On May 18, 2:02 pm, "Thomas G. Marshall"
. com wrote:
There was a person I was speaking to recently who was proud of what he
considered to be a very bright move on his part.

He had noticed that the lolly-columns in his basement had been filled with
cement prior to being used. He assumed that the strength of the support was
in the cement, and therefore concluded it was a good idea to try filling PVC
tubes and using those as posts (note-not as sonno-tubes, but as fully
structural support posts).

I pointed out that I thought that the strength of a lolly was in the steel,
and that the cement was there merely to ensure that it was never dented,
causing it to fold like an aluminum can. I was concerned that the first
major frost heave under his deck that is able to stress the ledger enough to
pull outward a small amount would cause his pvc+cement "posts" to break.

Was I right?

I think you're right that there's cause for concern, I think you're
wrong about the failure mechanism unless the footings are seriously
sub-standard, and I think there's a lot of information left out. The
diameter of the PVC, whether it's Schedule 40 or 80 or even the thin
stuff that they use for drainage, how deep the footings are, how high
above grade the deck is, etc.

R