Ask This Old House _ Fireplace Makeover, Drip Edges (S17 E8) _ FULL EPISODE
# Ask This Old House: Expert Tips on Chimney Repair, Water Heater Maintenance, and Roof Protection
On this episode of *Ask This Old House*, the team tackled a variety of home improvement projects, from repairing chimney damage to providing expert advice on water heater maintenance and roof protection. Here's a detailed breakdown of what was covered in the video:
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## 1. Chimney Repair and Painting
The homeowner wanted to paint their entire chimney white but first needed to address some damaged bricks. The team identified a chipped brick that would bleed through if painted, so they decided to replace it.
### Steps for Chimney Repair:
1. **Prepare the Area**: The team used a HEPA vac to minimize dust during the repair process.
2. **Remove and Replace the Damaged Brick**: Using a hand chisel, they carefully removed the damaged brick, ensuring minimal disturbance to surrounding mortar.
3. **Mix Mortar**: A small batch of type N mortar was mixed by hand, with just enough water to ensure proper consistency.
4. **Reinstall the Brick**: The new brick was back-buttered (mortar applied to both the brick and joint) and gently wiggled into place.
5. **Finish the Joints**: After setting the brick, the team used a tuck pointer and concave jointer to ensure the joints matched the existing chimney's finish.
Once the repair was complete, the team moved on to painting. They mixed water-based paint with water to achieve a whitewash effect, applying it in light coats to maintain the brick's natural texture. The homeowner also expressed interest in updating the fireplace with a gas insert and replacing the tile hearth with slate or granite for a timeless look.
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## 2. Water Heater Maintenance
The team addressed common questions about water heater care, including when to replace it, how often to drain it, and whether changing the anode rod can extend its lifespan.
### Key Takeaways:
- **Water Heater Lifespan**: Tank-style heaters typically last 7–12 years due to their glass-lined steel tanks. Regular maintenance can help prolong this life.
- **Anode Rod Replacement**: Replacing the sacrificial magnesium or aluminum anode rod every 2–3 years can protect the tank from corrosion, potentially extending its lifespan by decades.
- **Draining the Heater**: Periodically draining a few gallons of water helps remove sediment buildup at the bottom of the tank, improving efficiency and preventing rust.
- **Emergency Preparedness**: If a leak is detected, turning off the cold water supply valve and relieving pressure with a hose is crucial before calling for professional replacement.
---
## 3. Proper Roof Installation: The Importance of Drip Edges
Tommy demonstrated how a poorly installed drip edge can lead to significant roof rot and shared tips for proper installation.
### Steps for Installing an Effective Drip Edge:
1. **Measure and Cut the Drip Edge**: Use standard 8-inch-wide metal drip edges, ensuring the kickers (the downward bends at the bottom) are sharp enough to direct water away from the fascia.
2. **Install Properly**: The drip edge should overhang the sheathing by at least 3/8–1/2 inch and be angled so that water flows away from the roofline.
3. **Ensure Distance from Fascia**: Keep the leading edge of the roof 1.5–3 inches away from the fascia board to prevent water from wicking up the wall.
Tommy also showed how surface tension causes water to climb walls when there’s no drip edge, emphasizing the importance of proper installation for long-term roof protection.
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## 4. Exterior Brick Painting Techniques
Mario demonstrated a similar technique he uses on exterior masonry, involving a slurry mix of portland cement and lime instead of paint. This creates a durable, weather-resistant finish that mimics natural stone.
### Steps for Exterior Brick Stucco Finish:
1. **Prepare the Surface**: Ensure the brick is clean and free of loose mortar or debris.
2. **Mix the Slurry**: Combine portland cement, lime, and water to create a thick paste.
3. **Apply the Slurry**: Use a trowel to apply the slurry in thin layers, working from top to bottom.
4. **Finish with Water**: Lightly spray or dab water with a brush to soften the texture and enhance the natural look.
This method is ideal for exterior surfaces where paint might trap moisture behind the brick, leading to future damage.
