♪♪ Kevin: On "Ask This Old House," our experts travel across the country to answer questions about your house.

♪♪ Today, Nathan helps a homeowner replace their broken trash insert.

And have you noticed some types of light bulbs disappearing from store shelves?

Heath educates us on why this is happening.

Plus, Lee removes some arborvitaes that have become an overgrown eyesore.

All that on "Ask This Old House."

♪♪ [ Doorbell rings ] Nathan: Hi, Christine.

Christine: Hi, Nathan.

Come on in.

Nathan: Nice to meet you.

Christine: Nice to meet you.

Nathan: So you wrote in about a trash-can insert.

Christine: I did.

My daughter caught her pants on it, and it kind of broke comp-- But it also has been a problem since we moved in.

Nathan: Okay.

Christine: The plastic is deteriorating and chipped, and we can't find, um, you know, we couldn't find a match that fit the bins.

Nathan: Okay.

Christine: But now it's -- Since her pants caught it, it's completely -- Nathan: Oh, yeah.

Christine: Kind of not ideal when you've got trash in there.

Nathan: No.

What year do you think the kitchen is?

Christine: Uh, 1997, I think.

Nathan: '97.

So a good, long life.

But maybe time for a new trash-can insert?

Christine: Yes.

Nathan: Okay.

Um, we're going to get started.

I'll take some dimensions.

I'll go out and see what I can find, and we'll put a new one in.

Christine: Sounds good.

Thank you.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Nathan: Alright, here's the new kit that I picked up.

It has all the parts and pieces we need to put a new trash-can insert in.

So we have our sides, our slides, our bottom.

We have brackets to mount the door to the front, all the fasteners we need.

Brand-new bins.

Christine: Great.

Nathan: And what's great about this kit too is it comes with a template and some pretty good instructions.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: So we're ready to get started by removing this old insert.

Slide this out.

Hand that to you.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: I'll start by pulling this out.

[ Drill whirs ] Alright.

We're going to get started by mounting the sides onto these slides on the bottom.

So we're going to drop it on top, ride it back, and then see this tab back here?

We want to make sure that we go all the way back.

We're actually going to hit it a little bit... until those holes line up.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: Now we can put two of the provided screws in.

Do you want to put that one on?

Christine: Sure.

Okay?

Nathan: Perfect.

Alright.

This one.

Christine: This one?

Nathan: Alright, so we have the tabs facing in.

The tabs are locked out in the back.

And then following the instructions, we're going to drop our bottom in and then secure that with the four screws provided.

Alright.

So we'll line these holes up and then we'll secure those four spots with the screws.

Alright.

Next we're going to add the connecting rod to the rear.

Give it a little bit of stability in the back.

Alright.

Now for the most part that's done.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: We can use our template and go start laying out inside.

Christine: Alright.

Nathan: Alright.

So we'll slide our template into place.

There's a little bit of layout.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: First we're going to do the center.

So we have 22 1/4.

So we'll come in 11 1/8.

So now we have our center line to work off of.

One thing we want to consider is you have some pine on the back of your door, and that is 3/4 of an inch.

So we need to push this back 3/4 of an inch.

Instead of bringing it all the way to the to the front, we're going to drop it back.

And if we stay in line with this face frame here, should help square it all the way back.

But we'll double-check that.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: So I have 4" and 4", and we're ready to start drilling.

Pretty easy on this template -- they have these black dots so we'll drill those out.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: And then we'll mount the base.

Christine: Alright.

Sounds good.

♪♪ ♪♪ Nathan: And then fasten it with the screws provided.

♪♪ Alright.

So these are the brackets that we're going to use, then we're going to mount those over there on the front of that.

But then we're going to screw them to the back side of this.

And that's how we're going to mount our door.

We're going to hang them on the bracket with these screws.

And then we have these screws that are nice and short that come through the back and go into the pine.

Christine: Okay.

Sounds good.

Nathan: Alright.

Let's mount these.

Alright.

Want to bring that door over?

