We got a call because the home inspector said the Lally column should be ok, but the homeowner called in the building inspector for a small town outside Nashua, NH.
The lally column was an old granite post cut about 10” going up to the beam, and supporting it. The basement did have a poured concrete floor. However, the building inspector said that in order to approve the granite post, he had to see if it was sitting on a solid surface, and he didn’t only mean the 3” of poured concrete. If it is only on 3” of concrete it is not going to support.
So I had to break the floor near the granite lally column. We saw that it went through the concrete floor and was sitting on a very big bolder. The building inspector saw that and said it was going to pass because the lally column is solid and it is sitting on a solid bolder.
Today, you would have a filled steel pole sitting on a big slab or footing of concrete below the floor. So it was interesting that the building inspector and the home inspector both passed the lally column.
This shows that you need to have a solid lally column that sits on a very solid footing and you building inspector will be happy.
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