---
## Final Thoughts
The episode wrapped up with Kevin, Mario, and Mike encouraging viewers to submit their own home improvement questions and reminding them to check out more episodes on YouTube. HomeAdvisor was also mentioned as a trusted resource for finding local pros for any project.
Whether you're tackling chimney repair, water heater maintenance, or roof installation, the *Ask This Old House* team provided actionable advice and practical demonstrations to help homeowners achieve their goals. Stay tuned for more episodes—there’s always something new to learn!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday on ask this old house this homeowner wants to paint his entire chimney white but first i'm going to show him how to repair some damage that's good all right what we're going to do here is we're going to cause a little dust when we take this brick out a correctly installed drip edge is one of the most important parts when installing a roof i'll show you why so same materials as a second example but way more effective just because they're installed properly absolutely and how often should i change my water unit should i drain it should i change the anode rod i'll answer some of the common questions i get about water heaters for projects around the house homeadvisor helps find local pros to do the work you can check ratings read customer reviews and book appointments with pros online at homeadvisor.com homeadvisor is proud to support ask this old house hi there i'm kevin o'connor and welcome back to ask this old house we have got the experts ready to answer questions about your house so keep them coming we'd love to hear from you good morning tomorrow come on mark how you doing kevin all right what are you guys working on today well we just got an email from a homeowner and they wanted to paint the fireplace white painting brick huh that is an irreversible decision for the most part are you okay with that i'm okay i'll get but 10 years ago if you were asking me that i wouldn't do it but the trend is so hot right now i don't mind doing it so you're going to go with the trend and help them out definitely okay well i have a similar technique that i use on the outside not the inside but look at this morrow see that chip yup if morrow tries to paint that it'll shine through like crazy so i think i should go take that brick right out replace it and get it ready for you i agree just fix that that chip and i'll come right after you and i'll do my job all right so you fix it then you paint it absolutely hey mark hey bryce thanks so much for coming over all right thanks for having me great lake house i know it's a beautiful location right wow we recently had a newborn within the past year and uh this came up kind of earlier than we expected but you know we couldn't resist this view right okay so we actually done quite a bit of work on the house uh we renovated the entire second floor with a little baby in the house with a little baby quite a bit of work yeah all right the email that you sent me had something to do with the fireplace correct yeah come on in let me show you where it is so mark this is our fireplace uh we were looking at actually painting the entire fireplace white but the reason i'd emailed you is there's a little chip of the corner of the brick right here okay all right well you have a nice hard brick here the problem with the hard brick is they're a little fragile in the face so anytime you bump it inadvertently you may end up with a chip which is probably what happened here i showed your email tomorrow and we both agree that once you paint this that chip is still going gonna bleed through okay so what you and i have to do is take that brick out and replace it that sounds good all right let's get some tools and do it okay we're nice and tight i think so all right great because what we're going to do here is we're going to cause a little dust when we take this brick out okay you can see that i have a hepa vac which sucks up all the dust we have a grinder which is adapted to that hepa vac okay and that's what's going to suck in all the dust so now we've alleviated the tension on the two bed joints and we're going to go after the head joint with a hand chisel so i want to make sure we clean this out because mortar doesn't stick to mortar very well but it sticks to brick so we want to make a good spot for the brick to lay all right so this is the brick that i came up with as you can see the most important part the face nice and smooth to match color is good but look at this perfect fit nice fit right yeah so all we need now is our mortar why don't we go outside and make it all right so this is our type end mortar since we don't need a whole lot we're just gonna mix it by trowel in this small tub all right bryce why don't you add some water to that a little bit at first easy to put in but hard to take out just another splash price great all right that looks great let's go awesome we want to make sure that we match the existing bed joints so that our brick will sit the way it's supposed to okay now what we want to do is make sure we get this head joint nice and full and because we're putting a new brick in this is going to be our last opportunity to get that head joint all right i'm also going to back butter this brick and slip it in i'm going to wiggle it in and i'm in so we did the bed joint with mortar we did the head joint we did the head joint over here now what we're going to do is this top bed joint now i know it has to be full so i want to make sure i stuff it really really well with my very small tuck pointer okay