One of the many challenges and opportunities in today’s market is to make use of infill properties and reuse of existing structures. These kinds of projects, with many challenges including soil challenges and unknowns of existing buried infrastructure. Many times the structures are located in close proximity to functioning footings of existing structures that preclude either disturbing by digging below or overburdening by putting footings on top.
We have been a key player developing cost-effective strategies and solutions for dealing with these challenges in making it possible for these Brownfield developments to take place. Helical piles and micro piles can provide gravity and uplift solutions for support of new or existing structures without disturbing footings in close proximity. In addition to that these piles can be installed with little or no spoils making it ideal for sites that have contaminated soils.
We have worked on many of these sites in the past. Some of which we have won awards for. One of which is the Franklin high school on McDowell and 17th Ave. where we installed new piles on an existing abandoned structure with contaminated soils.
Another such project we are currently working on has automobile fluff buried on-site with contaminants in it as well as the soil. Because of these challenges the team has elected to minimize any haul off of excavated soils. As a result helical piles were selected to support the new building structure. An additional challenge of this particular site was the lack of any soil information to design the pile system as well as large variability of the conditions that included voids and impenetrable solids.
Our design team after conducting several tests on-site developed a unique technology of helical piles that are continuously grouted while they are installed. It is highly unlikely that this site could ever been developed without that technology.
