This office development in Essex is comprised of 90 modular units. As it is situated on a flood plain, the site levels needed to be raised. Screw piles were originally specified, however, due to the lateral loads and tight tolerances required. Rose Builders approached us for an alternative piled scheme.
As the lateral loads posed by the superstructure exceeded the capabilities of the proposed Screw Piles, an alternative solution was required. A common approach to this issue is Pile and Beam
scheme with plinths installed on top to land the modular units upon. However, on a site as wet as this, excavation for beams would have been very challenging, messy and time-consuming. Instead, we proposed our Quickcaps system, which is a capped mono-pile system. By increasing the cap height to 1.1m we achieved the required levels while maintaining a clean and safe site.
Another key feature of our system was our ability to work to high tolerances, which wasn’t achievable in the original scheme. Using our unique pile formers and
Concrete Working Surface we installed the capped piles within +-25mm (plan) and +-15mm (elevation) tolerances.
As this is an off-site construction project, time was a key factor for our client. Our specially trained site crew installed foundations for the modular units in 2 weeks saving our client
5 weeks on the original build programme. This saved our client an estimated five weeks off their programme, which is 50% faster than a pile and beam scheme.
A major benefit of using Quickcaps is improved Health and Safety. We achieve this through reduced plant movement and mitigating the need for overhead cranes.
This solution was ideal for this project and site conditions and, despite poor weather, was delivered on programme and in budget.
“Abbey Pynford’s system worked brilliantly for this project. They were quick, tidy and reduced our programme.”
John McVelia, Commercial Manager, Rose Builders
