The column only carries what the footer under it can hold.
We replace basement jack posts and lally columns with permanent steel columns on new concrete footers, from $2,500. We fabricate and set our own steel.
That is one column in an open, unfinished basement. Read it as a starting point: your own number comes in a written proposal after the walkthrough. There is no design fee.
How many columns the beam needs. A finished basement, where the flooring, walls or ceiling around the column come out and go back. How easy it is to get to: a column in the open costs less than one behind a furnace or a stair.
The beam above. A cracked or undersized beam is a bigger job. A load-bearing wall coming out with a new engineered beam starts at $8,000 for a single-story wall.
The township. Permits, when the work needs them, are flagged and priced separately in the proposal. Every one of these gets talked through and priced before you sign.
A column set on a thin slab, or at the edge of an old footer, pushes the load into concrete that was not made for it. So the footer is where the job starts.
On a bathroom remodel this fall, the beam under the bathroom floor needed a permanent column. The basement slab was only about an inch thick, so a jack could not lift against it and the load had to go to a real footer.
The old footer came out. It had no rebar in it. The new one has a full rebar mat, held up off the bottom so the steel sits inside the concrete. Rebar lying on the dirt does very little.
The house stays livable the whole time.
The beam goes on temporary support, and the old post and footer come out.
The footer is dug, the rebar is tied and the concrete is poured.
The beam stays on temporary support until the footer is up to strength. On that job it was one week.
The steel is ordered to length. On that job it was cut to within a sixteenth of an inch. We weld on the top and bottom plates and check the bottom plate for plumb.
Two coats of primer and two coats of paint, then it is set on the footer and fastened top and bottom.
We set steel columns on new footers in Jenkintown, Glenside, Abington, Wyndmoor, Flourtown, Oreland, Dresher, Fort Washington, Maple Glen, Ambler, Lower Gwynedd, Blue Bell, Plymouth Meeting, Lafayette Hill, Elkins Park, Horsham, Willow Grove, Huntingdon Valley and the rest of Montgomery County, PA.
The usual signs are upstairs: a floor that sags toward the middle of the house, tile or plaster that keeps cracking in the same place, a door that stopped closing. In the basement, a post that sits at the edge of its footer, or on bare slab, is worth a look.
Often not. Many telescoping jack posts are sold as temporary support. The building code calls for a steel column of at least 3 inch Schedule 40 pipe, or an approved equivalent, held in place at the bottom.
Sometimes, and we find out before we promise it. In many older houses around here the basement slab is only an inch or two thick and cannot take a jack, so the load has to reach a real footer. In a bathroom remodel the better answer is often to support the framing where it is and build the new floor level on top of it.
Yes. A remodel is a good time for it. On that job the bathroom floor was already open, so the joists, the subfloor and the column were done together.
About two days of work in the basement, spread over a week or so, because the concrete needs time before it takes the load.
Send us a few details and Karl will get back to you, usually the same day. The first conversation costs nothing, and you'll come away knowing roughly where your numbers land and whether we're the right fit.