Christine: Sure.

Nathan: Thank you.

Alright.

So we're going to mock this up.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: We're ready to go.

We're ready for attachment.

If I just put this into place... Christine: Yep.

Nathan: We know we need to watch our reveals.

So I'm going to watch across the top down the left-hand side.

Um, to put this on the easiest way possible, I'm going to use some double-sided tape.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: So, I'm going to...attach that.

Peel that off and we'll bring the door in.

We'll try and stick it right in there.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: So watch the left side across the top.

That's going to fly.

So we'll press and hold for a second.

Try and get that bond.

Alright.

Now we'll try our luck and we'll see if we can pull it out.

Perfect.

Alright, now we're ready to attach from the backside.

So like I said, three screws from each side.

And these are shorter screws.

Christine: Alright.

[ Drill whirs ] Nathan: So we'll catch that side.

[ Drill whirs ] Okay.

I'm going to catch four and then we'll close it.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: Check our reveals again to make sure we didn't move.

And then I'll put the other two in.

[ Drill whirring ] Look good?

Christine: Looks great.

Nathan: Alright.

Now, the best part.

That looks pretty good.

So, what I'd like to do, one last thing to kind of touch it up, this is a high-traffic area.

You can see that there's been a lot of scratches and some discoloration there.

Christine: Yep.

Nathan: I'd like to pull this knob off.

Christine: Okay.

Nathan: And I have a little bit of a scratch-repair formula here that's great.

This is for light colors.

So I'm just going to put a little on a rag.

Christine: That'll be amazing.

That spot has bugged me even more than the trash.

Nathan: So we're going to rub that along the top.

And then down the front here there's a few nicks and scrapes.

Christine: Yep.

Nathan: So I'm just gonna polish that off.

Christine: Okay.

That looks great.

Nathan: A little bit better.

A little bit of new life into it.

Alright.

Nice and smooth.

Soft close.

Christine: Looks great.

Nathan: Yeah.

Nice upgrade.

Christine: Yeah.

Nathan: Let's just keep those cargo pants away from that knob, okay?

Christine: Right?

She's not gonna be allowed to wear them in the house anymore.

Nathan: Sounds good.

Alright.

I hope you enjoy it.

Christine: Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Nathan: You're welcome.

♪♪ Kevin: Hey, Heath.

Heath: Hey, Kevin.

Kevin: You've been through my light bulb drawer.

[ Both laugh ] Heath: Look familiar, do they?

Kevin: It does.

I've got one of everything in a box because I think I'm always gonna need them.

Heath: Yeah, we have shelves full of these things, too.

Kevin: Right?

Why are they all here?

Heath: So, went to the supply house trying to get some fluorescent tubes, older fluorescent tubes for a customer just to replace and repair a light real quick.

Kevin: Right.

Heath: Having a hard time getting some of these now.

Kevin: Really?

Heath: Yeah.

And I was being told that they're going to be more and more difficult to get, and I'm probably better off changing that fixture to something newer.

Kevin: They're phasing out fluorescence?

Heath: Yeah, they're phasing those out like they did to some of the incandescents.

Kevin: Oh, my gosh.

Heath: So that kind of started me down a rabbit hole of how do we even get here and where did this all start.

Kevin: Alright.

Heath: So here we are.

Kevin: Where did it all start?

Heath: So it started when I started looking.

A gentleman in 1802 was the first one to actually take a battery and apply power to some type of filament and get it to glow.

I mean, very little, very limited.

But it was the start of it all.

From there, a bunch of scientists, ones we know the names of and some we don't, jumped on and created what we have now as the incandescent bulb.

Kevin: So what is the actual science of how this is making light?

Heath: So what we're doing is actually applying current to a filament inside.

Kevin: Which is that little sort of spring.

Heath: Spring-looking piece.

Once we do that, that gets hot and actually glows and that glow is what we're using for the light.

Kevin: Hm, okay.

Um, so magnificent in its day.

Heath: Amazing.

