♪♪
Kevin: On "Ask This Old House,"
our experts travel across the country
to answer questions about your house.
♪♪
Today, on "Ask This Old House"...
Jenn helps a couple update the landscaping in their front yard
and ended up with a whole new shade pattern.
Plus, Richard shares his love of teaching plumbing,
heating, and cooling and where his inspiration comes from.
Then he shows me the new facility
that he built to test and teach modern HVAC equipment.
All that on "Ask This Old House."
♪♪
Stephen: Hi, Jenn, I'm Stephen. Jenn: Nice to meet you.
Angel: Angel. Jenn: Angel, nice to meet you.
Angel: Thank you.
Jenn: So why don't you tell me a little bit about your property?
I mean, I saw the pictures, but it's completely different
to be seeing it in person. So... Stephen: Yeah, absolutely.
We had two humongous oak trees right in the front.
Jenn: Okay.
Stephen: But they were rotting from the inside,
so we had to take them down. Jenn: Okay.
Stephen: Now it looks totally different.
Jenn: I could tell that there's hostas and plants,
like shade-loving plants, that were here
because that was the light condition.
But now everything's changed, right?
Stephen: Yes. Jenn: So, full blazing sun.
Stephen: Yes. Full sun, southern-facing, yeah.
Jenn: Okay. Stephen: Totally.
Angel: I'm a florist.
And I'm looking for something that stands out,
color, texture, heights, different mix of it.
Jenn: So now you'll have the opportunity
to do full sun plantings. Angel: That's right.
Jenn: So, why don't we go take a look
at the whole scope of the yard.
Stephen: All right. Yeah. Absolutely.
Jenn: Okay, so, right off the bat I could just see the hosta
have been burned. You know, there's definitely
a lot of shade plantings over here.
And they need to be relocated. Angel: Yes.
Jenn: Coming over to the walkway,
which is a beautiful, curved walkway, by the way,
I just noticed the mums next to the boxwoods,
and they're completely just fighting for space.
And I'm sure once upon a time
they started really cute and small?
Angel: That's right.
Jenn: So, now they've outgrown their space.
We could reuse them somewhere else.
So, along this whole walkway we could reorganize.
Coming over here, this hydrangea is fine,
and it's going to do well in the sunlight.
But when I go over here, I see about five, five hollies.
And so, this is a common mistake
people make from the garden center.
They buy a 2-gallon pot, maybe 18 inches high,
and they don't know it's going to get 8 to 12 feet high
in time.
So, you can have them as a foundation planting,
but you have to keep them pruned and keep them in check.
Prune them once a year.
But what I'd like to do is probably -- looking at them,
they're about a foot off the foundation.
I'd dig them all up, only put two back in here,
and then pull them out and then give them enough space,
and then I'll teach you how to prune them throughout the year.
Stephen: Great. Jenn: Okay?
Hydrangea is fine.
All these little plants, like the little pine,
we could relocate them.
Definitely burned, too much sun. Stephen: Mm-hmm.
Jenn: But I'm sure there's some shady spots
you could use it out back.
Definitely won't throw them away
but repurpose them somewhere.
This is a weigela.
I like the burgundy color. Adds a little pop.
But it's doing its job hiding the gas meter.
So, I think this one we'll just prune.
And then this rose of Sharon?
I think we could take it down, like,
three feet and just keep...
If you keep on the pruning throughout the season
and know what time of year to prune what,
so you don't cut off the flower buds, it's beneficial.
And then you'll have constant blooms in your landscape.
Stephen: That's what I want.
Jenn: Okay? So, do you guys have any other comments?
Stephen: Well, we would love to have it more like
a pollinator garden... Jenn: Okay.
Stephen: ...and get rid of some grass
and bring kind of the plantings
a little bit into the space now that it's open.
Jenn: Okay, I'm a fan of removing grass,
so we could definitely do that.
And then maybe incorporate where this old stump is
and then even it out a little bit.
Stephen: Yeah, that sounds good. Jenn: All right.
So why don't we just get started cleaning out what is existing,
what you have here, and then we'll build off of that.
Stephen: Sounds great. Jenn: Okay.
And then try to get a nice root ball.
And then when you pop it out,
we can put it over there on that blue tarp.
And then we'll repurpose it after.
Awesome.
Angel: I don't think they're very deep, though.
Jenn: No, they're not.
I try not to break the root ball.
Angel: Yep.
Jenn: What you want to do
is cut right above the two next little buds
coming out -- nice, clean cut.
