Foundation Supportworks Receives IAPMO approval for 288 Push Pile

Congratulations to Foundation Supportworks our partner and supplier for Receiving IAPMO approval for the 288 push pile! This is tremendous achievement. First of all what is the IAPMO? The international Association of plumbing and mechanical officials? What? This may sound a little strange at first however this group has grown far beyond their original mandate in the last 70 years and provides third-party reporting for many products beyond plumbing and mechanical that building officials over the United States  accept. To access their website click here. http://www.iapmo.org/Pages/IAPMOgroup.aspx . Why IAPMO? Since the ICC combined with Boca ICBO and several of the other reporting services they have come to become as you all may know is a Byzantine bureaucratic and political mess.

You can access the report itself by clicking onto this link. http://www.iapmoes.org/Documents/ER_0289.pdf . I also have copies in PDF form if anybody wants it.

This report gives a solid rating for the 288 push pile. In fact the 28,500 pound capacity is the strongest in the industry by far and will do a lot for gaining acceptance of push piles as a reliable and trustworthy method of underpinning.

At Arizona Foundation Solutions we love innovation. We have been using the push pile system for many many years because it has a terrific track record as an underpinning product. Now we have the proof to back up the years of data for building officials to see for themselves with the third-party testing service.

Congratulations to Jeff Kortan, Kyle Olson, Don Deardorff and all of the engineers at Foundation Supportworks for having the foresight and will to see this through. It’s another example of why Foundation Supportworks is such a great partner and supplier.

A Real life example of how the MoistureLevel system saves a homeowner money

We are completing project now that exemplifies everything I have been talking about for the last few months. It is a scenario that I see over and over again.

A homeowner calls, we do a free inspection and determine that further in depth analysis is needed. This particular house is in El Dorado Lakes, a neighborhood in Gilbert where the soils are regularly a problem. After completing the analysis we determined that the foundation system was settling in some areas but mostly the house was heaving from expansive soil under the floor slab. The deflection analysis showed that the house passed on tilt but failed on deflection according to industry standards.

Here is a copy of the floor level survey and damage assessment. As you can see it is a clear dome heave pattern with minor settlement at some corners.

Here is the industry standard failure comparison. And finally our repair plan:

We had the repair plan reviewed by our in house engineer. It consisted of installing 12 piles, some minor mud jacking and our patent pending MoistureLevel system. It's probably difficult to see but our MoistureLevel system….it is the green dot in the Laundry Room. It is mitigating most of the problem of this house.

This not too untypical. At my visit to the homeowner the other day during construction, the homeowner revealed to me that she had received a bid from another foundation repair company that proposed piles all the way around the house and deep soil grouting…. For almost 3 times our price!

So there we have it. Another example of how homes are being misdiagnosed, and how the misdiagnoses leads to wasted money, with little chance of addressing most of the real problem and results that could in fact exacerbate the problem.