so now that my bed joint and head joints are filled i'm going to run the joint over with my concave jointer just to match the rest of the fireplace alright so give this brick a little bit of time to set up but i'll let mauro know that you're ready for paint all right looks good thanks mark you got it bryce richard we asked folks for their water heater questions and oh boy did they have a lot of questions everybody's got to water well apparently everyone's got a question about them too i went through them and it looks like the most popular question had to do with when do i get rid of my water heater because they buy a new house or they look at the water here and they realize it's 5 10 15 years old and they're all terrible ones are going to leak right yeah so a couple of different types of common waters in america in the tank type variety one's electric has a cover plate here and here to cover over the electrical elements that stick into the water a gas water heater has a gas valve right here with a flue pipe right here on any of these tanks though there's a rating plate and you go here and you can see what size the tank is what the model number is the data manufacturer you can see this was 2013. so then the question is when do you change it so these things are glass line steel tanks and they're going to fail usually 7 10 12 years right so you get to that 10 or 12 year period you got to say okay how much risk do i want and the other thing is many people contemplate going to a different type of method like a tankless or instantaneous water heater right in this case there is no big storage tank it sort of heats it up instantaneously so with with that if you're going to have a water heater that leaks and all of a sudden flood in your basement you're not going to slow down to take the time to change it to this thing because this the tankless needs bigger gas piping and it's a lot more work you're just going to change that water so you'll be locked into the same cycle so a part of it is sort of you know how risk-averse you are and where is it right because in my house it's a concrete floor it's not a finished basement i don't want the leak but that'll be okay someone has it upstairs on the first floor it can cause total catastrophe okay let's talk about um extending the life because people are probably not going to want to pay to change if they don't have to but would like to keep it going well this glass line steel tank it used to have a glass lining here that was perfect and it used to have a rod right here called an anode rod this is a sacrificial rod made out of magnesium or aluminum and it might have looked like this at one time and that sits down inside right here and it becomes the sacrificial piece that the aggressive water wants to eat so it will eat this instead of the glass instead of that right there and that should extend their life yeah so this thing can be replaced so they're made so that it can be bent and put in now if somebody was to come along and replace this anode every two to three years you could make a glass line steel tank last four pick it 20 or 30 years wow okay right but nobody does it okay okay and what happens also is you might want to change the anode rod but if you don't change in the first two or three years of its operating life this might fuse in here where you can't even get it out of the top of the tank okay but this is something interesting you could make a tank last a long time i think there's a i don't know if it's a rumor or a myth you tell us this idea that if i periodically drain the hot water heater that will extend its life too is that true well a water heater is a perfect collector of calcium and magnesium and so it can sit right down in the bottom right here so a couple of tips every water heater has a drain at the bottom so if you were going to drain it down what i would do is i would turn the water off open up the drain now if you do that what i would do is also turn this on just a couple of times so think about what you're doing you're going to sort of push and sort of spray it down through this dip tube to sort of wash some of that stuff down the drain yeah if you didn't do it that that way and you left this on you would actually just take water right out of the bottom of this dip tube and it'll go right to the drain it would leave all the the build up in the bottom of the tank gotcha okay if i come home and i find that i've got a leak coming out of my hot water tank i'm worried that it's going to blow and get worse first thing i should do well this is the biggest panic in most people's lives you know when these waters goes they do not go like an egg shell being smashed on the ground it's usually a pinhole leak so the control is important there's a shutoff valve there's a cold water line and a hot water line you got to get and turn the turn the water heater off the cold water side but and now over time the pressure will relieve through the pinhole leak yeah but you still have water in the tank and you have water up inside the house right so put a hose on the draw off right here and open it up and just relieve the pressure and that will just give you time to exhale until you can call somebody to replace the water perfect all right good information and one thing um if we want to worry about why people are so concerned about the water heaters can you stop scaring them this thing's terrifying no this is what it looks like inside sorry tommy you got the roof out huh i sure do i want to show you a demonstration on how water can come off the roof and rot the underside of your roof i know that you