And then next season these buds are going to grow up
and be the next leaves.
So, let's take this rose of Sharon down.
Stephen: Yeah, let's. Jenn: I mean, just take it --
I go back three feet, two and a half, three feet.
Stephen: Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn: See, I like pruning by hand
because it's just then you can dictate the shape.
♪♪
Now that we've cleaned up, let's mark out our bed lines.
You can use a garden hose or rope
to figure out your desired shape.
Okay. Stephen: Looks great.
Jenn: Sod-cutter time.
Stephen: All right, I want to see this, heavy machinery.
♪♪
Jenn: All right, guys.
So, we're going to go around with rakes.
And this is what it's going to look like.
So, the sod cutter just takes up
the roots, right? Stephen: Oh, yep.
Jenn: So, it's a nice clean, clean cut.
And when you rake it back... You know,
if this was really thick sod, it would stick together.
We could roll it back like a carpet, but this is just fine.
You could use your hands. You could use a rake.
We'll make a pile and then get rid of it.
Stephen: Sounds great.
Jenn: So, why don't you guys start over there?
Stephen: Oh, that's cool. Jenn: Right?
Saves a lot of sweat effort.
♪♪
Oh, isn't that satisfying?
Stephen: It is so satisfying!
I will not miss this grass, I'll tell you that.
Jenn: All right, so we're just raking all this compost in
before we rototill. I brought about three yards.
So, we'll just have those extra nutrients.
Let the games begin! Stephen: Ha ha!
♪♪
Jenn: One more. Perfect, right there.
And I was thinking it would go right here.
Stephen: Great spot. Angel: Perfect.
Stephen: Yeah, I love it. I love the shape of the leaves.
Jenn: I know. This is a ginkgo tree.
It's a dwarf ginkgo.
Let's get the hollies. We're only putting two, okay?
You know, we're gonna go three feet from the foundation.
Stephen: Okay.
Jenn: All right. Next, ornamental grasses.
These are going to get, like, five feet wide
when they spread out. Stephen: Yep.
Where do you like this? Right here?
Angel: Yeah. That's kind of cool.
Jenn: So the purpose of this is so it doesn't grow in a circle,
like around the pot,
because if you don't break the roots up,
they'll continue growing that way and choke themselves out.
♪♪
Okay.
Stephen: Good?
Jenn: All right. That looks good.
Stephen: Is it standing up straight?
Angel: Yep.
♪♪
There you go. Yep.
Stephen: You sure? Angel: Yep.
Stephen: You have to be sure.
♪♪
Jenn: All right. This is the last step.
We're going to do the mulching. This is a nice leaf mulch.
Stephen: When you said mulch, I was thinking like wood chips,
but I never used leaf mulch before.
Jenn: So, it's like a triple grind of composted leafs.
Stephen: Nice.
Jenn: Everything organic will break down into your soil
and natural fertilizers.
Stephen: Hmm.
♪♪
Angel: Look at this. Stephen: It's amazing.
Jenn: Wow. It is a beautiful transformation, I have to say.
Stephen: This is what I wanted. Angel: I love it.
Jenn: I'm so happy.
And just all we did is move around
plants that were too close, reuse them, redistributed,
add a few other bones, and it is beautiful.
So, all you have to do is keep it watered.
I'd go to Thanksgiving time or end of the season,
you know, hard stop. And then the only other thing
I would say is the ornamental grasses.
Some people like to cut them down for it
to be clean in the winter. I like to leave them up.
You know, it's a little habitat for birds and stuff.
And you cut them down in late winter, early spring.
Stephen: Okay, great.
Jenn: This whole middle strip is for you to play with color
so you can have spring, summer, late-fall blooms
and then your bulbs and perennials and just go nuts.
Stephen: That's his job. Jenn: Yeah.
Stephen: And I promise I'll prune things more frequently.
Jenn: Yes. And then not as close together.
Stephen: Promise. Jenn: All right?
Stephen: Thank you so much for coming.
Jenn: You're welcome. Nice to meet you.
Stephen: Thanks so much. Jenn: Take care.
Angel: Bye. Stephen: Bye.
Ahh! Look at this!
♪♪
Richard: I've always been passionate about teaching.
So, I thought we would take a minute to talk about siphons.
So, I thought we'd take a minute to talk about the care
and feeding of an outside sill cock or spigot.
I like teaching, I like when people get it.
See these holes down at the bottom?
Man: Oh, yeah.
Richard: So it's much like those air holes
on a table-hockey game.
You know, where the air is coming this way.
