Piles are being installed, to a maximum depth of 11m through strong bands of limestone into mudstone and sandstone strata. The site was a former steel works, with made ground containing slag fill. These difficult ground conditions require 5 high torque piling rigs to penetrate these in-situ soils.

Foundation Piling’s innovative in-house design team were able to design the slab piles to be un-reinforced, with lateral loads dispersed to the column and steel frame supporting piles which are reinforced as normal. This saves in the order of 60 tonnes of steel, saving 110tonnes of CO2 plus savings to the programme, benefitting the follow on works.

The piles are constructed using a 70% GGBS mix from the on-site batching plant, providing a further reduction of 1405t of CO2 emissions including 4000km of reduced lorry movements.

Foundation Piling use the EFFC carbon to “CO2VE” (carbon value engineer) projects from design through to construction.