are a stickler for keeping the house dry because you've seen the damaged water can do oh it's amazing and it can attack your fascia board your side walls and even underneath the roof shingles let me show you right here i've got a perfect example of a shed all right and on the leading edge of the shed there is no drip edge but if you take a close look at the sheathing underneath the shingle you can see how the sheathing is black the structure is black and the side wall eventually is going to get black so you can tell it's wet even though the shingles overhang the sheathing and the edge there right once the roof gets wet the water comes down over the edge and gets sucked into the sheathing and it will come right up the wall and eventually rot all of this this has got to be back four or five inches the rot right there i mean it's sort of inconceivable to think that the water will run uphill that works on surface tension let me show you i've set up a little demonstration here so surface tension is being what that the water will actually stick to surfaces yep it'll stick to the surface and it'll roll over the edge of the surface and then get drawn back up all right okay you've got a prop what's i've got a prop here i've got three different props this is the first one this is similar to what we see over there in the picture that i showed you so we've got the shingles close to the edge of the sheathing and the sheathing with no drip edge the water's going to come down now you have to wait just a little there it is see it oh wow that didn't take long at all huh see how it's getting drawn right under the sheeting so it's getting pulled right to the sheathing yeah it's also getting pulled literally backwards and then running down the face of the fascia right the wetter the wood gets the higher the water's going to go okay so now if you put on a metal drip edge yep and now this is a metal drip edge right here now there's different sizes and different widths this is just a standard eight inch drip edge and you see that little bend on the bottom right here i do that's a kicker and that's so that if water comes off the edge and gets sucked back in the water droplets will fall away from the fascia board so if we put this over this scenario right here which is what you've got on the second prop right it should work it will work a little better but it's not going to work right oh man it's wrapping itself in hitting the drip edge it's still wetting the fascia board i mean there's still a lot of water just running down the fascia yep now because the overhang isn't far enough out yep it's going to shorten the life of the fascia boy so the drip edge is definitely doing something um but it's not that effective so let's see what it does on the third one okay so now on the third one i've taken the the drippage and i've created a gap the thickness of my finger i've also over hung the shingles three-eighths to a half an inch which is more than in the second example right so right off the bat the shingles are overhanging so much it doesn't even pull it back to the drip edge much right it won't drop if it does get blown in there from wind but it's really not going to be surface tension it should start to stick but it will fall off nothing on the fascia nothing on the fascia board because we're out and it's very important that the leading edge of the roof is an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters away from the fascia board so same materials as a second example but way more effective just because they're installed properly absolutely and that's a good way to keep your fascia board dry and the underside of your roof dry and you know what this application is the same whether you run up the rate boards nice good info tommy thank you my pleasure wow mark really did a good job here water set and dry and you want to paint the fireplace right we do we actually want to paint the fireplace white okay but we were thinking of going more of an antique type of look we still want to maintain the character of the brick all right cool we can't do this uh and how much of the brick that you want to see how much of the white that you want to see it we're thinking about 25 brick and then maybe 75 white all right that's not a problem but i got to tell you one thing once the paint goes on it's almost impossible to take it off yeah no we understand we definitely want to go forward you're sure definitely positive yes all right great first thing we got to do protect your working area okay okay sounds great let's make it straight as possible and keep it away from the fireplace a little bit well this is the paint that we're going to use nothing special about that it's white it's flat and the water-based and the key to get the white wash look is to use water-based because we're going to add water into that okay well so that doesn't mess up the quality of the paint actually that's going to help us the brick is really absorbent it's going to suck up the water and help us to get the whitewash look okay well so how much water do you add well we're going to start eyeballing by 50 50. okay and as we go we make a little adjustment here and there now with my paint sticker we're gonna mix this paint well this looks pretty good it kind of looks like the consistency of milk all right let's try that and see what we got all right i'm going to start from this corner okay and as i'm going to give it a couple strokes i want you to come right behind me and dab with the rag so what do you think about that i don't know i think i'm wiping a little too much i kind of like this look right there