Cracking Pilings

[mikephuket]

Anyone have experience with a piling job? I am in the midst of driving piles for my house foundation. The site is on a slope and the ground is red clay with no large rocks to speak of (have excavated parts of the slope to make flat building site so easy to see if there were rocks). I have bought piles 6-8 metres long, both 25 and 30 cm square from two different suppliers and had problems with piles cracking when being driven and even one breaking as was being dragged to the machine. I have also had two companies driving the piles and both had similar problems. Can this be "normal" and a certain percentage of piles fail???? Seems hard to imagine but TIT ?!

[mikephuket]

Further to this story ended- up getting pilings sent from Krabi and they proved to be far superior and we have had no further problems. Piling job finally finished

[dozer]

That was good you got that straightened out. Do you have any pics of the cracking piles? Were the costs much different (between the good ones and the bad ones)? What were the specifications for the good ones, was the rebar re enforcement much different?

I wonder how the cost difference is between driving piles and the type where a bore hole is made (drilled) and they are poured in place. Seems like this might be more efficient but probably more costly...

[mikephuket]

A few photos of the bad pilings attached (hopefully- first time for attaching photos!). One shot shows how lucky we were to find a piling broken off underground; another a "new" piling with a patch job. Price and specs of pilings from different companies essentially the same. This is one indication of how insane the property development/ house building craze in Phuket has become. Suppliers, contractors, etc. have little regard for quality control as there is another buyer waiting in line if present customer complains. Never looked into bored pilings as ours was an essentially straight forward job, ground not too hard with no large rocks to contend with.

[mikephuket]

Next try for photos...

[mikephuket]

I give up- last photo

[Nawty]

I wonder how the cost difference is between driving piles and the type where a bore hole is made (drilled) and they are poured in place. Seems like this might be more efficient but probably more costly...

Roughly double, some companies a little bit less.

[AussieBoy]

As they say piles are as good as the reo steel they put into them, you would want to see the size and number of steel being put into each pile, and the difference between companies.
A 300 dia bored pier will consume 0.070m3 concrete and use 4mts x 10mm reo bars and 3 x 6mm a ligitures to tie the steel together to make a cage 200x200

Costing would be .070 concrete @1600bt m3 = 112 bt
Steel reo 10mm 200bt 10mt = 20bt mt
ties 6 mm @ 100bt 10mt = 30btmt
labour 5mt cage per hour = 30 bt
tie wire = 10 bt
labour insert cage into
hole & supervise =100

total cost mt to fill bored pier 300bt mt depending on material cost
Machine cost Ex Udon 1,250B / hour bored 6 holes 5 mt deep in 90min set up and travel cost 1 hour
total cost 6 holes 3,200B

Cost per 5 mt bored pier filled with concrete and steel placement labour including

2100b per pier

420 B mt

Soil condition dry stiff hard clay top, sticky clay at 1 mt and below

for larger bored pied do the sums, bigger diameter less depth, as the truck mounted borer could only go 5 mt if you wanted more loadings on each pier you go bigger diameter, more friction on side of pier, some will be designed to bear on the pier end, meaning boring till you hit something firm.

BKK 20-30mt piles for large buildings are very common, drilling through the swamp of this type of material the bored pier would collasp on it self, in general bored pires are cheaper in OZ, if the soil will stand up to maintaining support of the pier long enough to be filled with concrete, if the ground is wet and soggy piling is the only option


What did it cost for the piles to be driven in? for 250x250 x 6mt with no breakages 400B mt (from the original posters quote supplied)

Not much difference in cost between driven or bored piers

[geordie]

not the example i was looking for but useful anyway

[Nawty]

AB...info is very usefull....but if you use a company here to do driven or bored, they charge around 12k for bored and roughly half for driven. This was for 21m depth and guage 26 I think from memory.

I would have to double check those prices, but think from memory is about right.

Also for Bkk swampy bored piles, they use steel cylinders driven down as they bore to stop any caveins.

[Galee]

Those cracked piles can be really painful. Best go and see a doctor ASAP.

[Nawty]

Oh my god....humour....not allowed around here.

You are really in for it now.....fun police will be along directly.