CFA piles can prepare public land for domestic builds
CFA piles could prove to be useful in helping the government achieve its ambition of building 100,000 homes on previously publicly owned land.
By 2015, the government wants to have enough land available on previously public sites to support more than 100,000 houses and flats.
Already it has managed to outline locations for 102,000 properties, on former army barracks, NHS hospital sites and coal yards.
However, building on brownfield sites that have not been used before for housing can be an unpredictable process, until the ground-bearing capacity of the land is known.
CFA piles help to overcome such uncertainty, as they can be put in place with very small amounts of noise and vibration, yet are able to support very high loads.
The Continuous Flight Auger approach is effective in confined areas where large excavations are not an option, which can be ideal if a brownfield site already has foundations in place from previous constructions.
Piling rigs simply bore a small hole into the ground, which is then filled with concrete and a reinforcing cage – a fairly easy procedure that means foundations can be put where you need them, without the whole site needing to be cleared of any previous developments.