny

Yep.

Kevin

All right. Somebody got a bucket of concrete?

All right. There we go. -Heath

Looks great.

Kevin

So what do you think, Kim? You happy?

Kim

I love it. For a brand-new, custom light post, it looks like it's been here forever. The whole front of the house looks fantastic, too. Manny, you did a great job with the walkway and all of it.

Manny

Thank you, Kim.

Kevin

Yeah, looks terrific, guys. Nice job.

Manny

Thank you.

Kevin

I love it. I think it's great.

Richard

There are no town-supplied water lines that come to this property, so the Harbs will have to rely on getting their water from a well. They drilled down at this point. You can see the cap right here. And they went down about 500 feet through mostly rock. So, the challenge is how do you get water that's 500 feet down and pretty heavy from that point to the second-floor bathroom? About 500 feet below me is a water reservoir, also called the water table. Now, the water got there from rain falling onto the earth and going down through layer upon layer of sand, rock, and gravel. But it actually works as the ultimate filter. Now sometimes, though, that water going down through there can pick up minerals, and that's what they call hard water. The hole they dug is a straight shaft. In order to get the water to the surface, the well-drillers placed a 1.5-horsepower pump at the end of a very long pipe, then dropped that pipe to the bottom of the well. An electric cable provides power to the pump, which pushes the water up. To test for hard water, you can have a professional test done, but there's a simple test you can do at home. Take a sample of your water and add a few drops of soap. Now, hard water will not allow any suds to develop. Soft water will let suds happen. Shake it up. Okay. There's no question that that water is soft. Now, the local town insists on a professional water test, and we had one done here. What this report tells us is there are no harmful chemicals, no bacteria, and the good news -- the water is soft. A water softener is not needed. The water quality in this house is perfectly fine. We don't need a softener. We don't really even need a filter. We do need to get the water from that well pump 500 feet down to that second-floor bathroom, so this is command central. You can see right here that the line comes from the pump right here in a trench. Now, that trench has to be down, in this climate, about four feet below the frost line so the water line won't freeze in the winter. And it comes to this point, and this is really the brains of the operation right here. In the old days, we'd have a well pump, and it would be either on at full blast or off. And with that, we needed to have a big well tank right here to keep that pump from cycling on and off so much that it would short-cycle its life. With this, this thing feels the pressure in the system and brings on the pump just the right amount to keep the pressure constant upstairs. So it's a lot like having cruise control on your automobile, always keeping, in this case, the system at 60 pounds pressure. So now, there's also a little diaphragm expansion tank here, and that also helps the pump from short cycling too much. But it's much smaller than the big ones we used to need. Now, you can see our red and blue lines right here. This is the hot and cold piping -- the PEX tubing out to our plumbing fixtures. And there'll be a water heater right here in the corner. Now, there's only one Achilles' heel for a well system. That's if you lose electricity, you lose your water. But our electrical expert, Scott Caron, has a solution for that.

Scott

That's right, Richard. This house is located on the outskirts of town. A big storm could knock out the utility lines, leaving this house with no electricity or water for days. So the Harbs wanted a little self-sufficiency, and they've asked us to install this whole-house generator. This is how it works. This is an automatic stand-by generator, which means when the power goes out, it automatically kicks in. This runs on gas. This particular one on propane. We have a motor here -- basically a car engine -- which turns the alternator. The alternator sends electricity back to the house. Now, when the electricity comes back on, switches back automatically to the grid. You'll never know it. Heath is the electrician installing the generator.

Heath

Good morning, Scott. How are you?

Scott

Good. Looks great. Tell me what's going on here.

Heath

Good. We're almost there. So what we've done so far is we started off by putting conduits in the ground to provide power to the generator and for the generator to provide power back to the house. Then we poured the pad on top of that.

Scott

Yeah, it looks good.

Heath

Got everything ready to go, put the gas line in, have the unit set, battery in, and just one more step.

Scott

What's that step?

Heath

Just got to pull the final wires from inside the transfer switch to the unit.

Scott

All right. Looks like you got a pull string in there.

Heath

We do.

Scott

You need a hand?

Heath

I do.

Scott

All right, I'll be out here and you can go inside.

Heath

Perfect.

Scott

There are a lot of wires going from the generator inside the house. There's the main power wires that send electricity from the generator into the house during an outage, and there's the communication wires. The communication wires are telling the generator, "Power's out. Go ahead and start." It starts the generator, transfers the utility switch inside, and that's how the house gets electricity. Now, our electrician, Heath, is inside. He's gonna feed the wires out to me right now. I can hear him through this conduit.

Heath

All set,

Scott. -Scott

Yep. Go ahead. Okay, that's good. Now we're gonna get Heath out here to tie in these wires. So the wires are all tied in outside at the generator. Inside here, Heath is tying the final connections into the transfer switch. So what happens during a power outage or a brownout -- this switch senses it, starts the generator. The generator sends electricity to this switch. You can't have two sources going to the house, so it disconnects the utility wires and sends power to the house. The generator provides electricity to the entire house, including all the critical loads like the well. However, it's not big enough to supply electricity all at once. This load-control module, it says, "All right, electric dryer, air conditioner, oven -- hold off a second. You don't need to come on yet. Let's get the rest of the house going," and then it pulls them in as they're needed. And then once they're not needed anymore, it may pull them out if the power need's there. Heath, how you doing on tying everything in?

Heath

Just about all set.

Scott

All right, let's fire it up. This is the meter socket. This is where the power comes in from the utility and goes into the house from here. Now, we're gonna shut this switch off, which will shut the power off to the house. The car battery inside the generator will start it up. Let's see how it goes.

Engine starts

Scott

Hey, hey. Looks great, huh?

Heath

Looks like the generator's doing its job.

