This Old House

The Billerica House - 10

As our master carpenter sets up the table saw to make a sample raised-panel door for the Silvas to consider for their new kitchen, our host sees Tom's system for flashing windows: a layer of waterproof membrane covered with a custom gap of side-bent lead-coated copper. The cementitious clapboards - factory primed and first-coated - go on to great acclaim, and our host meets with landscape designer Stephanie Hubbard to lay out the challenges facing the project: entries to the property, views from inside, transitions among vastly different elevations.In the basement, master electrician Allen Gallant is working on one of two main panels. Turning down his rechargeable jobsite boombox, he shows off a new breaker called an arc-fault arrestor, which detects the kind of electrical arcs in frayed cords and worn wires that can cause fires. Tom Silva shows us the first of the porch decks: he's using ipe, a Brazilian hardwood, and giving it a clean look by fastening it down using only a marine adh