Ground conditions · Tidal & Waterfront Sites
Tidal Sites — The Table Moves Twice a Day
Near the Intracoastal and the coast, the groundwater is tidally connected. It rises and falls twice a day, and a dewatering system designed for a static table will fail on the flood.
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
Designing for the mean is designing to fail
A tidally influenced water table is not a number, it is a range. Size the system for the average and it drowns twice a day, on a schedule. Everything — pump capacity, cut-off depth, the excavation sequence — is designed against the high water condition, and the tide chart becomes a programming document.
What tidal influence changes
- Pump capacity sized to high water, not mean.
- Cut-off walls become far more valuable, because they reduce the inflow.
- Salt water, which changes corrosion and concrete specification.
- Seawall condition next door, which is often old and fragile.
- Work sequencing planned around the tide, not only the shift.
How we handle it
- 01Establish the tidal range and lag at the site, not the published tide.
- 02Design to high water with the sequence to match.
- 03Consider cut-off to reduce inflow rather than out-pumping the ocean.
- 04Survey and monitor adjacent seawalls before starting.
- 05Specify materials for a marine environment.
Tidal lag is the part that gets missed. Groundwater inland of the seawall does not peak when the surface water does — it lags by hours, and the amount depends on the soil. Measuring it at the site beats reading a tide table for a station a mile away.
FAQ
Common questions
- Does the groundwater really move with the tide?
- On waterfront sites, yes, with a lag that depends on the soil. It is measured at the site.
- Can you just use bigger pumps?
- You can try to out-pump the ocean. A cut-off wall is usually cheaper and more reliable.
- Does salt water change the concrete?
- Yes — cover, mix design and reinforcement protection all change in a marine environment.
- What about the neighbor's seawall?
- Survey it before you start. Old seawalls are fragile and it will be blamed on you otherwise.
Capabilities
Construction Dewatering
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Support of Excavation
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Sheet Piling
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Secant & Slurry Walls
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Auger Cast Piles
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Helical Piles
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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.