Also, the passion comes from my father.
So, way back when, we got a call
from a local public-television station.
We got a chance to do "This Old House."
And they said, "You know, we're public television.
You have to work for nothing." And he jumps on the line.
He says, "Sure. Yeah. I think that would be great."
And he hung up and I said, "Why?"
He said, "You know what? We're having a good year.
Maybe it'll help the plumber's image."
And he used the term "pay it forward," as I remember.
But he sort of had this way of saying,
"I want to push in and help the industry and float
all the boats in the industry." And he did.
Ron: The best way to start
to disassemble it so we can remove it is to drop it.
Oh, super! Super!
It's so good to see that go.
Richard: We had some amazing mechanics
at our family business growing up,
these people that had been there for 30, 40, 50 years
that were my mentors.
There was a guy, Bill Gensen,
had been there 50 years when I was there.
So, had this collective-history memory
that just made me feel like I was there in 1902.
And there was another guy, Tony Lucas,
who by the time I would have been able to
just figure out how to get my folding rule open,
he had five pieces of pipe run in the building.
He just was this magician. He could see it.
He could see it in three dimensions.
And he was an artist. And those are the people I grew up with.
And so I borrow from them all the time.
What we're going to install today
is an indirect hot-water heater.
This is a radon-mitigation device.
These are great.
You know this -- you think this is pink.
But actually you know what they called it back then?
They called it "Bermuda coral."
It sounded a lot better than pink, I guess.
My industry is the least understood
by the public in general.
You know, people know that there's a thermostat in the wall
that sends them a bill.
What I want to do is demystify the mechanical world,
just sort of simplify it. And so when I do that,
I find myself wanting to speak to the third grade.
I want to make sure that everybody understands.
And I use my hands to try
and help understand what the words are.
There's nothing more horrifying than coming home
and seeing water coming out of the walls.
Right now, we got to get you so you can sleep at night.
I always try to use word pictures and metaphors.
You know, this is like this, which means this.
And that's what I would want, how I'd want to be taught.
And so, with that comes a little bit of passion,
a little bit of theater.
Now it'll fill those radiators with steam.
Thermostat should shut off.
And now the steam gives off its heat to the room.
And the water that's inside,
the steam that's inside, turns to water.
And now it's called "condensate."
Comes back through the same pipe,
all the way back to the boiler, and it can be reheated.
I'm emphatic when I talk,
but I think if you say something, you have to see it.
This is an energy-recovery ventilator.
It's pretty simple in size. It has a core right here.
And this is really a heat exchanger.
You have to help them imagine where it is
if you're not going to see it, particularly behind walls,
particularly with television.
You'll look carefully.
You'll notice that there are different layers.
Air goes this way. This layer, the next,
it goes the opposing way, and they just alternate.
If I'm going to take somebody inside the mechanical world,
a lot of times it's in a really hard place to shoot.
So, oftentimes guess what? Underneath the sink.
Man: Say when. Richard: Okay.
Man: Down? Richard: No, no, no. Okay.
There it is.
And then, you know, there's a lot of times
you want to explain, you know, inside of a pipe.
And these cameras came along that could just go down.
And so, nothing is better than taking America down a big drain.
It makes it real.
These tools have changed everything for me
to be able to tell what's going on.
Then there's all these digital-temperature thermometers
and thermographic cameras that can bring temperature to life,
you know, that we never had before.
It used to be we went, "A-ha-ha, that's hot."
Now we can actually know exactly how hot it is.
So, the tools get better and better.
And that only makes it easier to teach.
There's this really brilliant control
on the front that's like a smartphone,
where it puts all the right water temperatures
into the different functions of the building.
Kevin: Beautiful.
Richard: You can remotely dial into it. So, pretty cool.
I think our show has done as good as anybody
to sort of demystify the mechanical room
and the whole mechanical world.
So, here's what the unit looks like on the outside.
We've seen these before. They're used all over the world.
You can see right here at the top
there's a combustion air fan and a gas valve.
What I realized after about ten years of doing this,
I'm not going to teach them everything there is,
all the rules.
I'm going to teach them what represents good behavior
and then that helps them hire better.
You know what I mean? And they also get to know
what represents a good job, because a lot of times
the consumer is, for lack of knowledge,
they can be fooled by somebody.
And so, what we did is we empowered the homeowner
to sort of hold their own.
And I think it made -- I think it made the relationship better
with the marketplace. We want them to be,
to know enough about their mechanical world
to not live in fear of it
but also know how to hire to have it done right.
