Ask This Old House S25E2: Pull-Chain Basement Lights, Sod Repair, and an Orange Deck-Board Spacer

Season 25, Episode 2 of Ask This Old House puts two different control problems next to each other. Heath Eastman takes on a basement where one switch runs one lonely bulb and every other light still needs a pull chain. Lee Gilliam repairs a lawn edge chewed up by a snowplow. Then the crew revisits favorite What Is It? moments before Tony McKlem sends an orange tool with spiky feet from the Spanish-language show. The through line is simple: the first fix is often small, but the job grows once you decide what you actually want the system to do.

A Basement Full of Pull Chains and One Switch

Crystal's basement has a switch at the top of the stairs that turns on the light at the bottom of the stairs. That is it. The storage area, the gaming spot, and the workout section all depend on pull chains, which means walking into a dark basement to find the chain for the next fixture. Heath opens the first light and traces the circuit. Power comes in from the panel, feeds the other basement lights, and also runs a switch loop up to the stairs. Power goes upstairs on the white conductor and comes back down on the black conductor to that first fixture.

The first repair is small. Heath moves the wire that feeds the other basement lights off the constant-hot connection and onto the switched side of that fixture. Now the existing wall switch controls the whole chain. They turn the breaker back on, Crystal hits the switch, and every light comes on at once. Then she says the room is too bright. She wants storage on one switch and the gaming and workout side on another. That changes the job from a quick rewire to adding a two-gang box and separating the circuits.

Heath replaces the 14/2 cable between the bottom light and the stair switch with 14/3. That gives him constant power at the switch box plus a switched conductor back down to the storage lights. He also runs a new 14/2 from the switch box to the backlights for the gym area. The old wiring that fed the gym side gets separated, capped, and tucked into the back of the box so a future owner can undo the change.

The part television can make look quick is the plaster work. Heath scores the plaster before running the saw, then cuts on the inward stroke so the blade does not grab and chip the wall on the way out. He also swaps in a new box with readable capacity markings instead of trusting an old box whose stamp cannot be read. That is not fussiness. Box fill and ratings matter, especially when you are adding conductors. He separates grounds, neutrals, and the constant feed up to the switches. The red switched leg feeds the storage lights, while the gym lights get their own switch.

Heath has been the show's switch-logic teacher before. In the S24E14 recap, the subject was three-way switches and the three-conductor cable that makes them work. This basement job is simpler, but it still punishes assumptions. If you cannot map a switch loop, identify the constant feed, and keep your splices neat inside a properly sized box, this is an electrician's work.

Lee Gilliam's Sod Patch Along the Driveway

Arden and Lauren are fixing their grandparents' lawn after a snowplow carved up the edge over the winter. Lee chooses sod because the rest of the lawn looks good and the repair needs to blend in. Seed is still an option. He mentions a Kentucky blue mix with fescue, plus peat moss over the seed, but that approach makes more sense when the surrounding lawn is less uniform or the damage is larger.

The sod they use is a Kentucky blue blend, freshly cut the night before. You can see the roots in the roll. The work starts with edging along the driveway, then removing the damaged strips. Lee uses a flat shovel rather than a spade shovel because it slides under the surface and lets him take out the right depth without digging a trench. They work compost into a couple of low spots before laying the new sod. The soil overall is good, which is why the repair can stay this simple.

Two details matter more than they look. First, Lee tucks the sod edges so they are not exposed to the sun, since exposed edges dry out. Second, he cuts around a pop-up irrigation head. If the sod covers the head, the irrigation system will pop up and flood the new patch instead of watering the lawn. That is the kind of prep that never makes the highlight reel.

Lee's lawn advice in the S24E23 recap was mostly about mowing height, the one-third rule, and keeping a blade sharp. Here the lawn is already injured, so the repair starts with matching grade, soil, and irrigation. The homework is water early in the morning, not after 2 or 3 p.m., and set snow markers in November so the plow has a visible boundary next winter.

What Is It? and the Orange Thing With Spiky Feet

The What Is It? segment revisits old favorites. Roger guesses that a tool is an exact replica of DNA. Tom calls one a quarter sorter. There are plenty of wrong answers and a fair amount of laughing at the bench. Then Kevin brings out a new item from Tony McKlem, a carpenter on the Spanish-language show Dime Cómo Hacerlo. It is flat, orange, two-sided, and has little spikes on the sides.

Mauro guesses a 2-in-1 scraper. Tom guesses a Pinewood Derby car for ice, complete with a hood and windshield. Mark guesses a concrete skate and works in a figure-skating joke about a triple Lux. Tom corrects him to Lutz. The real answer is a deck-board spacer. It gives you two spacing options, 1/8 inch on one side and 3/16 inch on the other. Kevin sets the first deck board to the frame, drops a spacer between boards, and fastens the next board. Repeat down the deck. The spacers pull out, and the gaps stay consistent.

It is a tiny plastic tool, but it solves a visible layout problem. Compare that with Heath's basement work, where the important parts are hidden splices, box fill, and a capped wire left for the future. One segment is about what you see. The other is about what you hope never fails after the cover plate goes back on.

DIY Confidence Scale

Basement lighting rewire: 7/10. The first fix is approachable if you understand switch loops, but splitting the lights into two zones means adding a box, fishing cable, and making careful splices. Mistakes here are not cosmetic.

Sod repair: 3/10. The work is physical, but the skills are basic: edge, remove, prep, lay, tuck, water. The main risks are burying an irrigation head or leaving edges exposed.

What Is It? deck-board spacer: 1/10. Once you know what it is, using it is about as simple as a layout tool gets.

Additional Resources

• Watch on PBS
• Official This Old House episode page

If your basement has one brave switch and a constellation of pull chains, would you rewire the control or just keep buying brighter bulbs?