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00:00Today, on This Old House.
00:01I'm paddling the French Broad River to see how this major waterway was affected by Hurricane Helene.
00:07And I hear you're helping us out with Paul's vanity top.
00:09We are. We're going to build a concrete vanity with an integral sink.
00:13So, Jen, welcome to the UMass Extension Soil and Plant Nutrient Testing Lab.
00:17You don't know how excited I am to be here.
00:30Hey there, I'm Kevin O'Connor, and welcome back to This Old House here in western North Carolina.
00:53One of our homeowners, Maya, is starting to think about furnishing her renovated home, and she is partial to antiques.
00:59Which means, in this area, you come here.
01:03The antique tobacco barn has been an institution in this part of North Carolina,
01:06and we wanted to learn more about the business and what Maya is shopping for.
01:10Brittany, you've got quite the operation here. This place is gigantic.
01:14What is the history?
01:16So, this, I mean, it's got a pretty lengthy history, but the last thing it did before it does what it does right now
01:23was it was a tobacco auction house.
01:25And in the off-season, the families would trickle in their antiques,
01:28and then as the industry started to fade, we just have been strictly antiques now for 40 years.
01:35Forty years of antiques.
01:36That's right. It's the 40th year this year.
01:38All right. You're not unfamiliar to flooding because the river is right next door.
01:42That's right. You know, we follow the river level quite closely,
01:45and so we recognized that this was going to be an issue before Helene had hit us,
01:49and we spent three days just getting box truck after box truck out of the building.
01:52We did everything that we could, and then the storm hit,
01:55and it was just so much more than we could have possibly prepared for.
01:59How bad in terms of?
02:00Total loss.
02:01Total loss.
02:02Total loss.
02:03Well, you are definitely back. I mean, it looks fantastic.
02:06And I know one person who showed up is our Maya.
02:08That's right.
02:08Have you seen her around somewhere?
02:09I think I saw her maybe down that way.
02:11I'll go find her.
02:14Maya, I was told I would find you here.
02:16Hello.
02:17How are you?
02:17I'm well. I hope you are.
02:19I am too. Thank you. Are you in heaven? Is this your kind of thing?
02:22I'm in absolute heaven. Big antique girl.
02:24Oh, really? Forever?
02:26Well, I moved to Missouri about 12 years ago, and I just, I got so homesick
02:31that I started finding things that reminded me of my grandparents and parents,
02:35and just been a collector ever since.
02:37So you go around, and something that might have been in their house
02:40or might have reminded you of something in your house, you pluck it, and you make it yours.
02:43Yes, exactly.
02:43That's awesome. All right.
02:45Speaking of making it yours, is this the piece you're looking for?
02:48No, not this. I'm looking for a table for the kitchen.
02:52Have you got a spot? Have you figured something out?
02:54Yes, I think so.
02:55Will you take me?
02:56Yes.
02:56Let's go.
02:57Nice.
02:58And this is it.
02:59That's the table, huh?
03:00This is the table.
03:01Ah, so what's this style and vintage?
03:05It's mid-century modern Formica.
03:07Probably late 50s, early 60s.
03:10And why this one?
03:11Well, I've always been a big fan of this style.
03:13My grandparents used to have one.
03:15It was their main table, and we spend all of our holidays sitting around it eating.
03:20So this really brings back memories.
03:22Yes, absolutely.
03:23Sharing a meal, breaking bread, or something like this.
03:25Yes.
03:26Oh, that's awesome.
03:27So this is a keeper.
03:28This is a keeper.
03:29This has got to be exciting.
03:31It's sort of a turning point in the project that you can now start thinking about furnishing it
03:34and getting back into the house.
03:36Absolutely.
03:36I've been thinking about decorating and everything since before everything happened.
03:41That's true.
03:42You've always been fast on that track.
03:44All right.
03:44So this one's going home with you.
03:45Do you need chairs?
03:46Is that something that comes with?
03:47Yes, definitely need chairs, but that's the thrill of the hunt.
03:51Well, we can't wait to get you back in and put the old Formica table in.
03:54Yay.
03:54Yay.
03:55After Hurricane Helene brought record flooding to western North Carolina,
04:05some homeowners like Jim and Allie were concerned about the health of their soil.
04:10So I called in the county's local horticultural extension agent, Allison Arnold,
04:15to help determine if their yard would be fit for planting.
04:18On any project, I always recommend soil testing just to know what you're working with,
04:22what the composition is, then you have a baseline.
04:25Right?
04:25Absolutely.
04:26We always recommend soil testing.