We showed radiant floor heating before anybody else did.
We showed the mini-duct system before anybody else did.
We showed the world better stuff,
and it helped the whole industry do a better system
and made people more comfortable.
And guess what? The mechanical contractors,
they might have made more money.
That's okay, as long as the homeowners are happy, too.
Who loses? Nobody loses.
You have hot water. Woman: That's awesome.
Thank you.
Richard: This is a cool thing. No matter where I go,
if somebody recognizes me, they'll say, "Thank you."
If you're going to do a career where you give teaching
and anybody that comes up says,
"Thank you," that's a career well-lived.
I mean, that's sort of just total reinforcement
for what you've been doing.
Man: Thanks for your help, Richard.
Man: Thanks a lot, Richard.
Woman: Thanks, Richard. Richard: Enjoy.
The heart of this show is that we're all contractors by birth
and will ultimately die as just contractors.
That's what we know.
And I think as long as we stay true to that,
that with all the next generation of talent,
as long as those people really have real jobs
and they aren't just actors
that are pretending to be contractors, we'll be fine.
♪♪
Kevin: Richard, I'm excited to find out where you're taking me.
I don't often get to go on these road trips with you.
Richard: Well, good to have you as my road buddy.
You know, about a year ago, my son Evan and I,
we started renovating this old mill building
we found down in the south coast of Massachusetts
as a training center for the HVAC industry.
Kevin: Right. Because your primary day job nowadays
is to be a rep for manufacturers' equipment
of heating and cooling.
Richard: Right.
And that requires a fair amount of training.
We always have to do it on the jobsite
or out at a manufacturer or a contractor's office.
So, we thought we'd build the ultimate training center,
where you could touch and see and feel everything,
and that could be good for the contractors,
obviously, the distributors,
but also for architects, engineers, builders
and even homeowners to sort of pick out the end product,
sort of like a comfort showroom.
Kevin: Sounds cool. Always the professor, right?
Richard: Try to be. Kevin: Oh, let's do it.
♪♪
Richard: So, Kevin, welcome
to our little corner of the world here.
Kevin: Thank you. Boy, nothing little about it, Richard.
Richard: We're in an industrialized city
called Fall River.
And my son Evan and I saw this building
and thought this could be a perfect place
for a training center for the HVAC industry.
It's a 1904 mill building.
Kevin: You guys cleaned it up? Richard: Yeah.
It's been a labor of love over the past year or so.
And this is the training room right here.
It's a comfortable, natural-lit place.
And in this room, we've got tables and chairs
that we can fill the room if we choose to,
but we can keep it much more intimate.
We want it to be a great place to learn.
The displays go all around the room.
What we can do is modify those displays
based on who we're teaching that particular day.
Over here, we've got stuff that has to do with all the ways
that you can zone,
different ways you can put the right temperatures
in different parts of the building.
Kevin: Right.
Richard: Over here, this is radiant floor heating.
Kevin: "Plumbing University."
Richard: Absolutely. And then many times
we start right here on this drafting board.
We'll bring the set of plans in for the project,
think about the choices.
You know, there's many choices
nowadays to do heating or cooling in the building.
This shows a conventional heat-pump air handler.
And then this is a distribution method
that we've used for years, which is the mini-duct system
that has the small holes.
And so, that's one choice. This is the condenser unit,
the inverter heat-pump units that we see in wide use.
This could have a single box outside
with multiple indoor units.
So, you could have conventional air systems,
but you could also have those high sidewall cassettes.
Here would be geothermal. You can see right here
that the pathways are a different way
that we'll change the energy.
Kevin: So, when they see this, is it helping them
get a sense of both the scale
but also kind of like where you pipe it,
how they go in and out? Richard: Yeah.
I think guys and gals in the mechanical world,
I think they're artists, and they do better
when they see the stuff and can sort of relate that
"Yeah, I could do that" and think about
how to fit it into the building.
Kevin: Tactile, physical.
Richard: This is actually air to water.
This is actually a unit that has a big outdoor unit.
So, we're using this actually to do this building,
heating and cooling right now.
This is the tank we use
for the hot water for the faucets.
And we use this to both heat or cool and do the radiant.
Kevin: So, a display but also operational.
Richard: Right. And then they can see the operation.
They can see what's going on.
So, it becomes much more user-friendly.
This is a gas-fired condensing boiler
with a tank underneath it.
In here you can actually show the proper way to do the piping
for the radiant system that's in our building.
So, they see that and they go, "Yeah, I could do that.
