Products and Services
Products
Helical Piers
Steel Pilings
Soil &;; Retaining Wall Control
Pre-Construction Piers
Post &;; Column Piers
For more information on these products, please refer to this AB Chance brochure.
Services
Residential &;; Commercial - We're happy to repair your home or business building foundations with our steel piers.
New &;; Existing Construction - We can put our piers in when you are building your new facility/home to better ensure the stability of your structure.
Helical piers can be used almost anywhere traditional deep foundations can be used and they are better suited to the lower capacity applications that make it less economical to use the larger install equipment required by the more conventional deep foundations. They also tend to be more economical in limited access sites or for vibration or noise free applications. However, the economics of each case generally controls the foundation selection.
Helical piers screw themselves through the many layers and finally into bedrock. The varying driver torque usually reveals the layers. This is monitored by a torque pressure gauge read and recorded by the machine operator. The pier bearing capacity is roughly 10 times the “kips” indicated on the gauge. The operator is looking for a significant increase in torque indicating he has hit dense, firm load-bearing strata. For many locations, this is on average 20 to 30 feet below grade.
Sections are added as the pier is screwed into the ground. The final section is cut off at a level even with the other piers and capped with a load-bearing plate. It is immediately ready to receive a load. There is no cleanup. This process is quick if everything goes as planned and is a matter of hours for a multiple pier job. If difficult soil is encountered and pre-drilling is necessary to break into hard rock, it can take a matter of several days.
An advantage of helical piers in expansive soil is that they resist upward forces. The helix is anchored in competent load-bearing soil or bedrock, and the frictional forces along the shaft are negligible compared to the end loading force. This means the helical pier is versatile with either upward or downward loads. This is not the case with other types of support without secondary operations or modifications such as filling them with grout.
When might I need a french drain?
When the grading around your house doesn’t lead water away or there are areas that pond up you might benefit from a french drain. Excess water near your house perimeter can lead to damaging moisture coming into your house structure. Garden soils that are soggy due to lack of drainage deprive roots of needed oxygen. Wet lawns are prone to lawn moss and are less user friendly.
What is the importance of wood leveling?
Over time you may notice that your floors are starting to have an angle to them. When you place a level on your floor, you may see that your floors are sagging. To level sagging wood floors, you need to find the originating area of the sag, and then add support to it. Sagging floors are the result of aging floor joists, and you can find them by getting underneath the floor and finding where the joists are bowing the most.
Wood floor leveling is one of the many home maintenance tasks that one should do. There is still no way that one can choose to live with floors that have unwanted sags or slopes. Doing so would only lead to more damage. Aside from this, an unmaintained wood floor could always drag down your home’s aesthetic appeal. It might be tempting to install a new floor on top of the present subfloor. However, you should make sure that the surface that would eventually go underneath is level and even.