04:28New sites, new garden, whatever that is, especially in a flood event like this.
04:32We don't really know how the soil's been impacted.
04:35We'll get information that'll help us know how to go forward with that.
04:39So in order to do that, we have a soil probe and a clean bucket.
04:44Okay.
04:44And we're basically wanting to insert this down into the soil four to six inches.
04:49In an area like we have here, you're basically wanting to take 10 to 12 samples.
04:56We're really looking for about a cup of soil in the end.
05:00There we go.
05:01Nice.
05:02So you can see there's some root debris in there.
05:04Mm-hmm.
05:05And so when you take the final sample, you could even like sift through it to pull all the roots out.
05:09Exactly.
05:10So it's really important to get a diversity of samples.
05:12So I'll go around and take samples here to get that sample complete.
05:16And then I'm going to mail them to the state lab in Raleigh.
05:19Great.
05:19And so based off those results, we'll get a recipe to start the amending.
05:23Absolutely.
05:24And we'll work together to make that happen.
05:25Yes.
05:26Awesome.
05:28While Allison sent these samples to the state lab in Raleigh, I headed home to the Massachusetts
05:33state lab to see firsthand how soil fertility tests are performed.
05:39So Jen, welcome to the UMass Extension Soil and Plant Nutrient Testing Lab.
05:43You don't know how excited I am to be here.
05:46For years and years, I've been telling homeowners, get your soil tested.
05:49Know what you're working with.
05:51So tell us why it's important for testing.
05:54Yeah, absolutely.
05:55When we're talking about testing our soil for fertility, we're looking for things like,
05:59is this soil over fertilized?
06:00Is it under fertilized?
06:02Either one of those things can be a problem for our gardens and landscapes.
06:05The first step is mail.
06:06We're pretty old school in here.
06:07If you want a routine soil sample, which is going to be things like your soil pH, your phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium,
06:14you're going to go into this bin here.
06:16Okay.
06:16And we just need about one cup of soil to do that test.
06:19If you also want to add on organic matter, then you're going to go over here.
06:24So it's $20 for a routine sample, $6 to add organic matter onto that.
06:29So for $26, you get a full fertility analysis and it'll put you in a good spot.
06:34Absolutely.
06:35Okay.
06:35So our next step, we're going to go into our drying ovens.
06:40So we put samples in here overnight at around 95 Fahrenheit.
06:43We don't want them too hot at this point.
06:45But what we want to do is get all of the water out of the soil samples because we don't want
06:49to measure water.
06:50We want to measure what's actually in your soil.
06:52Okay.
06:53I see all the different colors here.
06:55So the different colors can tell us about things like the soil type and where it came
06:58from, or even things like how much organic matter do the different soils have in them.
07:02Okay.
07:02So after we've got the soil all dried out, every single sample is hand-sivved.
07:08That gets out any rocks or other debris like plastic or glass that might be in the sample.
07:13It also gets it nice and small and uniform, and that helps us to get a really accurate
07:17and precise analysis.
07:23So Jen, the next thing that we're going to do after we've sieved and dispensed the soils
07:26is we're going to bring them over here to analyze them for pH.
07:29Now, why is pH so important?
07:31As pH starts to increase and get closer to about 6.5, we're going to see that our plant
07:36nutrients become more available.
07:38So available to the plant, meaning when it reaches 6.5, it could suck it up like a straw.
07:43Exactly.
07:43Okay.
07:45This machine does two things.
07:47It measures pH, which determines how acidic or basic the soil is, and it recommends how
07:54to get the soil into an ideal range.
07:55You do that by adding amendments like lime to raise the pH or sulfur to lower the pH.
08:02From there, another portion of the soil sample is filtered with special chemical solutions
08:07to prepare it for nutrient extraction, which will help guide fertilizer amendment recommendations.
08:13Next, we're going to take this over for our first measurement of phosphorus.
08:18And I have my instrument already going.
08:20Okay.
08:20This is flow injection analysis.
08:23Phosphorus is actually so important, we measure it twice.
08:26Once on this instrument and a second time on another instrument.
08:29So if you have the optimal level of phosphorus, you're going to have a strong root system
08:33and an overall healthy plant.
08:34Exactly.
08:35As this is going, it's creating peaks.
08:38And then this computer is going to turn these peaks into an actually calibrated number that
08:44ends up on your soil test result.
08:48So, Jen, the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to bring these samples over
08:51here for their final analysis.
08:53Now, this instrument here is going to be threefold.
08:56We can measure high phosphorus.