Okay. Yeah." And the building might change,
but the basic concept becomes now repeatable.
And that's what we're looking for --
HVAC systems that can be installed right
so they become repeatable.
Kevin: Right.
Richard: We also want to teach the importance
of fresh air in a building.
What good is it to make that building tight, tight, tight
and then starve to death for fresh air?
We've got all these energy-recovery ventilators.
We've shown them before, every size,
and can't have enough fresh air. Kevin: Mm-hmm.
Richard: Then this is some of the equipment
where you'll touch and feel to make them more comfortable here
before they get out in the field.
Commercial spaces will have equipment like this.
The equipment just gets bigger with more choices
for how you deliver heating and cooling into the building.
And then back here is our kitchen, team room, and offices.
Kevin: It's nice -- kitchen, couches,
ping-pong tables, the whole deal.
Richard: Little coffee once in a while.
Kevin: Yeah. So, what's the philosophy?
I mean, what is it? I've seen showroom.
I've seen training rooms. What are you going for?
Richard: Sort of like a field of dreams.
If we build it, we hope they'll come.
You know? This is a way to show the mechanical world,
demystify the mechanical world,
all the different choices -- not all the choices,
but so many of the choices that are available to people --
and let them touch it, feel it, learn about it.
Kevin: Is there somewhere else that they can get together
in that environment, or has it sort of been lost?
Richard: I don't know.
I don't know there's that many HVAC
or comfort showrooms, you know, I think, but I can use
the analogy, I think, to the plumbing world.
There was a time when there was no plumbing showroom,
and you bought a simple chrome faucet
and a white fixture.
And the plumbing showrooms came along, and people went in
and said, "Oh, I like that."
And "Oh, okay, I can actually afford that."
And they would pick a better product.
I think there's some of that going on here,
where people can come in here and go,
"Oh, so that's what I'd see in my house? Okay."
Or "That's what I'd see in this building? Oh, okay. Yeah."
And so, if they can make that decision
based on what the finished product is
and then work back, because so often in this world,
you just get a proposal from a mechanical contractor
and you go, "Oh, that's a lot of money,"
But you don't even know what a ton of anything is.
You don't know what's on it, you know?
So, you're buying a recipe
that you don't even know what's there.
So, now with this, you sort of say,
"Let's break it down.
Let's see what's in that bag of groceries."
Kevin: There's a lot going on here. I mean, it's a big space,
but you've got a lot of equipment.
Is there a financial incentive?
Is it good for business or is it...?
Richard: Well, we certainly hope so.
You know, we're a manufacturer's rep,
so we do represent products and distribute them.
But this is actually bigger than just that, I think,
because all the products that are here are not just ours.
We're trying to take a bigger mission
to sort of teach people, teach the industry,
hoping that, you know,
that rising tide floats all the boats.
Kevin: So, why this? Or actually why now?
I mean, you've always been a teacher to all of us.
This is pretty late in your career.
Why now?
Richard: This particular building
is the brainchild of my son Evan,
who wants to sort of grow this thing to the next level.
And he's really good at it, you know?
But this is sort of a place to keep my legacy going, I hope.
I mean, I think it goes back -- you know, my dad,
you know, ran our family business, and he grew it.
And that's the reason we ended up on the show.
But he was always the one trying to train the next generation.
He would train people.
He'd bring them in and adopt them.
And then some of those guys
went off to start their own businesses.
And I'd always be like, "Dad, why do we keep training them
and they leave?"
He said, "It doesn't matter.
It's going to help the whole industry."
And I think if we can do that, if we can educate,
and where do you stop educating?
You should educate everybody. Kevin: Right.
Richard: Distributors, mechanical contractors,
architects, engineers, homeowners, building owners,
because building owners don't know what to do
to solve this issue of energy in their operating costs.
Kevin: Well, it's nice to see the space,
but it's also nice to see you taking your dad's philosophy
and keeping it going, passing it on to the sons.
As I said, you've always been a teacher to all of us.
And so, to think that there's another generation
coming behind you, it's terrific.
Richard: It's really fun. Kevin: Congrats.
Richard: Fun to see it.
♪♪
Kevin: Next time on "Ask This Old House"...
Mauro shows how playing with shades of color
can brighten a dark space.
Mauro: You know, this is going to look very nice here.
Kevin: And do you struggle with water in your basement?
Richard and Mark answer some common questions
about this problem.
Plus, on "Build It," Tom makes a bat house
that can support the ecosystem of these beneficial creatures.
All that on "Ask This Old House."