• Thank you for visiting HeavyEquipmentForums.com! Our objective is to provide industry professionals a place to gather to exchange questions, answers and ideas. We welcome you to register using the "Register" icon at the top of the page. We'd appreciate any help you can offer in spreading the word of our new site. The more members that join, the bigger resource for all to enjoy. Thank you!

Keeping busy, some pics

440chevy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Duluth, MN
For some reason these past 2 summers we have been fixing quite a few houses that are sliding down into lakes. The one we are on right now is a few years away from taking a dive into lake superior. The home owner had two over contractors look at it and both told him they could give him a bid to demo the place...:beatsme.

We started using helical piers last year though and they are proving to be a lifesaver, we can't seem to keep them stocked in our warehouse. In this case we drilled them down to bedrock and supported the footing on the lake side of the house. You can see them in the 2nd picture. Other then that we just have to dig out all the clay and pour a concrete wall on the bedrock, easy stuff. My brother has been swinging it up to me with our 200 and I load it into trucks with the 120. Been a lot of fog rolling in off the lake so some of the pictures aren't very good.
 

Attachments

  • PIC-0108.jpg
    PIC-0108.jpg
    45.9 KB · Views: 677
  • PIC-0111.jpg
    PIC-0111.jpg
    47.4 KB · Views: 681
  • PIC-0113.jpg
    PIC-0113.jpg
    39.8 KB · Views: 682

440chevy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Duluth, MN
Some more pics
 

Attachments

  • PIC-0116.jpg
    PIC-0116.jpg
    43.2 KB · Views: 673
  • PIC-0119.jpg
    PIC-0119.jpg
    44.7 KB · Views: 676
  • PIC-0117.jpg
    PIC-0117.jpg
    70.2 KB · Views: 676

EZ TRBO

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
862
Location
USA
Occupation
Aggregate Utility, Maintence Welder
Awesome project, one that proberly has far more mental work then actual digging. Does show you though, where there is a will there is a way. Thanks

Trbo
 

440chevy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Duluth, MN
I don't have any pics of putting the piers in, but I can get some pics of what the setup looks like. And yeah Trbo, we always find a way to do what the customer wants. In this case though demoing the place would've cost way more and wouldn't of fixed anything. The bank was eroding and also water was traveling along the bedrock which was what the main concern was. Eroding it from the bottom up.
 

Timark80

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
108
Location
NW FL
Do you happen to know what year the house was built?
Down here in FL on the Atlantic coast alot of hotels are having trouble with erosion every time we get a storm.
 

440chevy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Duluth, MN
Not to sure on when it was built, my guess would be 10-15 years ago.

I took some quick pictures of the piers with my phone. I haven't poured a concrete pier for a deck since we started using these things. Keep in mind we have a 5' minimum for frost depth up here, so these things make life easy. The attachment goes on our Hitachi 50 that has 2 gauges on the boom and you just drill till you hit the correct pressure. Those piers are about 6' so, you just keep adding extensions until you hit something solid.
 

Attachments

  • PIC-0121.jpg
    PIC-0121.jpg
    36.4 KB · Views: 509
  • PIC-0126.jpg
    PIC-0126.jpg
    27.3 KB · Views: 511
  • PIC-0124.jpg
    PIC-0124.jpg
    24.4 KB · Views: 508

440chevy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Duluth, MN
We finished the digging today, the 200 slid a good 5 ft before I caught myself as I was digging the last part. Got a little steep, good thing I had the seat belt I never wear on. Had to dig it a little flatter to finish.
 

Attachments

  • PIC-0127.jpg
    PIC-0127.jpg
    56.1 KB · Views: 503
  • PIC-0129.jpg
    PIC-0129.jpg
    55.5 KB · Views: 505
  • PIC-0130.jpg
    PIC-0130.jpg
    30.6 KB · Views: 509

Hendrik

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
1,232
Location
Adelaide South Australia
We finished the digging today, the 200 slid a good 5 ft before I caught myself as I was digging the last part. Got a little steep, good thing I had the seat belt I never wear on. Had to dig it a little flatter to finish.
I was thinking that might happen looking at picture 3, working on an unstable slope is always a good way to test out operator skill.
 

Dwan Hall

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2004
Messages
1,029
Location
Juneau, Alaska
Occupation
Self Employed
One nice thing about the spin fin piles is all the load rids on the flukes so any ground movement like frost heave just slides up and down the shaft, so as long as they are belos the frost line nothing moves but the ground. They also work great for installing wood walkways across muskeg. no need to disturb the ground which makes the greenies happy.
 

ScottAR

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
560
Location
NE Arkansas
Now I see... I've heard these called soil nails before...
That name made no sense as they are screws but anyway...
Helical piers make sense... Again great pics!

Are the piers tied to the footing or the rim joist of the house?
I assume the piers stay after repairing the slope, ala permanent repair?
Will the retaining walls be tied into the slope with more piers or ?
Sorry for the questions but we don't get to see this stuff out here in the
flatlands...
 

stock

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
2,022
Location
Eire
Occupation
We have moved on and now were lost....
Bring the camera the next time you are setting the nails as I would dearly love to see them being inserted,also any chance of a picture or tow of the underpinning of the house or of the next one you do, don't get much call for that type of work here so Its something else to learn .
 

440chevy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Duluth, MN
In the second picture from the top you can see the pier that is supporting the footing of the house, actually you can make out 2 of them in the picture. The pier gets drilled down as close to the house as possible, then you slide the bracket on in the 4th picture up from this post and spin it so it's supporting the footing. Then you insert a "T" into the top of the pier and use some threaded rod to tighten that bracket against the footing and after that you just bolt it to the footing. They will stay in the ground for sure and no we won't be adding any more. They don't hold as well from a force pulling them up, since you disturb the soil all the way down as you drill. The retaining wall won't be that impressive, it's just pinned to the bedrock and isn't even that tall, I think only about 10'.

We have done a few other jobs where we put them under houses with no basement or slab. In that case you drill them in at an angle and then use the machine to push them in and straighten it out. A couple of times we have used them in a situation where they were side-loaded, the one that I did was to keep a culvert from blowing out. I'll bring the camera out the next time I put some piers in, although my brother has been doing it more than I have lately. Maybe even a quick cell phone video if the quality isn't too bad.

Yeah Hendrik, it's a good way to gain respect among people as far as operator skill. But, I think it just looks that way, I would rather do this any day over digging through a mine field of utility's or digging up an 18' sewer main to do a spot repair. Way less stressful.
 
Top