WS Contractors

Underpinning Building For Removal of Contaminated Soils

Contaminated soils were discovered at the Blaser Die Casting building in Seattle. The contaminated soils were required to be removed and therefore the building needed to be underpinned.

McDowell NW Pile King was hired to install 43 each 3” sch 40 pipe pile driven to approximately 31’ each. The piles were driven using a Pile King pin pile machine to a design load of 4.5 tons each. Typical 50 blow count soils were estimated to at least 100’ below existing grade. Because is it not typically practical to drive pin pile in excess of 100’ the decision was made to hang up the pile in medium dense soils at a much shallower depth rather than to drive to the very dense soils at 100 plus feet. Several load tests were performed to establish a site specific refusal criteria and a given pile capacity. Once the optimal pile depth to pile capacity was determined all the production piles could be installed to the same refusal criteria.

Custom brackets were fabricated and installed by Pile King. The brackets were mounted to the existing stem wall. Although, most of the brackets were installed at the perimeter footings two interior walls had to be underpinned due to the fact the contaminated soils had leached 8’ below existing grade as well as 20’ to 30’ horizontally. The piles were driven and assumed to be temporary until the site could be backfilled and the original footings is supporting the building for the long term.

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