Ditch Plains Beach House, USA

Chesterfield Associates, Inc. was contracted to install the timber pile & PSL girder foundation for a private beach house at one of the East Coast’s most prominent surf spots.

The foundation consisted of 166 piles for the house, garage & deck and 35 for the pool, spa, and fire pit. All piles were driven to a capacity of 30 tons. Unlike a majority of the timber pile & girder projects Chesterfield Associates completes for private beach homes, the design for this home had the floor joists sit within the girders rather than on top of the girders. This decreased the tolerance for the pile location as the pile and girder locations were critical when determining outside of house and post locations.

Dense soils coupled with a depth requirement of -10’MSL and tight tolerances led to them utilizing the auger attachment for their Junttan PM16 pile driving rig and predrilling each pile. Although this decreased their production time during installation, it increased it by almost 2x when straightening the piles during the girder installation. Even with the use of the auger, they installed an average of 27 piles per day.

“We chose to use Junttan pile driver for the project because of its productivity & efficiency. The Junttan PM16 increased our production from 20-25 timber piles per day to upwards of 40-45 per day with one less crew member.” says Kyle Allen, Project Manager, Chesterfield Associates, Inc.

For further information about Chesterfield Associates, visit their website at:  Chesterfield Associates