Columns and decorative concrete

Decorative Concrete or Stone work is expensive and looks great but it's always disheartening when customers call us with rotted columns that were prematurely rotted as a result of being encased in stone or concrete. 

Firstly, concrete and wood do not get along very well, the concrete will begin to rot the wood after it has been installed around the base, this then creates a pool where water sits and collects over time. The water then begins to wick up the wood columns, rotting the columns which then invites Carpenter Ants to eat at the columns and potentially move into your support beams above. The pooling water will also freeze over the winter and further damage the columns, not to mention the damage that the expanding ice is doing to your very expensive concrete, the picture above shows cracking to both the stone and mortar, this is a result of the ice expanding and contracting over the course of years. 

Our answer to this issue is to remove the existing column, clean out the rotted wood base from the surrounding concrete and fill the hole with new concrete. By filling with new concrete, we solve many issues, there is no longer a pool for the water to collect and damage your decorative concrete and it provides a solid foundation for us to install the new columns onto. The new concrete will always be a different colour from the existing due to it being new, however, our fibreglass column bases will cover up the new concrete, no-one will ever know the difference once we are done.