Ask This Old House S24E22: Tommy's Lathe, Mortar Cracks, and a 1999 Garage Door Gets a Brain

Season 24, episode 22 of Ask This Old House is a study in retrofit thinking. Three of the four segments are about deciding what to keep: scrap firewood, a seed tray, a pair of 1999 garage door operators. The fourth is Mark McCullough reading two cracks that look similar and are not. The through-line is not replacement. It is diagnosis, then a small intervention.

Tommy Silva Teaches Zack Dettmore to Turn a Bud Vase

Zack Dettmore has been in the trades for 25 years and has never touched a lathe. That is the premise, and it is a good one. Tommy Silva does not start with a lecture. He starts with a piece of scrap firewood, roughly rectangular rather than square, and finds the rough center by eye.

The mounting is the first real lesson. A spur drive goes into the chuck, and Tommy brings the tailstock up to the center mark and tightens until the teeth bite. Then he spins the blank by hand to check clearance. Because the blank is not perfectly square, the lathe will spin wood, air, wood, air. Tommy says he might bandsaw it smaller first, which is the kind of prep step that television usually cuts. It matters. A balanced blank is easier to turn and less likely to make you flinch.

Speed comes next. Tommy starts low, then dials up to about 600 or 700 rpm. Zack says it sounds like a helicopter landing. Tommy nudges it another 200 and asks if that feels different. It does. The tool rest is the other half of the setup. The gouge can sit open or closed, and Tommy shows how closing it slightly and angling it keeps the tool from blasting back at you.

From there, the work is shaping. Tommy cuts a tenon on one end so it can be held in the chuck. He drills a hole for the flower stems. Zack works toward a smooth cylinder, then tapers the hole. The sanding is hand work: circular motion, rotate the paper regularly, then a sanding paste with mild abrasive. The finish is oil. Parting it off requires care not to hit the chuck.

Zack calls his vase the top of a beer bottle. Tommy says they should all be a little bit different. That line is the whole ethos of the segment. It also explains why Tommy keeps scrap wood around. He calls himself a Yankee and says he is cheap, then shows two small vases, one with the bark left on. The last thing Tommy says is that the lathe is a stress buster, a place to focus until the rest of the day flies away. It is the most personal thing he has said on camera this season.

If you have been keeping Kevin's Helper Scorecard through this season, Zack is a different kind of helper. He is not fetching tools for Kevin. He is a fellow tradesperson getting actual tool time, and he earns it. The S24E20 scorecard was mostly about Kevin asking questions while Nathan Gilbert did the work. Here, the apprentice gets his hands on the gouge.

What should a homeowner attempt? Turning is not a saw-and-drill project. The hidden prep is sharpening, mounting, and learning how a gouge behaves when it catches. The safety concerns are real: spinning stock, loose sleeves, a tool rest set at the wrong height, and a blank that is not secure. A beginner class or a mentor is the realistic path. Expect firewood results first. The goal is not an heirloom. The goal is a gift that looks handmade because it is.

Jenn Nawada Starts Seeds Indoors with a Frost Date and a Journal

Kevin arrives to Jenn Nawada and sees what looks like a full indoor grow operation. Jenn immediately walks it back. You do not need her setup. She has it for organization, because it tucks into a corner, but she shows a single light that clamps to a table as the smaller-scale version. The point is not the rack. The point is the system.

The tray stack comes first. Seedling cells sit in a tray that holds them up, and that tray sits in a reservoir. The drainage layer keeps the starts out of standing water, because wet feet lead to rot. The planting medium is seed starter mix, not potting soil. Jenn points out the difference: peat moss and perlite, organic material that drains fast. Potting soil is for established plants. Starter mix is for germination.

The heat mat is next. It keeps the tray warmer than room temperature, around 70 degrees, so the seeds do not sit cold and go into shock. Kevin asks the right question: room temperature may not be warm enough. Jenn agrees. It depends on the room, but the mat solves the problem.

Light is where the rig gets more serious. Jenn calls her lights UV lights, and she has them on a frame. For a smaller setup, a clip-on grow light over a single tray works. The real subject, though, is timing. Jenn says to look up the previous year's average last frost date for your area. Then read the back of the seed packet. Different seeds need different weeks before transplant. If the packet says 6 to 8 weeks, count backward from the frost date. That is when you start.

Cold-season crops like cabbage and broccoli go out earlier and tolerate cooler weather. Warm-season crops like tomatoes and basil have more fragile leaves and do not like the cold. This is where the journal comes in. Jenn suggests tracking what you planted, when you planted it, and what you plan to move where. Succession planting is a sequence, not a one-time event. Kevin's joke about sitting with a cigar and a seeding journal is the closest he comes to a dad joke this week, and it lands.

What should a homeowner attempt? Start small. One tray, one light, one heat mat if your room is cool. The setup is easy. The timing and record-keeping are the parts that separate a fun experiment from a crowded windowsill of leggy seedlings. Label things. Write down dates. Do not overwater.

Mark McCullough on Two Fireplace Cracks That Are Not the Same

Kevin still calls it viewer mail. Mark McCullough takes two questions, and the value of the segment is that he refuses to treat them as one problem. Steve from Little Rock has a raised hearth pulling away from the brick on the wall. John from Ohio has a brick surround that has separated from the wall above the firebox.

