If a lally column has integrity issues or is improperly installed, can it cause problems with the structure of the house? Adam shares a cautionary tale about an improperly installed lally column.
Narrator: The topic of today's podcast: Why are lally columns so important? Well, Adam, if a lally column has integrity issues or is improperly installed, can it cause problems with the structure of the house?
Adam: It absolutely can cause issues with the house. It's a central piece of the whole structure and supporting structure of the wood framing of a typical house. We had a call that came out of Acton, Massachusetts not too long ago, where a customer had a lally column, and had severe rusting and corrosion around the bottom of the lally column. Mostly it was because they drive in there through the wintertime and bring the salts and minerals from the roads during the wintertime, and it causes a lot of corrosion of the metal outer layer of the lally column. And so looking at this, it was going to be looking to replace this lally column, get a new one in there to protect the whole structure because the main beam of the whole house rests on the lally columns and on the outside walls.
So anything from the inside walls of the concrete towards the middle of the house is generally going to be supported with lally columns or some sort of column structure that is footed into the ground. So in this particular house, it was right on the cusp in terms of its construction age as to whether or not it would be something that would have had a typical concrete footing or not. So in certain older homes, footings were not done. It was just going to be on compacted sand or compacted gravel.
But nowadays, anything post, say, 1970 or so, you're going to have a whole footing underneath each column that actually bears the weight and pushes it into the soil. So in order to understand what we were dealing with, we had to investigate to see if there was a footing there, which we drilled around there to see if there was any concrete at depth. We found out that there was no concrete down below the main floor level. So it had been just sitting on probably at the time compacted sand. So in an effort to understand this, we had to support the structure of the house and basically jackhammer out the floor there and to see it. And what we found was actually an extremely concerning approach that this column had been replaced at one point in time.
And it was funny because when we looked at it, the top of the column had some markings on there from a manufacturer that were kind of a newer marking that you would see more in the last 20 years than something that would be 50, 60 years old. So it was a little curious to me. I kind of didn't make a note of it too bad. And when we opened up the floor, we had found that there was an older column that was buried down into the sand and into the dirt and that the newer column had just been placed right on top. So the previous contractor had basically gone in there and said, okay, well, this is good. We're just going to put a new one on top.
And in fact, they actually missed putting it right on top of the column. So one side of the column was actually overhanging the other column by about an inch, inch and a half, for a 3 and a half inch column, that's a substantial amount. And as we looked a little bit more and we spent a little bit more time in this house, we realized that the entire roof structure on that side had a bow in it. And it was actually very clear that this beam had sagged a bit because of improper replacement of this previous column. So it's not something that a handy guy can just do in their weekend free time. This is something that supports the main load of the house. So it's something that needs to be taken very seriously and not haphazardly. So in this case, the homeowner was lucky that they didn't have any sort of major structural collapse, but they did see issues upstairs for years that they never really pointed a finger as to what it was. But it was an improper replacement of a lally column that had no footing.
And so that sand had eroded away and there was no support underneath there. So that column was basically doing nothing. And so the beams really had to take the load of the house and started sagging tremendously. So just a cautionary tale for those who are looking at their columns and potential placements. This is not a project that you can just do yourself generally. It's a little bit more complicated than that. You have to know what you're doing, and you have to make sure that you have a properly sized footing to be able to actually hold the weight of the house because it is supporting the entire middle of your house, and you don't want to end up in the basement unless you're going down the stairs and not going through the floor.
Narrator: Well, thanks, Adam, for sharing this cautionary tale about an improperly installed lally column. The big foot stomp there is to make sure you get a professional to install that lally column because it is not a DIY project.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a crack repair professional near Concord, NH, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call Adam at (866) 929-3171. Or you can email Adam at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.