08:57We can measure all those other nutrients that you see on your test, like calcium, magnesium,
09:01potassium.
09:02And we can also measure the heavy metals using this instrument.
09:05Want to see how this thing works?
09:06I do, I do.
09:08So, inside we have a torch.
09:10Your sample is going to be introduced here and up into this torch.
09:13When this is running, this has a plasma.
09:16That plasma is cooking at about the temperature of the surface of the sun when we introduce
09:20your sample into it.
09:21Wow, that's insane.
09:23You want to go ahead and light up the plasma?
09:24I would love to try.
09:25Okay, you can close the door.
09:27Like that?
09:28Okay.
09:29And F5 is liftoff.
09:32There it goes.
09:33So, Jen, this is going to take about one minute per sample.
09:36When it's all done, it's going to give us another spreadsheet with all of the individual
09:40concentrations for each one of those elements that we measure.
09:43Well, I have to say it's incredible the amount of chemistry and information that you
09:48get from $26 and a cup of soil.
09:52Thank you for taking the time to show me.
09:54Absolutely.
09:55Thank you for being here.
09:56And it's a service that we're happy to provide.
09:58Awesome.
10:05Hey, Jim and Allie.
10:07Hi.
10:07So, last time I was here, Allison performed a soil test and we got results back.
10:13And do you want to tell us about it?
10:14Well, the results came back excellent.
10:17Cool.
10:17Yeah.
10:18We have three major components that we want to talk about here and let's start with the
10:22pH.
10:23Okay.
10:23So, the soil pH here, we're looking at a range between 5.8 and 6.5 and you tested it at 6.1.
10:31Awesome.
10:31So, you're right in mark there.
10:33Next, phosphorus.
10:34So, phosphorus, the optimum range we're looking for is between 50 and 70 and yours came in
10:41at 11.
10:4211?
10:42Yep.
10:43It's pretty typical of our soils here in the mountains.
10:45They have a low phosphorus level.
10:47So, what you're going to need to do is add phosphorus to your soil.
10:51That will be added at the time of planting.
10:54And last, we have potassium.
10:55Potassium is essential for plant growth, water regulation, nutrient uptake, and disease
11:01resistance.
11:01For potassium, we're looking at an index between 50 and 70 and your results came back in at
11:0756.
11:08So, you're within that range.
11:10Awesome.
11:11So, there's one more test we want to talk about.
11:13Absolutely.
11:14So, some people opted to do a heavy metals test and because of your situation, we went
11:18ahead and took a sample and sent it to a private lab and we tested for lead, arsenic,
11:25cadmium, and mercury.
11:28And fortunately, they all came at a low level.
11:30Nice.
11:31That tested really fine.
11:32Awesome.
11:33Well, thank you.
11:34Yeah.
11:34Thank you for doing this for us.
11:36We really appreciate it.
11:37I'm glad to help.
11:43A few weeks ago, I met the folks here at Making Whole.
11:46It's a custom furniture shop that also has a special program to help men in recovery rebuild
11:52their lives through hands-on apprenticeship.
11:54The shop was founded in 2018 by Jeremy French, who, after becoming sober himself in 1995, was
12:03looking for ways to support others during their struggle with addiction.
12:07I started asking myself the question, why do people get better?
12:10And it's kind of a short list.
12:12You know, I've been at this for 20-something years, and one was all of them had a story
12:17about a person at the beginning, a mentor of some shape, formal or informal.
12:23And the other thing I noticed is that these people all had either a profession or their
12:29primary hobby, their principal hobby, and it was something where they had to learn how
12:33to solve complicated problems all day long.
12:36So the question becomes, how do you create a format where people are interfacing with complicated
12:41problems in a community setting where there's an opportunity to have a mentor and do that
12:47in a way that's inviting, where people want to be here, right?
12:50And so that's what this place is built on.
12:54Master craftsman Andy Ray has been an instructor at the shop since the beginning.
12:59We're doing real work.
13:01Everyone, we're not setting up a program to keep them busy.
13:04We're an actual furniture shop.
13:06And we're not only a furniture shop, we're a high-end furniture shop.
13:08So everything that goes out the door is pretty nice.
13:12These guys come in, and they've got to work in a real situation, which is like life.
13:16Like, oh my God, there's a problem.
13:18How do you solve the problem?
13:19Go figure it out.
13:21And we let them figure it out.
13:22We let them make mistakes.
13:24And then we learn how to fix our mistakes and move to the next step.
13:29It saved my life in a lot of ways.