Kevin: Right.

Uh, but as you point out, it's really just making heat.

Heath: Not super efficient.

Yeah.

So we're getting about 10% light, 90% heat.

Kevin: Okay.

Heath: So a lot of that energy is really being lost.

Kevin: We can improve the efficiency.

They don't last as long as they should either.

Heath: They don't.

You know, usually a couple of years.

And there are also some variables of other things.

Not to say there isn't an exception to the rule.

I think there's one called the Centennial Light that's in California in a firehouse.

Kevin: I've heard about this.

Heath: Over 100 years running.

Kevin: That's crazy.

Heath: It's still going.

I mean, it started out as a 60-watt bulb.

It's down to a 4-watt.

But it's still there.

Kevin: I'm down to about a 4-watt myself.

So, we move from the incandescent to the fluorescent.

We're used to seeing these.

So the tubes that sort of go up above us, sit in banks of three or four.

Heath: Exactly.

You'll see those in commercial applications, industrial, we'll see that kind of thing.

And this works by, uh, two electrodes on the end get current as well.

And inside there's a gas -- mercury and phosphorus.

Kevin: So we've got these pins on either side.

And what's going on with the...?

Heath: Once we apply the charge, everything gets excited.

We can actually see that phosphor.

Kevin: I'll, uh, take your word on that one.

Um, so this is roughly how much more efficient than, say, the incandescents?

Heath: Depending on the size and the type you're using, we'll say roughly five times more efficient.

Kevin: Which is why we all started moving to them.

Heath: We started moving to them, so we started to get the oil crunch.

We wanted to find a way to use them residentially, but obviously that tube isn't going to fit where that goes.

Kevin: So when you want to make them so that they fit in your desk, side lamp or whatever, you need that which is interesting because, you know, old Mr. Edison's invention may be on its way out, but that screw base is -- Heath: Became the standard.

Kevin: In everything we own.

Heath: Everything.

Yeah.

Kevin: So you've got to sort of make these fit into the existing fixtures.

Heath: Yep.

So an engineer in the '70s found a way to take that tube, coil it, and make it fit in the place of those bulbs.

Kevin: Yeah.

That's good-looking too.

Mm, said no one ever.

Heath: Said no one.

[ Both chuckle ] Kevin: Alright.

Um, so we can do better in terms of efficiency.

Heath: We can.

Yeah.

Kevin: Uh, and that takes us to these.

Heath: The L.E.D.s.

Kevin: And so what is the actual science in terms of how these make light?

Heath: So it literally stands for light-emitting diode.

And what we're doing is applying current to this, going through multiple electronics depending on the size and the type of lamp that it is, and we're lighting up the diode.

That's what you see.

Kevin: And when you say diode, every one of those little yellow squares that we see right there is one of those diodes.

So it's kind of like a little computer chip basically.

Heath: Exactly.

We're just giving it a glow.

Kevin: Yeah.

And when these things came out, they were wonky.

They were about as wonky as these things were when they came out, right?

Heath: They were ugly.

They were expensive.

There were a million different styles.

Everyone was trying everything to make them work, and now they really have them down.

Kevin: So you approve?

Heath: It took a while.

I'm not gonna lie.

They had their place.

You know, I was a little bit of a snob.

My exterior lights in my own house, I have clear glass.

I wanted the, you know, clear candelabra bulbs because it was a cleaner look.

When these first came out, you had, you know, a white base and then kind of a clear top, and it just didn't look good.

Kevin: Didn't like it.

Heath: Um, now you can get them like this.

These look great.

They work great.

It's hard to pass up now.

Kevin: And, you know, they're literally trying to replicate the old Edison bulb because we are creatures of habit.

So we want to -- Heath: I still want that look.

Kevin: Yeah.

Heath: And I still want that color.

Kevin: Yeah.

So we get floods in L.E.D.s.

We get the "A" lamps in L.E.D.s.

We get the fluorescents.

Heath: Even replacements for the fluorescent tubes.

Yeah.