Scott

Yeah, supplying power, and this looks like the place to be during a storm.

Heath

Looks good.

Scott

What are you up to next?

Heath

Heading up to work on the cupola light.

Scott

All right,

good luck. -Heath

Thanks.

Kevin

This staircase off of the mud room leads to above the garage, and up here, well, we've got a guest suite. It has a full bath in here, and then an extra bedroom in here, which is about to get a brand-new coat of paint. And right above us here is one of the nicest features of this house. It is the cupola. It was manufactured in the factory up in Vermont, but a few weeks ago, a giant crane swung it into place, put it on top of the roof, and today, we've got to add the final detail, which is our light. -Hey,

Heath. -Heath

Hi, Kevin. How are you?

Kevin

All right. Another handmade beauty there.

Heath

Another handmade light fixture from the same place in Vermont that made the other fixtures for the outside of the home.

Kevin

Beautiful. Looks nice and historic -- the right proportions. Did you have to modify it at all?

Heath

We're just getting it ready to hang by installing the chain, hang the fixture at the right height in the cupola.

Kevin

Got it.

Heath

Put some LED lamps in so the homeowner doesn't have to climb up there too often to change them, hopefully.

Kevin

That is not an easy place to get to.

Heath

And we're just getting ready to install it now, so... I'll go up if you want to hand that to me.

Kevin

I will.

Heath

Perfect.

Kevin

Got it?

Heath

Got it.

Kevin

All right, you all set, Heath?

Heath

All set.

Kevin

All right, let's turn it on. All right, Heath. Do you think it's gonna work?

Heath

Absolutely.

Kevin

Which one? Let's go check it out. All right, let's give this thing a look. Oh, yeah. What do you think?

I think it looks good. -Kevin

So do I. Homeowners are gonna be thrilled with that. -Nice work,

Heath. -Heath

Thanks.

Roger

Today's a special day at our project house, 'cause we're gonna turn this muddy mess into a green, beautiful front yard. What do you got, Kim?

Kim

Hi, Roger. Today we have a really nice combination of foundation shrubs going in, starting with this Delaware Valley White azalea, which is a compacted shrub, so it won't get much taller than the bottom of these windows but has a nice white flower in the early spring.

Roger

And an upright over here next to the door?

Kim

That's right. We have an upright Steeds holly, which will get taller than the azalea, but it will really help frame out this front door really well.

Roger

I like we can let it grow up a little bit, but we can also easily prune it. And it's an evergreen there, so it will have something all season.

Kim

Evergreen, and it's a nice dark green foliage that will contrast against the white house.

Roger

Same thing on this side?

Kim

Yeah, we're just mimicking what we had on the other side of the doorway with more azaleas and holly.

Roger

And over here, we have some hydrangeas.

Kim

We do. We have Annabelle hydrangea here, which is an old-fashioned plant, so it's kind of in keeping with the style of the house. This is a low plant. It has a weeping form and a large white flower in the late summer.

Roger

It doesn't look like much now, but next fall it'll be absolutely beautiful.

Kim

It really will.

Roger

Let's get them in the ground.

Kim

All right. Just spin it a little bit this way. So just cut a straight bed line here with the sod.

Roger

Kim, I love sod. Now, you could seed a lawn, but you have to wait 16 months and take perfect care of it to end up with the sod.

Kim

That's right. It's instant gratification.

Roger

So why not put it down from the beginning? And where are you gonna put it?

Kim

So they have a really big backyard, so yesterday, we were able to sod as much as their budget would allow. We put the irrigation lines down underneath it and then laid the sod right on top.

Roger

So it's all ready to go.

Kim

It's ready to go, and in the front yard, we're gonna go right from the front plant bed all the way to the driveway.

Roger

And, Mike, what are you using for a blend of sod?

Mike

We're using -- it's called Black Beauty, and it's a new variety that's out. It's high in fescue, and the good thing about the fescue is that it's very low maintenance, and it also needs less fertilizer, less water, drought tolerant, salt tolerant, and it's just a great product.

Roger

Sounds like a great choice. Let's see it go in.

Mike

Okay.

Roger

Kim, it's really starting to shape up.

Kim

Sure is.

Roger

Hey, April's here. Hi, April.

April

Hi, guys.

Roger

And who you got with you?

This is Sophie. -Roger

How old is she?

April

Sophie is eight months.

Roger

Oh, you're so cute with the little smile.

Kim

So we have one more specimen tree coming in here on the side of the porch, and this has particular significance to you, April.

April

It does, yeah. So it's a tree that we're planting in memory of my brother, Malcolm. He passed away almost two years ago, and we really thought it would be a nice thing to plant a tree in his honor, and it would bloom every single spring, which would be a nice reminder of him.

Kim

And you'll see it right from the kitchen window, which will be great. So this is an Appalachian Blush dogwood, which is a cultivar of a native tree. It's a really beautiful plant with a white flower with a tinge of pink around the outside. Really beautiful plant for you to see.

April

Yeah. We're really excited.

Roger

That tree looks absolutely beautiful there.

April

It does.

Roger

Do you believe that the next time we're here, you're gonna be moving in to your new house?

April

I can't believe it.

Roger

And until then, I'm Roger Cook.

Kim

I'm Kim Turner.

April

I'm April Harb, and this is Sophie.

Roger

For "This Old House." The yard's really shaping up.

Kevin

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

Norm

We started with an empty piece of land. We bulldozed, we blasted...

Richard

We perked and we poured concrete.

Tom

I'm kind of anxious to see how the inside came out, 'cause I haven't been here since we were framing.

Norm

Yeah, it has been a while.

Tom

Now we have a factory-fresh 1850s farmhouse.

Kevin

The final tour is coming up.

Norm

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