The Seattle Steam building required piling foundation support, but the site was small and vibration was a major concern for the City of Seattle Building Department. The plans called for driving the pile in close proximity to existing utilities and historic buildings in the Pike Place Market neighborhood. Vibration monitoring was performed during the installation of the piling. Vibration monitoring results verify vibration caused by driving pipe piling is well below the threshold for damage to structures.
McDowell NW Pile King installed 77 each 4” diameter schedule 40 pipe pile driven to approximately 32’ each with a 10 ton design load. Three pile load tests were performed on production piling to ensure the proper refusal criteria had been reached for the given pile size and hammer used for installation. This project is a good example of Pile King’s ability to work on a compact site and we verified the vibration caused by the installation of pipe piling is not a threat to neighboring properties.