Kevin: And how much more efficient is an L.E.D.?

Heath: So on something like this, if we took a 60-watt incandescent to a 60-watt equivalent L.E.D., the L.E.D.

's probably using somewhere around six watts.

So it's almost -- it can be up to 10 times more efficient.

It's hard to pass up.

Kevin: And these things go forever.

Heath: In theory, they last a long time.

Again, it's electronic.

Sometimes they are prone to failure, but on average you're going to get much more life and much more efficiency compared to the incandescent or even the fluorescent.

Kevin: It's kind of nice to know that the Centennial bulb still has them beat.

Alright, well, I appreciate it, Heath.

Heath: Alright.

Kevin: If you're coming around, I think this is probably on its way out.

Heath: Yeah, we're getting there.

Kevin: Thank you.

♪♪ Ben: Hey, Lee, nice to meet you.

Lee: Nice meeting you.

I got an e-mail.

Ben: Yeah.

Lee: It looks like these were here, the arborvitaes you talked about, these emerald greens.

Ben: Yeah.

So my fiancée and I just bought this house.

We're doing some work inside, but these trees, as you can see, kind of just go right over the pathway.

Lee: Yes, I see.

So, back in the day, these were probably put in, you know, for the style back then.

But things have changed over the years, you know what I mean?

So let's take a look at them.

Ben: Yeah, that sounds great.

Lee: So we got some arborvitaes in here.

Emerald greens.

Got a lot of dead growth inside.

And, you know, they're big.

I think we should take these all out.

Ben: That would be great.

Lee: Looks like you have some more on the side as well.

These ones look like they might have been damaged over the years by some snow damage and things like that.

Ben: Okay.

Lee: So we'll take these out too, get the beds all prepared and we could do some plantings later on.

Ben: That sounds great.

What about -- We have a couple bushes we wanted to save as well.

Lee: Okay.

So we have some oakleaf hydrangeas.

Really nice plant.

Probably should save that.

Ben: Yeah, we really like the flowers on those.

Lee: Alright.

We'll dig that up.

And then we'll probably discard the rest of these emerald greens.

Ben: That sounds great.

Lee: Alright.

And it looks like you called 811, utility company, which is fantastic.

Ben: Yeah.

And we had them come out.

Lee: You want to do that before you dig anywhere.

Okay?

On the property.

So that's great.

These are one of the plants that you want to save.

This is oakleaf hydrangea.

Real nice plant.

Good foundation plant.

So let's dig this out.

But first I want to prune some stuff back because it can go into shock.

So let's take some stuff off.

I just want to, you know, condense it in a little bit.

It's easier also to transplant it.

Okay?

Ben: Sounds good.

Lee: I know we're taking some flowers off, but it's okay.

It will recover.

Ben: This one.

Lee: Yeah, exactly.

Cut it above, a new shoot coming off.

This one here, just cut this one back.

Take your shovel and we're going to slice it down all the way around.

We're going to cut the root system on here.

Ben: Okay.

Lee: Alright?

Perfect.

If you can take that out, lift it up for me.

I'm going to put a little bit of soil in the bottom of the bucket.

Okay?

Put that in there for me.

Perfect.

Nice fit.

So I want to get in here with these loppers.

What I'm going to do is I'll make some cuts and I'll pass it off to you.

Alright?

We want to get to the main trunk.

Alright?

And then we'll do our cuts in there.

Pass this to you.

We took all this, branches off that we needed to.

So we got an all-bare tree now.

So we're going to put some cuts in this, okay?

So what we're going to do is a horizontal cut, okay?

We'll go this way like this straight across, okay?

And then we're going to do a sloping cut like that.

And that's like the notch in it, okay?

And then we'll finish it off in the back.

The back cut takes the pressure off it, okay?

Ben: And, Lee, I noticed the tree's leaning a little bit that way.

Lee: Yeah.

So we might have to do a little bit of a help on it also.

Okay?

But that's it.

Ben: Okay.

