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We’re looking to open up a wall that separates the kitchen and living room. The wall doesn’t reach the ceiling, currently has a 3ft doorway.

The house is a single story slab on grade located in SoCal. Wall ends about 6 ft from the ceiling.

Upon removing the drywall we found this 3” steel pole set in the slab. It sticks out of the slab about 3ft and is lagged to one of the studs. Waterline in the image went to the ice maker in the fridge and the sink is on a separate wall so I don’t believe this is related to anything plumbing.

Is this pipe providing some sort of shear strength to the house, or is it just there to stiffen the partial wall for out of plane loads, since it doesn’t attach to the ceiling?

Photos for reference: View from the kitchen

Pole in question

Set into the slab

Bolted to stud

View from the other side

Fredric Shope
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ItWorkedInSolidworks
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3 Answers3

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It appears to be a post intended to brace the wall and prevent it from flexing. Likely the wall flexed too much when bumped on that side of the door opening.

A wiser solution would have been to give the section of wall above a more substantial header.

Hot Licks
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Hard to imagine this pipe providing any useful stiffening of anything other than the one stud it's attached to.

That's exactly what it does... now.

It's the bottom half of a floor support post. They used the holes where the pins go, and put through bolts into a stud that sits on an almost completely cut floor plate which was probably wiggling. And stopped wiggling when they put the bolts in, so they didn't have to go get masonry fasteners to attach the floor plate better.

Why is it there? Probably (temporary) when they cut that opening and/or blew out the roof (and became unnecessary). Or it's an OG artifact and the framer was more OCD than me and took the opportunity to strengthen the wall because there was a 'pipe' right there already with some holes in it.

Mazura
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It looks like it was placed during original construction, when the slab was poured. It doesn't look like standard construction.

Does the open end smell like septic gas? Are the other vent pipes in the house metal or plastic? Is there any way to learn what the pipe was originally intended for?

If the pipe was meant to be structural, it could just be left alone. If it is a septic vent pipe it should be run out the roof, or capped with a one-way air vent valve. The one-way septic gas vents have been adopted by some local building codes.

Charles
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