all right so good so what we're going to have to do is just go light with your dab okay don't take off so much let me put some more paint so we can start over again i'm just gonna be light so you just go light dab light yeah just give them some random pattern it's gonna give us a natural look i'm not trying to cover the whole brick so you can do your work right after me i like that what do you think it looks great that's the look we're gonna get it i'd rather have the paint too light than heavier because we can always have more paint put on well the new repair motor is darker than the existing one i'm gonna use a straight paint to blend it well paint is dry fireplace looks good to me what do you think i think it looks amazing much better improvement over the last version perfect everything looks so beautiful here a lot of work we put on yeah so what do you think a little update down here well i think maybe we'll replace the tile uh with a slate or a granite and then probably update the inside with a gas insert oh i like that it's gonna make my job and marks looks much better and it's safer for the little one definitely is thank you for all the hard work tomorrow thank you very much you've got yourself a happy homeowner tomorrow nice job absolutely that came out nice it did so you've got a different technique to show us i do uh similar techniques but i like to use mine on the exterior it's masonry based not paint-based would you paint exterior brick i wouldn't do a paint because paint will stays on the surface will create a film and we'll block any moisture trap behind the brick trying to move out and that water is going to move out eventually so you're going to blow off the paint absolutely so what's your special mix so the mix that i use is a slurry mix which is basically portland cement a lot of lime and just watercolor so you're making your own huh yeah a couple scoops of portland and lime with a little bit of water is a lot cheaper than a gallon of paint right maro i guess so right all right this looks pretty good now i'm just going to switch to my brush and just go to the wall like this that's almost like you're putting this stucco coat on it looks like huh yeah it's thick it's thick but again this is made to weather off i'm now going to switch to my water bucket so that's similar to mauro dabbing the paint off that's what i meant when i said there were similar techniques but a different result that's it right there you get that very easily right there there's the variation yeah and because this is outside not inside like morrow's fireplace this will continue to fade and aware that's right so we don't care how sloppy we are when we're applying because the weathering over the next few years is what's going to really give us what we want we'll help you out to get the finish that you're looking for exactly all right two good techniques guys thank you very much keep your questions coming we'd love to hear from you so until next time i'm kevin o'connor i'm mario henrique and i'm mike mccullough for ask this old house thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feedtoday on ask this old house this homeowner wants to paint his entire chimney white but first i'm going to show him how to repair some damage that's good all right what we're going to do here is we're going to cause a little dust when we take this brick out a correctly installed drip edge is one of the most important parts when installing a roof i'll show you why so same materials as a second example but way more effective just because they're installed properly absolutely and how often should i change my water unit should i drain it should i change the anode rod i'll answer some of the common questions i get about water heaters for projects around the house homeadvisor helps find local pros to do the work you can check ratings read customer reviews and book appointments with pros online at homeadvisor.com homeadvisor is proud to support ask this old house hi there i'm kevin o'connor and welcome back to ask this old house we have got the experts ready to answer questions about your house so keep them coming we'd love to hear from you good morning tomorrow come on mark how you doing kevin all right what are you guys working on today well we just got an email from a homeowner and they wanted to paint the fireplace white painting brick huh that is an irreversible decision for the most part are you okay with that i'm okay i'll get but 10 years ago if you were asking me that i wouldn't do it but the trend is so hot right now i don't mind doing it so you're going to go with the trend and help them out definitely okay well i have a similar technique that i use on the outside not the inside but look at this morrow see that chip yup if morrow tries to paint that it'll shine through like crazy so i think i should go take that brick right out replace it and get it ready for you i agree just fix that that chip and i'll come right after you and i'll do my job all right so you fix it then you paint it absolutely hey mark hey bryce thanks so much for coming over all right thanks for having me great lake house i know it's a beautiful location right wow we recently had a newborn within the past year and uh this came up kind of earlier than we expected but you know we couldn't resist this view right okay so we actually done quite a bit of work on the house uh we renovated the entire second floor with a little baby in the house with a little baby quite a bit of work yeah all right the email that you sent me had something to do with the fireplace correct yeah come on in let me show you