Lee: Also let me ask you how you feel about a chain saw.

Are you comfortable with it?

Ben: I think I can handle it.

Lee: Alright.

Let's go get suited up.

Ben: Okay.

♪♪ Lee: Okay.

We're all suited up.

Safety gear.

Our glasses.

Helmets.

Okay, here's the saw.

Real nice chain saw.

Okay?

Um, go over it.

Chain tension nice.

Okay?

Pretty good.

And then we have a bar on here.

This is a brake bar.

Okay?

This stops the saw, you know, if we're getting a little trouble.

Real simple.

[ Chain saw buzzing ] Great.

Nice.

Let the saw do the work.

Okay?

[ Buzzing continues ] Okay.

Ben, we're at a bad angle.

If we keep on doing that, we're gonna go all the way through the tree.

We don't want to do that.

So more of an angle to meet our top cut.

Okay?

Try that.

[ Buzzing continues ] There you go.

Now we're going to do the back cut.

Okay?

Ben: Okay.

Lee: Go ahead.

There it goes.

[ Chain saw stops ] Nice job.

Ben: Thank you.

[ Chain saw resumes ] Lee: Go ahead.

Nice.

Come up closer up here for me.

So, on these ones here, we just want to cut them straight across.

We're not going to notch it out like we did the bigger tree, okay?

So I would suggest to cut them up like in here.

Just cut this off.

Give us some room.

So when we, um, take the tree out, extract the tree, we got something to play with.

Ben: Sounds good.

Lee: Alright?

So go ahead and start the machine up.

♪♪ Cut it on the back side of that one right there.

Yep.

♪♪ ♪♪ Alright, so we got to get this out of here.

Alright?

So let's pump this out.

Let me start excavating some of this back.

Got some fabric paper.

That's a no-no.

A lot of people like to use it.

They think it stops the weeds.

It doesn't stop the weeds.

Weeds come in airborne.

This doesn't work.

And also, we have a gas line in here.

So we got to be a little careful what we're digging.

There you go.

Nice job.

♪♪ One out.

♪♪ Pretty good.

There's a couple of roots left, I think.

This is a reciprocating saw.

You don't want to touch the dirt with a chain saw or anything like that.

[ Saw buzzing ] ♪♪ Not bad at all.

Okay, that was a good dig out.

And look at this.

What did we find?

Some rubber mulch.

This is no good.

It even has tire tracks in it.

This is not good.

This will never break down.

So I think what we should do is try to get rid of it as much as we can.

♪♪ Glad we're getting rid of this stuff.

It's not good.

You know what I mean?

It doesn't do anything.

It doesn't serve any purpose.

So, we got some compost.

This is good stuff.

This will create some organic matter in the bed.

And then what we're gonna do is rototill it.

I'm going to get it down, probably, like, you know, four or five inches down.

That's where the root systems are on a lot of the plants.

And that'll be good.

Remember, we got a pipe coming out of there.

♪♪ ♪♪ So what we had, those arbs, too big, you know what I mean?

So we're in good shape there.

We got rid of those.

So now I would just suggest we had an oakleaf hydrangea.

So why don't we keep that theme going with, you know, with some more oakleaf hydrangeas, maybe some boxwoods and maybe another variety of hydrangea?

And I think you'd be good.

Ben: That sounds great.

Thank you so much.

Lee: Hey, nice meeting you.

Talk to you soon.

Take care of yourself.

Ben: Thank you.

♪♪ Kevin: Next time on "Ask This Old House," Mark heads to Detroit to help a family build a foundation in preparation for a shed delivery.

Mark: See what we're leaving?

Man: Yep, I see it now.

Mark: Yep.

Kevin: And Tom and Nathan go over the basics of framing a wall.

Tom: But this header on a five-foot wall basically stiffens the wall up.

Kevin: Then Nathan installs a new bifold door.

Nathan: Everything's hidden from your guests.

Man: I love it.

Nathan: I think you are good to go.

Kevin: All that on "Ask This Old House."