13:31Like, there was pretty much two options for me, dying or ending up in jail, and somehow
13:37I found a third.
13:38And that was coming here and doing something to, like, change the trajectory that my life
13:42was on.
13:43So this is different than a traditional apprenticeship where the objective is to get somebody certified
13:47to be a craftsman.
13:48So this is just a place where we use the work we're doing as a language and a dialogue to
13:55process through how do you solve complicated problems.
13:58And what that does is it translates into the rest of life.
14:00We build furniture here, and that's, like, the product that you see and that we work on,
14:06but really, like, the product that we're working on on a daily basis is ourselves.
14:13Hey, Jeremy, good to see you again.
14:14Yeah, man, good to see you, man.
14:15Yeah, so I hear you're helping us out with Paula's vanity top.
14:17We are.
14:18We're going to build a concrete vanity with an integral sink for Paula's main bathroom.
14:22Okay, it looks like you've got sort of a template here.
14:25You were at the property.
14:25We've got a template, yep.
14:26So she's hung the vanity on the wall, and so we took a template of the vanity and the
14:31wall space so that we could build a form that will fit exactly.
14:34I get this sort of being representing the top.
14:36What does this represent?
14:37So that's going to be the sink.
14:39So that's the plug that will create the sink shape.
14:41So when that comes out, we're going to cast around it.
14:43When that comes out, that becomes the shape of the sink.
14:45So instead of a space for the sink, it'll actually be integral to the whole form.
14:48Correct, yeah.
14:49All in piece.
14:50You're doing it right here?
14:51We're doing it right here.
14:52We're setting up.
14:52We're going to apply some edging directly to this table, which is a high-pressure laminate
14:57table, and then we'll cast directly into that.
14:59Let's do it.
15:00Let's do it.
15:00All right.
15:01So the first thing we want to do is make a good straight edge for the front.
15:05Regardless of what the cabinet does, we want the front edge to be straight.
15:09So what we're going to do is just, you're going to hold that.
15:12You don't get paid to look pretty.
15:13You've got to work.
15:14If this is considered work, I'm in.
15:17All right, perfect.
15:18And we're just going to hot glue this down to the table.
15:20So this is actually just where the front of the form is going to go.
15:24This is the front edge of the vanity right here.
15:26Okay.
15:35And now we can glue down the rest of the forms.
15:38And we're done with that for now.
15:40Okay.
15:41The backside of this has some double-sided tape.
15:44So now we can go ahead and locate this sink.
15:46Obviously, the themal, this is about the river.
15:49This is kind of a river stone shape.
15:50It kind of maximizes its otherwise very narrow vanity.
15:54Okay.
15:55So our sink's in place.
15:56Okay.
15:57So what we're going to do is put a Vaseline, which we've diluted in mineral spirits to make it really thin.
16:02We're going to coat everything in that.
16:06And we'll just wipe this in with a paper towel.
16:09And what we want to do is just almost remove everything.
16:12We're going to get it to where there's not much left.
16:14We're going to apply caulk around each one of the transitions in the mold, starting with the sink here.
16:24And now we'll just run this tool right around to create that nice round profile.
16:29All right.
16:30Now we just need to let this silicone cure for a minute.
16:34And then we'll just be able to peel off all this excess.
16:39More ingredients than I was expecting, to be honest.
16:41Yeah.
16:42There's a lot of ingredients that goes into a mix that's going to make a countertop thin and strong and durable and beautiful.
16:48Okay.
16:49And so all that begins with, we have a blend here that's got cement and sand, which is the aggregate in this mix.
16:55In the case of this countertop that we're doing for Paula, there's going to be a series of mixes that we do.
17:00And in all those mixes, we're going to be adding some sand that actually comes from the river that flows right by Paula's house.
17:06So this is what makes it personal and sort of adds that memory, good or bad, to the piece.
17:10Correct.
17:10And so what we're going to do is polish that and expose all that sand.
17:13It'll have a similar quality to a terrazzo.
17:16And then you've got smaller sand here.
17:19Yeah, we've got a finer sand.
17:20So we're going to break the mix into two different parts to begin with.
17:24And one part we're going to pour into the bottom.
17:27And the second part we're actually going to spray through a hopper gun.
17:29And so the finer material will go through the hopper gun, won't clog the hopper gun up.
17:33And that's how we'll get the mix to go over the sink without slumping down.
17:37This is a very specific glass.
17:39It's infused with zirconium, so it's not just your typical fiberglass.
17:42And that will allow it to not break down in the alkalinity of the cement.
17:45Okay.
17:46And why ice in your water?