where it is so mark this is our fireplace uh we were looking at actually painting the entire fireplace white but the reason i'd emailed you is there's a little chip of the corner of the brick right here okay all right well you have a nice hard brick here the problem with the hard brick is they're a little fragile in the face so anytime you bump it inadvertently you may end up with a chip which is probably what happened here i showed your email tomorrow and we both agree that once you paint this that chip is still going gonna bleed through okay so what you and i have to do is take that brick out and replace it that sounds good all right let's get some tools and do it okay we're nice and tight i think so all right great because what we're going to do here is we're going to cause a little dust when we take this brick out okay you can see that i have a hepa vac which sucks up all the dust we have a grinder which is adapted to that hepa vac okay and that's what's going to suck in all the dust so now we've alleviated the tension on the two bed joints and we're going to go after the head joint with a hand chisel so i want to make sure we clean this out because mortar doesn't stick to mortar very well but it sticks to brick so we want to make a good spot for the brick to lay all right so this is the brick that i came up with as you can see the most important part the face nice and smooth to match color is good but look at this perfect fit nice fit right yeah so all we need now is our mortar why don't we go outside and make it all right so this is our type end mortar since we don't need a whole lot we're just gonna mix it by trowel in this small tub all right bryce why don't you add some water to that a little bit at first easy to put in but hard to take out just another splash price great all right that looks great let's go awesome we want to make sure that we match the existing bed joints so that our brick will sit the way it's supposed to okay now what we want to do is make sure we get this head joint nice and full and because we're putting a new brick in this is going to be our last opportunity to get that head joint all right i'm also going to back butter this brick and slip it in i'm going to wiggle it in and i'm in so we did the bed joint with mortar we did the head joint we did the head joint over here now what we're going to do is this top bed joint now i know it has to be full so i want to make sure i stuff it really really well with my very small tuck pointer okay so now that my bed joint and head joints are filled i'm going to run the joint over with my concave jointer just to match the rest of the fireplace alright so give this brick a little bit of time to set up but i'll let mauro know that you're ready for paint all right looks good thanks mark you got it bryce richard we asked folks for their water heater questions and oh boy did they have a lot of questions everybody's got to water well apparently everyone's got a question about them too i went through them and it looks like the most popular question had to do with when do i get rid of my water heater because they buy a new house or they look at the water here and they realize it's 5 10 15 years old and they're all terrible ones are going to leak right yeah so a couple of different types of common waters in america in the tank type variety one's electric has a cover plate here and here to cover over the electrical elements that stick into the water a gas water heater has a gas valve right here with a flue pipe right here on any of these tanks though there's a rating plate and you go here and you can see what size the tank is what the model number is the data manufacturer you can see this was 2013. so then the question is when do you change it so these things are glass line steel tanks and they're going to fail usually 7 10 12 years right so you get to that 10 or 12 year period you got to say okay how much risk do i want and the other thing is many people contemplate going to a different type of method like a tankless or instantaneous water heater right in this case there is no big storage tank it sort of heats it up instantaneously so with with that if you're going to have a water heater that leaks and all of a sudden flood in your basement you're not going to slow down to take the time to change it to this thing because this the tankless needs bigger gas piping and it's a lot more work you're just going to change that water so you'll be locked into the same cycle so a part of it is sort of you know how risk-averse you are and where is it right because in my house it's a concrete floor it's not a finished basement i don't want the leak but that'll be okay someone has it upstairs on the first floor it can cause total catastrophe okay let's talk about um extending the life because people are probably not going to want to pay to change if they don't have to but would like to keep it going well this glass line steel tank it used to have a glass lining here that was perfect and it used to have a rod right here called an anode rod this is a sacrificial rod made out of magnesium or aluminum and it might have looked like this at one time and that sits down inside right here and it becomes the sacrificial piece that the aggressive water wants to eat so it will eat this instead of the glass instead of that right there and that should extend their life yeah so this thing can be replaced so they're made so that it can be bent and put in now if somebody was to come along and replace this anode every two to three years you could make a glass line steel tank last four pick it 20 or 30 years