Pre-Construction Helical Piers

A pool builder contacted us because they had encountered soft soil on a challenging hill-side build site. We designed a deep foundation support system comprised of helical piles underlying the entire pool footprint. The configuration was a grid pattern with spacing from 5 to 6 feet. Using hydraulic drive equipment, we installed 35 of these large, steel anchors deep into the load-bearing strata of the soil, between 28 and 35 feet below the surface on this particular site.

Each pile was fitted with a top-plate designed to hold the pool’s rebar cage and ultimately become embedded in the concrete of the pool foundation. The anchor selected was the Chance SS-5, designed to hold 20,000lbs each, meaning our system had a load capacity in excess of 350 tons, approximately 3 times the weight of the pool and water it contains. The homeowner and pool builder can now rest easy knowing this pool is fully stable and will never experience settlement issues as a result of the poor soil underlying the area.