Capabilities · Secant & Slurry Walls
Secant and 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.
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 expensive option, chosen for the right reasons
These systems cost more than sheet piling and take longer, so they are chosen when something rules sheets out — hard or obstructed ground, a movement tolerance too tight for a driven system, vibration limits, or a wall that has to remain as part of the permanent structure. Choosing them for any other reason is spending money without buying anything.
When it is worth it
- Ground with rock, coquina or obstructions that refuse driven sheets.
- Vibration-sensitive neighbors — drilling is far gentler than driving.
- Very tight movement tolerances.
- Deep excavations where stiffness matters more than speed.
- Where the wall becomes part of the permanent structure.
How we handle it
- 01Confirm from the borings that a cheaper method is genuinely ruled out.
- 02Design the pile sequence and overlap for the required cut-off.
- 03Manage spoil and slurry handling, which is a real logistical load.
- 04Instrument and monitor from first excavation.
- 05Coordinate with the permanent works if the wall is staying.
Verticality tolerance is what makes or breaks a secant wall. The overlap between adjacent piles is what gives the cut-off, and a pile that wanders at depth opens a window you cannot see until the excavation reveals it. That is a rig and operator question as much as a design one.
Said plainly
Where we stop
We will not recommend a secant wall where sheets would do. It is a genuinely more expensive system and it should be chosen because something rules the alternatives out.
FAQ
Common questions
- Why choose secant over sheets?
- Hard or obstructed ground, vibration limits, very tight movement tolerances, or a wall that stays as permanent structure.
- Is it watertight?
- Substantially, provided the overlap is maintained. Verticality at depth is what determines that.
- Can the wall be permanent?
- Yes, and where it is, the economics change considerably in its favor.
- How much spoil does it generate?
- A lot, and handling it is a genuine logistical constraint on a tight urban site.
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.