Odd metallic pole in basement

polarmystery

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2005
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Greetings,

I demo'd a portion of my basement, and I found a metal pole behind one of the walls. I don't know if it has a function or anything. Maybe load bearing? Unsure. Does anybody know what this is or what it's for? My house was built in the 70's.

-P
 

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Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
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My guess is it's holding the beam above it which is load bearing. Are the joists on the ceiling sitting on top of it? The 2x4 studs were probably added after the fact to make that into a wall. Should be safe to remove those, but the pole would have to stay as it probably has it's own footing into the concrete.

It's quite possible there is a footing for the entire wall too, but I would guess that there is not, since if it was built that way from the start they would not have bothered with the pole.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
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I'm guessing there was some foundation work done at some point and that was installed to level one side of the house?
 
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BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
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Hell, take it out...what's the worst that could happen?
It DEFINITELY looks like it's load bearing...supporting that beam.
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
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Yep, load bearing, used to be pretty common construction technique, down to the color.
 
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Red Squirrel

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Used to be? Now what do they do? I've never been in basement that didn't have a few of those.

Sometimes they just use a wall for load bearing. Often when there is a wall in the middle of the basement or even upstairs, it's load bearing. Rather than having a beam with a post, the load is just spread out on all the individual studs of that wall. I think it's easier to have a post though, as you only need to pour a footing for the pole instead of for a whole wall. But for upstairs walls then it's easier to just have a wall that spans the beam that's in the basement. Essentially a good way to picture it is if you had a bunch of Jenga blocks how would you place them to make a structure that spans more than the length of a single block.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
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Most importantly, why does that pole not have a stripper attached to it?

It's too close to the wall. Clearly shoddy contractor work. The OP should remove the existing pole and put a new one up in the middle of the room. If you get one of the Stripper Pole Packs from Costco they come with the pole plus 3 strippers in the box
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
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Used to be? Now what do they do? I've never been in basement that didn't have a few of those.
I haven't lived in a place where basements are common in almost twenty years. I didn't want to speak to modern construction standards and I figured that if the OP hadn't seen one before maybe they weren't used anymore.
 

highland145

Lifer
Oct 12, 2009
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It's too close to the wall. Clearly shoddy contractor work. The OP should remove the existing pole and put a new one up in the middle of the room. If you get one of the Stripper Pole Packs from Costco they come with the pole plus 3 strippers in the box
And the wal mart version.....
1545056857665.png
 

polarmystery

Diamond Member
Aug 21, 2005
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Thanks for the replies, LOL. It looked load bearing granted it was supporting the beam and concrete was holding it in place. Ya'll are too much :D
 

Fir

Senior member
Jan 15, 2010
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Take the wall around it down since the pole is load bearing, get a chrome sleeve and presto! You have a private strip club! ;)