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Airplanes Stopped Play

Another post discussing the joys of working at a busy airport. This time we were asked to advise on the allowable bearing capacity for a foundation to be installed at 2m depth, without either excavating a trial pit of drilling a borehole.

We opted to carry out a series of dynamic probes, using our lightweight terrier drill rig, along the line of excavation, using the data to calculate an equivalent SPT ‘N’value and thence an allowable bearing capacity. We were able to provide our client with results in real time, ensuuring there were no delays to the construction programme.

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What Did You Do Last Night?

Night Working

Maybe we are cynical but we usually reckon we can rely on the weather to be cold and raining, or even snowing, anytime we are asked to carry out sitework at night. So it made a pleasant change to find ourselves at the end of Runway 27R at Heathrow on a warm summer’s night last week. As a Heathrow Approved Contractor we’d been asked to carry out some urgent groundwater assessment work and because our staff and vehicles hold ‘access all areas’ passes for Heathrow, we were able to be on site quickly and with the minimum of fuss.

For more information regarding our site investigation and remediation capabilities at airports, please contact James Skinner – 01296 739411

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Chilling Out at Heathrow

Terminal Four at Night

Working ‘airside’ at Heathrow Airport is always a challenge, but when our client contacted us requesting plate bearing testing of the ground prior to them lifting a new chiller refrigeration unit using a mobile crane at Terminal Four we were happy to help.

The only kind of chilling our engineer enjoyed was the cool breeze while he worked through the night to ensure our testing was completed safely, on time and on budget, allowing the aircraft stand to open in time for the first plane arrival.

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Pile Probing

Pile Probing – London

We were contacted by one of our regular clients with an urgent request to carry out pile probing at one of their sites in London. We were able to be on site the next day, using our Geoprobe rig to clear 55 pile locations to a depth of 4m, all before 3pm. To make matters even better, the sun shone all day.

For more information about our pile probing service please contact Duncan Eastland – 01296 739431

Contract Value: <£2k

 

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Why You Should Be Using A Qualified Driller

Drilling has tradionally been pretty poorly regulated. Light cable percussion rigs (more commonly known as shell and auger rigs) still dominate the UK drilling market. They are crude, simple to operate and provide low quality samples but they live on because they are relatively cheap.

One reason they are cheap is that their operators are unqualified. Drilling has been seen as a job not a career. But lack of proper training has led to a woeful safety record; it is rare to see a 40-something shell and auger driller who still has all his fingers intact.

The British Drilling Association (BDA) has been working hard for some time now to encourage clients and consultants to require drillers working for them to hold a professional qualification – in this case an NVQ in Land Drilling. All our drillers hold this qualification. Our latest trainee, Alex, completed his NVQ this week.

If you’d like to know that your drilling requirement is going to be fulfilled safely and professionally then we’d be love to talk to you. Please contact Angus Gale (Tel: 07748 358304) for more information.

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When is an SPT not an SPT?

SPT Calibration - 2
SPT Hammer Calibration

The answer is when it’s not calibrated.

The Standard Penetration Test, or SPT, has been the mainstay of geotechnical site investigations in the UK for decades. The test is simple, quick and cheap and it’s particularly suited to the light cable percussion drill rigs that are so widely used in the UK.

What isn’t generally appreciated is that even a low tech test such as this requires proper calibration in order to yield consistent, reliable results. In fact Eurocode 7 requires the SPT hammer to be calibrated annually. Unfortunately very few drilling contractors bother to do this and, in our experience, few consultants know that they should be asking for it. Given that results from out of spec hammers can vary by as much as 50%, we think this is something that should be given more attention.

We’ve put our money where our mouth is and now all our SPT hammers are correctly calibrated and all our drill rigs come with up to date LEAA inspection certificates. If you’d like to know more about our drilling capabilities please contact Angus Gale – 01296 739433.

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Bulldog Spirit?

Bulldog SpiritWe are accustomed to working for the big hitters of modern industry. However, today we were handed the opportunity of working around one of the big hitters from history. This WWII machine gun bunker holds listed status, and rightly so. It’s one of 18,000 built, around the coastal areas of the UK during Churchill’s defence against Operation Sea Lion.
Our plucky little rig was able to negotiate perimeter fencing, dense undergrowth, steep inclines, tank traps and machine gun bunkers just to get on site. It all sounds more “Band of Brothers” than “geotechnical site investigation”. In all 28m of dynamic windowless sampling with SPTs (and 2″installs) plus 80m of dynamic probing were effortless completed.

Now that’s the spirit…………..

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What House 2015 Awards

Q Developments, Teddington
Q Developments, Teddington

As the rest of the world turns it attention to Hollywood and the Oscars, we’ve been focused on the only marginally less high-profile What House Awards. One of our clients, Q Developments, picked up two awards, one of which was for their development of a former filling station site in Teddington. We’re very proud to be able to say that we played our part in this project for Q Developments, having undertaken the decommissioning and removing the former petroleum installation and the treatment of hydrocarbon and asbestos-related soil contamination prior to the site’s residential redevelopment. Our congratulations to Q Developments on their award.

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Somewhere Under The Rainbow….

Dynamic Sampling Rig
Dynamic Sampling in the Rain

……is our mini dynamic sampling rig! In fact, its photographed here having its oil checked during a day’s work at a site on the south coast.

The geotechnical survey, which comprised standard penetrations tests (SPTs), dynamic probing, CBR tests and plate bearing tests, was designed to allow the design of foundations for a leading supermarket chain’s new store.

The site had a history of industrial development so, not surprisingly, it was littered with large, buried concrete obstructions from previous structures (foundations, beams and piles). We will soon be returning to complete pile probing at each of the new pile locations to enable the augers of the piling machines to keep turning thus avoiding expensive standing time.

Hopefully it will have stopped raining by then…..and no, sadly, we didn’t find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

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Could Death be Fatal?

We are used to dealing with potential contaminants from a wide range of industrial sources. Our specialist risk assessment department employs a number of modelling techniques to determine what potential long-term risks could be posed to human health or environmental receptors. But in a slight change to the norm, we’ve recently completed a risk assessment to determine the potential risks posed by a lack of human health!

We were commissioned to assess the suitability of a plot of land for a potential future cemetery. A combination of desk-based research, borehole investigations using our Terrier drill rig and fascinating (!) mass flux/fate transport calculations were used to complete the assessment following Environment Agency guidance.

If you’d like to commission a quantitative risk assessment – either for the living or the dead – then we’d be delighted to assist you. Please contact our risk assessment team for more information.