LESLIE: We’ve got David on the line who needs some help installing a railing. What can we do for you?
DAVID: I live in the Northeast, in the Boston area, and we have cold, harsh winters. I’m having a rail put in – a wrought-iron rail put in – the front of my house, on the walkway coming up.
TOM: OK.
DAVID: And the contractor has a place that – one leg of it is on a slab, which it’s about – a concrete slab, which is part of the walk-up, which is about 3 inches, 2 inches, 2 to 3 inches thickness. But in the other part where I want him to put the other leg, it doesn’t have any. So I have to – I agreed to put it in so that by the time he comes here with the completed wrought iron, it’ll have a place to go.
My question is: how thick do I need to put that? The walkway around it is only 2 to 3 inches. I’ve heard that you’re supposed to go below the frost line but this is only a rail.
TOM: Yeah. But that’s – yeah, that’s just for a railing. We’re not talking about supporting a lot of weight here. You just don’t want the thing to move. So it’s going to be kind of freestanding? Is that what you’re saying?
DAVID: Yes.
TOM: I’ll tell you how I would do this. I would not put it in in advance of the railing installation because otherwise, he’s going to have to drill into it, right, to set the posts?
DAVID: Right. Right.
TOM: Or is he going to mechanically bolt it to this?
DAVID: He’s going to have to drill into the finished concrete and secure it that way.
TOM: Yeah. Well, what if you did this? What if he put the railing together and now it’s just sort of hanging there in the dirt, right, so to speak, and you carved out a hole around it?
DAVID: Right.
TOM: And then what I would do is I would – it’s going to be weak because it’s not tied in. But it’s in the right position, so it’s level and all of that. Then you carve out this hole around it and just fill it up with cement. Pick up some QUIKRETE cement, the Fast-Setting Cement. It sets in about 20, 30 minutes. So you dig out the hole, you add the cement after you mix it, right around it, and then within an hour the thing will be rock-hard and holding that railing like it’s going to go nowhere.
DAVID: Fantastic. Now, how deep should I go down?
TOM: Well, since it’s a railing and if you could get that railing, say, 12 inches into that cement and then you made that cement block like, say, 12×12 or 12x12x18, that’s really all you need. It’s not going anywhere.
DAVID: OK, great. That …
TOM: You just kind of cut it and let it run long and then you can basically put the footing up. That’s the last thing you do. And this way, he won’t have to drill into it. Because that’s got to be a really tough job to drill down into solid concrete.
DAVID: Right, right.
TOM: So I mean talk to him about it. Ask him if he can put it up without the footing in place and let it run long. Let it run in the soil to sit there and then as soon as he’s done, you’ll carefully dig out around it and pour cement to hold it in place.
DAVID: OK. That’s great.
TOM: OK?
DAVID: Alright. Thank you very much.
TOM: Alright. Good luck. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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