Newton, MA 10 - Recap

Kevin O’Connor starts out jogging along the Boston Marathon route, where he has a “chance encounter” with four time champion Bill Rodgers. The marathon route includes the road on which the project house sits. Bill and Kevin briefly discuss the history of the marathon, including its infamous Heartbreak Hill, and how this particular marathon draws competitors from all over the world.

Norm pulls up to the house, where the painting crew works. Fall, he says, is the right time to paint in New England; the cool, dry air helps the paint dry. The homeowners never appreciated the deep green (with cream colored trim) of the house and according to an expert it isn’t a good choice for this type of home. The paint is in good condition but there is an enormous amount of paintable surface. Painting contractor Jim Clark leads the painting team. He has already discovered that the shingles are new and in good shape with just one coat of paint – they need only light sanding. But the trim is a different story. Most of it is original to the house and therefore over a hundred years old. It bears layers and layers of paint. A previous individual scraped the paint but did not feather the edges of the chips. Those areas will chip and peel again unless properly prepared. Painters use an infrared (heat) machine to soften the paint and a scraper (with plenty of elbow grease) to remove it. Because of the work involved, Jim suggests concentrating on the front of the house. This part is most visible to passers by and guests, to investment here yields the greatest return. Clark’s crew will use two coats of acrylic paint over an oil-based primer. Total job time, around three weeks for six men.

Once, Kevin tells viewers, the only easy access to the backyard was from a porch on the side of the house. With the renovation, stairs connect a back porch that opens off the mud room and kitchen to the corner of the yard. More stairs connect that corner to the bluestone patio. Usually, Roger installs bluestone on stone dust, but for this job he’ll use a mixture of sand and pea stone to encourage water to sink through the patio instead of shedding into the yard. A layer of landscape fabric keeps that mixture from washing into the stone beneath it, which collects and directs the water to a large pipe and the drywells.

Kevin also talks to Roger about the bluestone stairs at one corner. Fire and water used together create a fire finish, which is a rough finish that offers good traction even wet. Because their position will make resetting them almost impossible, Roger uses a concrete pad and block to ensure that once set, these stairs will not move. Roger then demonstrates how the crew sets each three hundred pound step into place.

Under the deck, Tom shows Kevin how much Roger and his crew had to excavate to create the headroom, moving the grade down to the level of the basement. This also involved removal of a short flight of steps that led up from the basement floor to the original grade. That left a small void in the slab. For this job, Tom won’t need a truck, just a few barrows of concrete mixed by hand on the job site. He fills the hole a third full and sets reinforcing wire into the mix, then brings the rest of the concrete in. Roger screeds it level. In an hour when the next slab has set up a bit, they’ll float it smooth.

Upstairs, Tom’s crew has begun work on the insulation. The exterior walls already contain insulation, a stroke of luck for the homeowner. That leaves only a few voids once occupied by electrical boxes and suchlike. Expanding foam fills these. The crew must also insulate new exterior walls with this foam, and a layer of it around the master bathroom helps control noise.

Outside, Tom identifies a ceiling that is also the floor of a conditioned third floor space. Tom’s men drill holes into the ceiling to access the bays, and then fill these bays with the same expanding foam used elsewhere. Expanding foam pumped into these holes fills the bays and prevents movement of unconditioned air. Another two days and the insulation will be complete and the work ready for wallboard and plaster.

On the third floor, Kevin finds a few extra bedrooms, a playroom for the kids, and a man cave containing a pool table. Built in 1920, the table came with the house and the homeowner plans to make it the center of this particular room. Other amenities planned include a wall-hung flat screen television and a gaming table. An antique lighting fixture hangs over the pool table. Scott Sweeney, a lighting expert, explains that it is an old combination gas/electric light from the late nineteenth century, a time when electricity was relatively unreliable. The gas fixtures provided light when the electric ones were out of service. Sweeney recommends refurbishing the relatively rare fixture. He’ll replace the utilitarian shades with case glass shades – two layers of glass, white inside and green outside. He’ll also wire the gas tubing and add a replacement shade to create accent lighting.

Outside, Kevin explains that shingles will wrap the porch, and that the architect has called for a flare effect at the base of the column. Tom explains how he and his men will achieve this. Untreated wood may not be within eight inches of the ground, so Tom uses PVC trim pieces at the very base of the column. Above this he installs beveled wood blocks to provide a solid nailing surface for the lowest courses of shingles. Tom next wraps the column in felt paper. This allows the shingles to move independently of the structural members, decreasing the chance of cracks. Finally, it is time for the singles. But Tom starts with a lower grade of shingles for the first course. Because these will not be seen, he saves money. With Kevin’s help pressing the shingle in, Tom shows how to cut it carefully to shape, then gently nail it in place (using pairs of nails) and finally finish it with a block plane to achieve the flared look. He works back and forth between each nail in a pair to minimize the chance of splitting the shingle. With the first course complete, Tom prepares for the visible shingle courses. Made of Western Red Cedar and primed on all six sides, these shingles may lightly touch on the sides. They go directly on top of the sealed lower course. Tom alternates the corners on each course; a technique called weaving.

Back upstairs, Norm talks to Steve Kelly, a pool table expert, about renovating the table. Kelly discusses the history of the table (a local firm constructed it in the late nineteenth century). Then he disassembles the side rails and cuts the cloth, revealing the three heavy slate pieces. He will take the parts to his shop, refurbish them, and then return and reassemble them – the felt cloth, for example, cannot be installed until the slate pieces are reset into the frame.

As the show draws to a close, Tom supervises the arrival of two hundred sheets of drywall needed to close the interior walls! Neither he nor Norm seems terribly interested in training for the marathon with Kevin...

Share this article with your friends