What is this? A pillar? Can it be removed?

[hsd]

Or buy an inspection camera for the mobile from China, lightinthebox.com, for a hundred.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

I drilled a bit where one of the nails had been. There was a plastic plug behind it, so I drilled through it to avoid damaging the eternit more than necessary. Apparently, it's not hollow but very porous inside. It felt like poking into bad plaster, lime, or something similar. In any case, I drilled almost all the way through without hitting anything at all.

(As a side note, I have decontaminated both the garage and the boiler room from eternit following all the rules, wearing NASA clothes and a mask, as I have respect for the material. So this pillar is being treated with kid gloves and small tools for now.)

 

[justusandersson]

Yes, there went my theory! The easiest thing is to do nothing. But the mystery remains unsolved.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

Yes, of course, it can remain if it serves such an essential function as supporting the roof. What I was hoping for was that it didn't serve such a function and could just be removed. Especially since it’s eternit. The floor can be chiseled away within a reasonable distance, and the part that remains can be chipped and possibly leveled with self-leveling compound.

 

[justusandersson]

Do you not have any construction drawings of the concrete vault above? If you have them, you can look at the reinforcement drawing to see how the edge against the old basement wall is constructed. If you can't find either steel or concrete behind it, it serves absolutely no purpose.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

Unfortunately, I don't have any proper construction drawings for the extension (the affected part of the house). The drawings I have for the house itself are from 1954 (built in 1956) and include a very detailed technical description of the house itself. The extension, which was built in 1966, only has a simple drawing labeled "proposal for extension," and it only specifies the dimensions of the room above ground level. Then there's another drawing of the basement that is essentially just a copy of the original house drawing, with the room in question simply added on. No technical description whatsoever regarding wall thickness, reinforcement, material choice, or similar details like those in the original house description.

I can mention, however, that I removed an oil tank from the mentioned room, and in order to do so, I had to go all out and widen a doorway in the load-bearing wall (the one that's black at the bottom in the pictures), so you can see the ceiling in cross-section, so to speak. And from what I can ascertain, there's no form of metal beam visible there at least, but that's no guarantee that there's nothing supporting around the pillar.

Could use an x-ray machine

(The years are mentioned only in the hope that it will help someone provide suggestions on what it might be )

 

[justusandersson]

I asked for construction drawings (i.e., reinforcement drawings) of the concrete slab for the extension because I thought it might show if the slab also partially rested on the old basement wall. You might know or be able to see that anyway? If so (that the slab also rests on the old foundation), then we can probably rule out that the asbestoscement pipe has anything to do with the load-bearing.

 

[Hassel1949]

Old thread but I'm guessing it might be an old garage ventilation.
Garage ventilated with extraction from floor level.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

It actually might have been, indeed. When I had stripped out everything conceivable that was used as a surface layer on the inside of the room, it turned out that it had once been a garage, as the garage door and an additional window to the room were bricked up. However, what spoke against the idea of ventilation is that the "column" stood on the old floor, there was neither a channel through the floor nor any form of air duct on the column itself. Nevertheless, it was left standing and the old floor was cleared away around it, and since mid-December, the new floor has been laid and settled in. I'll have to invest in an X-ray machine when I feel I have some extra money