Ground conditions · Uncontrolled Fill
Uncontrolled Fill
Older Florida sites are frequently built on fill placed decades ago with no compaction record and no control over what went in. It may be excellent or it may contain a buried structure.
Send the geotechnical report and the site plan. You get a written read on the water, the excavation and the risk.
Self-perform
Dewatering and support of excavation, in house
Tidal
Deep foundations in tidal environments
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
Water
The variable that decides the schedule in Florida
The unknown is the hazard
Uncontrolled fill is not necessarily bad material — it is unknown material, and unknown means unquantifiable. It may contain construction debris, organic pockets, old foundations or buried tanks. The variability across a single site is often greater than the difference between two different sites.
How it gets handled
- Test pits as well as borings — a boring can miss a slab by a foot.
- Historical review, because the previous use predicts what is buried.
- Removal and re-compaction where depth allows.
- Deep foundations through it where it does not.
- Contingency for obstructions, because they are likely rather than possible.
How we handle it
- 01Review historical aerials and permit records for previous use.
- 02Test pits to see the material rather than sample it.
- 03Quantify depth and variability across the whole footprint.
- 04Price obstruction removal as a stated allowance.
- 05Compaction testing on any replaced fill.
Old aerial photographs are one of the most cost-effective investigation tools available and almost nobody uses them. Twenty minutes with historical imagery frequently explains what the borings found and predicts what the excavator will hit.
FAQ
Common questions
- Can we build on old fill?
- Sometimes, after testing. Often it is removed and re-compacted, or bridged with piles.
- Why test pits rather than borings?
- A boring is a two-inch sample. A test pit shows you the material and the obstructions in it.
- What are we likely to find?
- Construction debris, old foundations, organic pockets, occasionally tanks. Historical records narrow it down.
- Should obstructions be an allowance?
- Yes. On uncontrolled fill they are likely, not possible, and a fixed price without an allowance is a change order waiting to happen.
Capabilities
Construction Dewatering
In most of coastal Florida the groundwater sits a few feet below grade. Any excavation deeper than that is an excavation in water until something is done about it, and what gets done determines the program.
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Support of Excavation
Support of excavation is the system that keeps the hole open and keeps the ground next to it from moving. On a tight urban site it is the whole job.
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Sheet Piling
Interlocking steel sheets driven or vibrated into the ground, giving retention and a groundwater cut-off in one system. In saturated Florida sand that combination is often exactly what the job needs.
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Secant & Slurry Walls
Overlapping drilled piles, or a trench supported by slurry and filled with concrete, forming a structural wall that also cuts off groundwater. The answer where sheets will not go.
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Auger Cast Piles
A continuous flight auger is drilled to depth and grout is pumped through the stem as it withdraws. The soil is never left unsupported, which is why the method suits saturated Florida sand.
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Helical Piles
Steel shafts with helical plates, screwed into the ground with equipment small enough to work inside a building. Capacity is verified by installation torque and the pile can be loaded immediately.
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More ground conditions
Saturated Sand
The most common condition across coastal Florida: clean permeable sand with the water table a few feet down. It excavates easily and it will not stand up wet.
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Coquina & Cap Rock
Cemented shell and limestone layers turn up across Florida at unpredictable depths, and they are the reason a method chosen from experience rather than borings goes wrong.
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Organic Muck & Peat
Organic soils turn up across inland and former wetland Florida. They compress under load, keep compressing for years, and cannot be improved by compaction.
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Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.