wow okay right but nobody does it okay okay and what happens also is you might want to change the anode rod but if you don't change in the first two or three years of its operating life this might fuse in here where you can't even get it out of the top of the tank okay but this is something interesting you could make a tank last a long time i think there's a i don't know if it's a rumor or a myth you tell us this idea that if i periodically drain the hot water heater that will extend its life too is that true well a water heater is a perfect collector of calcium and magnesium and so it can sit right down in the bottom right here so a couple of tips every water heater has a drain at the bottom so if you were going to drain it down what i would do is i would turn the water off open up the drain now if you do that what i would do is also turn this on just a couple of times so think about what you're doing you're going to sort of push and sort of spray it down through this dip tube to sort of wash some of that stuff down the drain yeah if you didn't do it that that way and you left this on you would actually just take water right out of the bottom of this dip tube and it'll go right to the drain it would leave all the the build up in the bottom of the tank gotcha okay if i come home and i find that i've got a leak coming out of my hot water tank i'm worried that it's going to blow and get worse first thing i should do well this is the biggest panic in most people's lives you know when these waters goes they do not go like an egg shell being smashed on the ground it's usually a pinhole leak so the control is important there's a shutoff valve there's a cold water line and a hot water line you got to get and turn the turn the water heater off the cold water side but and now over time the pressure will relieve through the pinhole leak yeah but you still have water in the tank and you have water up inside the house right so put a hose on the draw off right here and open it up and just relieve the pressure and that will just give you time to exhale until you can call somebody to replace the water perfect all right good information and one thing um if we want to worry about why people are so concerned about the water heaters can you stop scaring them this thing's terrifying no this is what it looks like inside sorry tommy you got the roof out huh i sure do i want to show you a demonstration on how water can come off the roof and rot the underside of your roof i know that you are a stickler for keeping the house dry because you've seen the damaged water can do oh it's amazing and it can attack your fascia board your side walls and even underneath the roof shingles let me show you right here i've got a perfect example of a shed all right and on the leading edge of the shed there is no drip edge but if you take a close look at the sheathing underneath the shingle you can see how the sheathing is black the structure is black and the side wall eventually is going to get black so you can tell it's wet even though the shingles overhang the sheathing and the edge there right once the roof gets wet the water comes down over the edge and gets sucked into the sheathing and it will come right up the wall and eventually rot all of this this has got to be back four or five inches the rot right there i mean it's sort of inconceivable to think that the water will run uphill that works on surface tension let me show you i've set up a little demonstration here so surface tension is being what that the water will actually stick to surfaces yep it'll stick to the surface and it'll roll over the edge of the surface and then get drawn back up all right okay you've got a prop what's i've got a prop here i've got three different props this is the first one this is similar to what we see over there in the picture that i showed you so we've got the shingles close to the edge of the sheathing and the sheathing with no drip edge the water's going to come down now you have to wait just a little there it is see it oh wow that didn't take long at all huh see how it's getting drawn right under the sheeting so it's getting pulled right to the sheathing yeah it's also getting pulled literally backwards and then running down the face of the fascia right the wetter the wood gets the higher the water's going to go okay so now if you put on a metal drip edge yep and now this is a metal drip edge right here now there's different sizes and different widths this is just a standard eight inch drip edge and you see that little bend on the bottom right here i do that's a kicker and that's so that if water comes off the edge and gets sucked back in the water droplets will fall away from the fascia board so if we put this over this scenario right here which is what you've got on the second prop right it should work it will work a little better but it's not going to work right oh man it's wrapping itself in hitting the drip edge it's still wetting the fascia board i mean there's still a lot of water just running down the fascia yep now because the overhang isn't far enough out yep it's going to shorten the life of the fascia boy so the drip edge is definitely doing something um but it's not that effective so let's see what it does on the third one okay so now on the third one i've taken the the drippage and i've created a gap the thickness of my finger i've also over hung the shingles three-eighths to a half an inch which is more than in the second example right so right off the bat the shingles are overhanging so much it doesn't even pull it back to the drip edge much right it won't drop if it