17:48So if we want the mix to move and flow, cooling it down is the first part of that process.
17:53The second part of that process is that we have a couple of different plasticizers that
17:57actually make the mix more fluid without adding water.
18:01The more water you add, the weaker your concrete gets.
18:04And finally, we've got a liquid polymer that's actually going to seal the moisture into the mix.
18:08We don't want the concrete to dry out.
18:10We want it to stay moist long enough for that cement to chemically react and turn into crystals.
18:16All right.
18:16So basically what we're doing is making a countertop full of crystals.
18:19You didn't know that, did you, Kevin?
18:20I'm struck by how thin the slab is going to be.
18:35I mean, this dimension is tiny to my eye for a concrete slab.
18:38Yeah, well, concrete's got great compressive strength, which means you can't crush it easily.
18:43But it's got terrible tensile strength.
18:46The reinforcement we use for tensile strength is glass fiber, which is quite small, which allows us to make it much thinner.
18:54What those fibers are, they're like a steel cable.
18:56If you were to break one of these fibers apart, what you would have is a hundred little filaments of fiber.
19:01So it has the same kind of strength profile that a steel cable would as opposed to just a single piece.
19:08And that's what gives it the strength.
19:09So tomorrow we'll be able to pull this out of the formwork and begin the polishing process.
19:18This is exciting to see it as it is, and it's going to be awesome to see when this thing's flipped and polished.
19:22I'm excited too, yeah.
19:23Thanks, man.
19:24Yeah, thanks, Kevin.
19:24That's awesome.
19:34The French Broad River is one of North Carolina's most important waterways.
19:39Traversing through the mountains, it's beloved by outdoor enthusiasts, including Gordon Grant, a lifelong paddler and educator.
19:47French Broad is one of 17 major watersheds in the state of North Carolina.
19:52It starts on the east side of the Blue Ridge Parkway up at almost 5,000 feet.
19:57It does a big J, and it flows north through the mountains.
20:01So it's a fascinating river that geologists would call an antecedent river, that the river is as old or older than the mountains that it flows through.
20:11And they were uplifted around it.
20:14But in late September 2024, Hurricane Helene barreled into western North Carolina, causing this waterway to swell to record-breaking levels, cresting over 30 feet.
20:26This is the I-40 bridge, and notice the horizontal bars going across between the bridge pilings?
20:34Yes.
20:35The river was at least that high.
20:37Oh, my gosh.
20:38And there were buildings, tractor trailers, propane tanks coming down the river.
20:45And the river actually smelled toxic, which it was, because of all the industrial stew that was in it.
20:52Here, the Swannanoa, the other river in Asheville, converges with the French Broad, a recipe for disaster in a hurricane like Helene.
21:00The Swannanoa comes in from the east, and it regularly flows less than 100 cubic feet per second.
21:08During the flood, it went to 40,000.
21:10Oh, my gosh.
21:11So everything here was underwater, everything you could see.
21:15The River Arts District, less than a mile upriver, was hit particularly hard.
21:21So what made the River Arts District so vulnerable that it got so much more damage than other areas?
21:27Well, you can look ahead and sort of see the lay of the land.
21:30Look how flat it is.
21:32Right.
21:32Okay?
21:33It's a beautiful place to build.
21:34It's just got one big problem.
21:36When the water rises dramatically, that's where it's going.
21:40The massive cleanup effort is underway, but will take years to complete.
21:45To heal the river takes about 500 bucks a linear foot with proper reforestation.
21:51So then in the next flood, you're going to have a network of root systems, trees, and natural plants
21:59that the water can flow through but will not rip apart.
22:02And how we rebuild is going to define the next decade.
22:06Are we going to be forward-thinking enough to build in a way that the river can sustain itself
22:10through its own protective systems?
22:12Right.
22:13That can be done.
22:15It is not easy.
22:16But what else are we going to do with our time?
22:18Well, I can't thank you enough, Gordo.
22:22This has been so informative.
22:24Well, it's my pleasure, Zach.
22:25And as you can see, the river keeps going and so can we.
22:28Are you up for it?
22:29All right.
22:29Let's do it.
22:33Until next time, I'm Zach Detmore for This Old House.
22:41Next time on This Old House, we are installing under-cabinet LED lighting.
22:46And we're going to learn about good, better, and best.
22:51And from polyester chips to finished carpet, all in two days, under one roof.
22:56We'll show you the only factory in the world that can do that.
22:59And just out of curiosity, do you know how much length you've got on this roll?
23:0437 miles on the yard.
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