Continuous
Flight Auger
(CFA) Piles
Beachfront
Basements
WATCH: BEACH
FRONT BASEMENT VIDEO (CFA)
There are few assets more precious than a home on the California coastline.
However, the spectacular beauty does come at a price — very limited
space. While many homes are very space efficient, filling nearly every
square foot of the lot, limitations on structure height and small lot
size still limit the ability to create a spacious home with room for
storage, wine cellars, media rooms or recreational rooms — things
that can turn a house into a home. D.J. Scheffler, Inc. has worked very
hard to erase these limitations through the use of technologies that
allow construction not just above ground, but also beneath the ground.
The use of basements is common in many areas of the United States, providing
an effective means of maximizing square footage on even the smallest
of lots. However, in developed areas of the California coastline, basement
construction has been all but impossible due to the unstable nature of
the native soils and the proximity of adjacent structures. A typical
home constructed in a beach community may have only a few feet separating
it from the neighboring houses.
In order to construct a basement in this setting, the soil would need
to be temporarily vertically excavated until the basement walls could
be poured. Given the propensity for saturated sands to cave and flow
when excavated, traditional shoring systems used by others were generally
too risky, as any loss of ground or significant vibration could lead
to settlement and damage to the adjacent structures. Even after these
systems were installed, it was typically necessary to utilize dewatering
systems to allow construction of the basement floor. Unfortunately, significant
changes in the water table can lead to settlement of the surrounding
soil, the result often being damage to neighboring homes.
D.J. Scheffler, a company specializing in shoring the
most difficult of sites, understood the desire of their clients
to include basements in their beach homes and invested significant
resources into researching and perfecting a system that allowed
that dream to become reality. The solution was to utilize a secant
pile shoring system constructed using Continuous Flight Auger
(CFA) technology. The secant pile system consists of a continuous
wall of overlapping concrete piles placed around the perimeter
of the site prior to excavation. The overlapping piles are installed
using low vibration equipment and provide a waterproof structure
that prevents ground loss during excavation.
CFA is a method of constructing drilled concrete piles by advancing a continuous
auger to the base of the shaft and placing concrete through the center of the
auger as it is withdrawn. The most significant advantage of this method is that
the concrete is placed under pressure as the soil is removed, ensuring that all
void space is filled and no ground is lost during the operation. Secondary to
this, the method also allows installation of the piling much more quickly than
conventional drilling methods, reducing the overall cost of the project. By combining
the use of CFA technology and secant piles, ground loss is limited not only during
drilling, but also during excavation.
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Only after all pilings are installed is the site excavated, revealing a continuous
structural wall. At that time, a concrete slab can be placed at the base of the
excavation effectively sealing the site and eliminating the need for risky dewatering.
D.J. Scheffler’s dedication to providing the best quality shoring systems
now allows what once was only a dream to become reality. Through the use of CFA
secant piling shoring, D.J. Scheffler’s clients can now build not just
a house on the beach, but rather construct a home with enough room to fully take
advantage of such a spectacular setting.
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Contact
Us today
for a solid bid on
your next project.
For more information
call (909) 595-2924
or click on the
link below.
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