Steve's crack is a subbed hearth problem. Under a raised hearth is a monolithic concrete pour that supports the hearth and the firebox. If that pour was not done properly, or if the connection failed, the hearth can separate from the wall. Mark calls it typical when it is not done right. The good news is that the settlement has probably already happened. The fix is not structural. It is repacking the joint.

That means chiseling out the old mortar all the way through, dampening the masonry so it does not suck the water out of the new mix, and vacuuming the debris. Then pack Type N mortar into the joint with a margin trowel. Mark's one detail is that the trowel needs to be thinner than the joint so you can get a full pack. This is a homeowner-level repair, maybe a 3 out of 10, as long as the crack is in the hearth joint and not inside the firebox or chimney. If it is inside the firebox or flue, stop and call a chimney professional.

John's crack is different. The brick surround has separated from the wall, but Mark lines up the brick with the trim on either side and can see that nothing has moved. The brick is not falling out. What happened is that the mortar joint shrank during installation. Water left the mortar and got sucked into the drywall and the brick. The joint pulled away. It looks like a structural crack. It is not.

The installation fix John did not get is a bond breaker. That is a foil strip that sticks to the drywall and stops water from penetrating. Mark would also dampen the back of the brick with a paintbrush and use a backer rod, a Styrofoam material that holds the mortar in place while it is packed. Without it, the mortar just falls into the gap and you stand there all day. The packing process is the same, with the same thinner-than-the-joint margin trowel.

Both repairs are DIY-adjacent, but John's is advice for a job that already went in wrong. Understanding the cause is a 2 out of 10. Fixing an existing joint that has already shrunk away is closer to a 7, because you may need to grind out more material and rebuild the joint with the bond breaker and backer rod. Mark's masonry segments this season have often been about reading what the material is telling you, whether he is setting granite treads on a slope or diagnosing these two cracks.

Ross Trethewey Makes a 1999 Garage Door Opener Smart

Jimmy's garage doors work, but not well. He has to drive almost all the way to the door before the remote will trigger. Ross Trethewey confirms it is a range issue. The operators are original, manufactured in 1999, half-horsepower and chain driven. There is a gray antenna wire hanging down from the unit. Spider webs and leaves are not helping. The safety sensors have a green light, which means they have power and are working.

The critical detail is the red learn button. That is what makes these old operators upgradable to a SmartHub platform. No red button, no project. Ross lays out the parts before touching anything: the SmartHub itself, a back plate, two door sensors, a safety card that tells anyone who sees it that the doors are connected to the internet, and 24-gauge two-conductor wire for cleaning up the sensor runs.

Wi-Fi coverage in the garage is a prerequisite, not an afterthought. Jimmy says he worked hard on it. Ross checks. The hub needs to be mounted six feet above the ground and within five feet of a receptacle, because the power cord is five feet long. It also needs to see both garage doors.

The pairing sequence is quick on camera. Plug in the hub. The light comes on blue. The app pairs with it. The light turns green when it connects to Wi-Fi. Then pair each door sensor. Then press the red learn button on each operator. Jimmy does the honors on the first one because he is taller. Ross says voila. Jimmy says it is unbelievable.

The wiring cleanup uses low-voltage staples. Ross has two kinds: a hammer-in version and a staple-gun version. Both are fine for low-voltage cable. He picks the staple gun for speed. The sensors get cleaned. Then Jimmy opens the app and runs the left door, then the right. One hub communicates with each motor one at a time. Both work.

The payoff is the app privileges. Jimmy can add his wife, and he can add a dog walker with access only on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 11. The clicker still works. The wall keypad still works. The app is an additional layer, not a replacement. That is the right way to describe a smart-home retrofit.

What should a homeowner attempt? The physical install is a 2 out of 10 if your Wi-Fi reaches the garage. If it does not, the project becomes a 5 or worse, because you will be moving the hub, adding a mesh node, or troubleshooting pairing. Television compresses the part where the hub cannot see both doors and you move it three times. It also skips the prep of cleaning sensors and clearing away spider webs. This is the retrofit version of the invisible work Heath Eastman did running power to a shed in S24E21. The job is not the hub. The job is making the signal reliable before the hub goes on the wall.

DIY Confidence Scale

• Woodturning a bud vase: 6/10 to start safely with instruction, 8/10 to make something you would actually give someone. The lathe itself is not complicated. The sharpening and tool control are.
• Seed starting indoors: 2/10 for the tray, heat mat, and light setup. 6/10 for timing, labeling, and succession planning. The gear is easy. The calendar is the work.
• Mortar crack repair: 3/10 for repacking Steve's hearth joint. 2/10 for understanding John's shrinkage crack. 7/10 for fixing a joint that already went in wrong, because you may need to rebuild it with a bond breaker and backer rod.
• Garage door SmartHub: 2/10 for the physical install if Wi-Fi is strong in the garage. 5/10 if you have to troubleshoot coverage or a stubborn pairing.

Additional Resources

• Watch on PBS
• Official This Old House episode page

The best moment in the episode is not a repair. It is Tommy telling Zack that the vases should all be a little bit different. Which of these four jobs would you actually tackle first?