Underpinning Doonside

This town house was the last one of a block of four. It had some unique problems causing subsidence of this residence. The far boundary was a kopper log retaining wall about a meter high with a colorbond fence perched on top. Over the years the retaining wall had started to bulge sideways as is usual with this type of non structural retaining wall so soil pressure releases lowering the bearing capacity of the soil. In addition to this problem the junction of the house sewer to the common main 3 meters down had fractured causing continually wet soil. The third problem was the house was built on about a meter of fill and the footings had not been piered to solid bearing soil. Along with these factors was the neighbour with retaining wall and fence, refused to contribute to the rectification works of the retaining wall and damaged fence panels to exacerbate the problems. And for us as contractors we had to fight among the services to find clear space to insert or piers. The solution was to get a professional service locator to mark out the services locations, insert 9 blade piles with concrete heads to the existing foundations 3 sides of the home. The plumbers than came on site to replace the 3m deep junction under the services, then we removed fence, demolished the retaining wall, built a new structurally sound wall then reinstalled the color bond fence. The retaining wall was constructed from dincel and rested upon concrete piers 2m deep spaced at 2meters to reinforce against the overturning moment of the wall 1 meter high. The work was completed in about a week making for another happy customer who can now rest knowing her major asset is not going to depreciate. www.bestunderpinning.com.au