does get blown in there from wind but it's really not going to be surface tension it should start to stick but it will fall off nothing on the fascia nothing on the fascia board because we're out and it's very important that the leading edge of the roof is an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters away from the fascia board so same materials as a second example but way more effective just because they're installed properly absolutely and that's a good way to keep your fascia board dry and the underside of your roof dry and you know what this application is the same whether you run up the rate boards nice good info tommy thank you my pleasure wow mark really did a good job here water set and dry and you want to paint the fireplace right we do we actually want to paint the fireplace white okay but we were thinking of going more of an antique type of look we still want to maintain the character of the brick all right cool we can't do this uh and how much of the brick that you want to see how much of the white that you want to see it we're thinking about 25 brick and then maybe 75 white all right that's not a problem but i got to tell you one thing once the paint goes on it's almost impossible to take it off yeah no we understand we definitely want to go forward you're sure definitely positive yes all right great first thing we got to do protect your working area okay okay sounds great let's make it straight as possible and keep it away from the fireplace a little bit well this is the paint that we're going to use nothing special about that it's white it's flat and the water-based and the key to get the white wash look is to use water-based because we're going to add water into that okay well so that doesn't mess up the quality of the paint actually that's going to help us the brick is really absorbent it's going to suck up the water and help us to get the whitewash look okay well so how much water do you add well we're going to start eyeballing by 50 50. okay and as we go we make a little adjustment here and there now with my paint sticker we're gonna mix this paint well this looks pretty good it kind of looks like the consistency of milk all right let's try that and see what we got all right i'm going to start from this corner okay and as i'm going to give it a couple strokes i want you to come right behind me and dab with the rag so what do you think about that i don't know i think i'm wiping a little too much i kind of like this look right there all right so good so what we're going to have to do is just go light with your dab okay don't take off so much let me put some more paint so we can start over again i'm just gonna be light so you just go light dab light yeah just give them some random pattern it's gonna give us a natural look i'm not trying to cover the whole brick so you can do your work right after me i like that what do you think it looks great that's the look we're gonna get it i'd rather have the paint too light than heavier because we can always have more paint put on well the new repair motor is darker than the existing one i'm gonna use a straight paint to blend it well paint is dry fireplace looks good to me what do you think i think it looks amazing much better improvement over the last version perfect everything looks so beautiful here a lot of work we put on yeah so what do you think a little update down here well i think maybe we'll replace the tile uh with a slate or a granite and then probably update the inside with a gas insert oh i like that it's gonna make my job and marks looks much better and it's safer for the little one definitely is thank you for all the hard work tomorrow thank you very much you've got yourself a happy homeowner tomorrow nice job absolutely that came out nice it did so you've got a different technique to show us i do uh similar techniques but i like to use mine on the exterior it's masonry based not paint-based would you paint exterior brick i wouldn't do a paint because paint will stays on the surface will create a film and we'll block any moisture trap behind the brick trying to move out and that water is going to move out eventually so you're going to blow off the paint absolutely so what's your special mix so the mix that i use is a slurry mix which is basically portland cement a lot of lime and just watercolor so you're making your own huh yeah a couple scoops of portland and lime with a little bit of water is a lot cheaper than a gallon of paint right maro i guess so right all right this looks pretty good now i'm just going to switch to my brush and just go to the wall like this that's almost like you're putting this stucco coat on it looks like huh yeah it's thick it's thick but again this is made to weather off i'm now going to switch to my water bucket so that's similar to mauro dabbing the paint off that's what i meant when i said there were similar techniques but a different result that's it right there you get that very easily right there there's the variation yeah and because this is outside not inside like morrow's fireplace this will continue to fade and aware that's right so we don't care how sloppy we are when we're applying because the weathering over the next few years is what's going to really give us what we want we'll help you out to get the finish that you're looking for exactly all right two good techniques guys thank you very much keep your questions coming we'd love to hear from you so until next time i'm kevin o'connor i'm mario henrique and i'm mike mccullough for ask this old house thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed\n"