What is piling?
Piles are cylindrical structural needles that are driven or bored into the ground at intervals designed to carry the weight of the building. They are linked at the top with a reinforced concrete ground beam designed to carry the building loads between and into the piles.
When is piling necessary?
Piling is required generally where the total weight of a building cannot be carried by the ground conditions at what would be a normal depth of about a metre below ground level.
Why do I need a piled foundation?
The most likely reason is that the ground conditions and the proximity of trees or neighbouring buildings to the proposed building or extension require deeper than normal foundations which would be very costly in comparison to piling.
Would you work to our structural engineer drawings?
Yes, we are delighted to work with structural engineers on any project and we are frequently asked by structural engineers to tender for their clients projects.
Can APS help with the foundation design?
Yes, we engage structural engineers to carry out the design from your drawings and provide calculations for submission to the local authority. In many cases, once an order is confirmed, we also produce our own computer aided foundation drawings to simplify the work and explain exactly what is described in our estimate.
What does APS do?
From your drawings and following a site visit, we prepare an estimate for the design and complete execution of the foundations including piling, excavation and construction of the ground beams.
We call it an estimate because it is impossible to know what obstructions we might encounter in the ground.
How do you know what to price for?
Ideally we would have the benefit of a ground investigation which could be either from excavated pits or from a geotechnical investigation. The details would enable us to estimate the depth of the piles and price them accordingly. We use the first pile to take a visible sample of the ground and calculate the actual depth required. The cost of variations in the depth of pile required is adjusted in our final account.
What about VAT?
The construction Industry generally does not include vat in estimates or quotations because different types of building can attract different rates of tax. For example new dwellings for private use are zero rated for vat, but extensions of any kind are not. We charge vat at the prevailing rate on our invoices.
What do we need to provide?
The ground has to be fairly well compacted to enable our small tracked rigs to operate without getting bogged down. Normally a broken up garage slab or hardcore base is adequate.
We need to know the positions of incoming water, electricity, gas, and any other services and we need water to clean our equipment.
If we have included in our estimate for skips we will need a convenient and easily accessible position to put them.
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