Capabilities · Helical Piles
Helical Piles and Underpinning
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.
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
Where nothing else fits
The usual reason to choose helicals is access. Underpinning an existing foundation, adding to a house where a rig cannot reach, working inside a structure — these rule out every other method by geometry before capacity is even discussed. Helicals go where nothing else goes.
What they suit
- Underpinning existing foundations that are settling.
- Additions and structures where access is genuinely restricted.
- Sites needing immediate load, with no cure time.
- Light to moderate loads. They are not a substitute for large-capacity piles.
- Work where spoil disposal is impractical — helicals generate almost none.
How we handle it
- 01Establish why the existing foundation is moving before underpinning it.
- 02Design capacity and confirm it by torque during installation.
- 03Install with the access equipment the site actually allows.
- 04Verify torque against the design for every pile.
- 05Transfer load through brackets designed for the existing structure.
Underpinning a settling foundation without establishing why it settled is treating the symptom. If the cause is a leaking service, poor drainage or organic soil that is still consolidating, the piles will hold their bit and the building will keep moving around them. Diagnosis first.
Said plainly
Where we stop
Helicals are not a high-capacity solution. Where the loads are large, they are the wrong tool and we will price a different method rather than add more piles.
FAQ
Common questions
- How is capacity verified?
- By installation torque, correlated to capacity, recorded pile by pile. It is one of the more directly verifiable methods.
- Can they be loaded straight away?
- Yes — there is no cure time, which is often why they are chosen for underpinning.
- Will they stop my house settling?
- Only if the cause is addressed. Piles hold what they are attached to; they do not fix a leaking service or consolidating fill.
- Can you work inside a building?
- Yes. Restricted access is the usual reason the method gets selected.
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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Tidal & Waterfront Sites
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.
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Karst & Sinkhole Risk
Much of central Florida sits on limestone that groundwater has dissolved over time, leaving voids and raveling zones. It is the one condition where the investigation matters more than the design.
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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.
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More 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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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.