Housing Development

Busk Lane, Church Fenton

The conditions on site showed ground that would normally have deemed ground improvement techniques and a lot of piling techniques obsolete, as the majority of the sub surface material was quarried stone. This material was placed during the first development of the site as a Railway Goods sidings, and the quarried stone was large in size predominantly boulder sized, and in places down to a depth of up to 6.0m where a former culvert ran through the site.

Town and Country Vibro looked at the site in conjunction with a remediation company, whereas the ground would be turned and processed such that the material could then be engineered into place, and further incorporating an earth retaining wall. Generally Ground Improvement companies request that the granular fill on a site is placed loosely end tipped or just tracked in, but because of the potential differential settlement between the improved plots and the unimproved garden and road areas, the recycled material was placed to a method compaction specification. Town and Country had a watching brief with the placement of the processed site won material such that it could be engineered into place in a way that the plot areas would not settle more than the rear garden and roadways, but also to ensure we could penetrate the ground without the requirement of more costly Pre-Augering of the ground.

The areas around the culvert were deemed to be too close for Vibro Stone Columns and therefore these areas, which included 8 houses out of a total of 53 houses, were piled with Pre-Augering and Steel Tube piles. Our site works included all our own setting out of primary columns as well as intermediate columns, carried out by our sister company Atlas Site Engineering.

In total 30 Plots were treated with Vibro Stone Columns to depths varying between 3.0m and 5.5m below the newly formed site formation level, in 8 days.