Why Arizona Foundation Solutions team members are different

We would love to hear from you, click here to comment!

Several of our team members traveled along with me to Connecticut for the annual convention for Basement Systems/Foundations Supportworks. This is not just some industry specific educational material for new members of our team. This is a truly inspiring and thought-provoking event with worldwide recognized experts and presenters. Attendance was at over 1450 people this year.

As a former Ram Jack dealer, I attended many events put on by them over the years. To say there is no comparison is a vast understatement.

One of the presenters at this event was Lisa Earle McLeod, who is the author of a best-selling book “Selling with Noble Purpose”. This was a life changing speaker helping us remember that everything we do is about making sure our customers have a fabulous experience with us and that our purpose is to help them. More on this subject on my next blog..

The video clip below is a short segment of a powerful presentation from EriK Wahl, author of “UnThink”. Watch as he paints an upside down picture of Albert Einstein.

Erik points out how creative thinking by all of our team members helps us provide better solutions for our customers. He doesn’t say that creativity necessarily needs to be at the expense of being rational and logical but rather as a supplement. He suggests that each of us be exposed to as many diverse points of stimuli as possible. Following that advice I am headed to Istanbul as I dictate this, where I will be experiencing that culture along with the Greek, Maltese and Italian cultures.

Our team has been exemplary in utilizing innovation to present better solutions for our customers. One such innovation, a spiral tip to the shaft of our helical piles, was adopted network-wide after being tested to show that it helps with penetration through hard soils, with no offsetting consequences. Another obvious innovation is our patented MoistureLevel system to remediate slab heave from swelling clays. There have been many innovations some of which are small little things that make us more efficient and allow us to deliver a better solution to our customers.

We have valued a culture of innovation with our team members and it has paid off for our customers. Erik reinforced the value of that culture with each of our team members who attended the event, and we are committed continue this culture of innovation to benefit our customers, because this is as Lisa points out, the central focus of what we are all about.

Each of the team members who attended the event will be compiling a list of things that they are going to do differently in their respective departments, both practical and creative, and will present that to our senior management for discussion. Be prepared for more amazement.

Thermal Set Plastic Coating versus Galvanization

 We would love to hear from you, click here to comment!

As an installer of two different underpinning systems, I have firsthand knowledge of both Thermal set plastic coated and galvanized piers.  I have been a part of the debate between the two protective coating systems for many years. I have seen firsthand how the products react over time in the soil.

First let’s discuss the threaded rods that hold the brackets in place. These threaded rods hold the building up and are put under a tensile load to do so. These threaded rods are very close to the surface and therefore are exposed to high amounts of both water and oxygen making them more susceptible to corrosion at that location. If these threaded rods fail in tension, then the building settles. Below is a picture of threaded rods and the corrosion that takes place in open air conditions. We can all agree that embedded in soils that are wetted on a regular basis the corrosion will be much more accelerated than in open air conditions.

The alternative is to use galvanized coil rods that will provide some protection from oxidization such as these pictured. 

Below is pictured are typical foundation brackets with  Thermal Set epoxy coating after it has been installed in the ground for about a year and a half. Notice all of the peeling that is taking place. Again this bracket is located very near the surface and therefore exposed to high amounts of water and oxygen.

The argument that was regularly made for epoxy coating was that if the tip of it was scratched off during installation, that this tip was located below the active zone and therefore not exposed to too much water or oxygen. And that the weakness of the galvanized system is that it would dissipate over time.

The first assumption that only the tip of the epoxy coated system would be exposed is not true. Much of the entire shaft epoxy coating is removed during the installation process. I have withdrawn many powder coated piles that I installed, and most of the shaft was bare. Furthermore when small amounts of epoxy coating are removed it works very similar to epoxy coating on rebar in that it focuses the electrochemical oxidization process entirely on a very small area exacerbating the oxidization there.

With galvanized products a small scratch does not have this effect as the galvanization is nobler than the steel, protecting even the small scratch area from oxidization. The added advantage is that zinc anodes can be added to the pile and replaced on a regular basis as needed to complement a galvanized product. This also extends to providing protection to the coil rods as anything in connection with the galvanized products is protected.

One bit of misinformation propagated by the users of Thermal Set epoxy coated products is that the galvanized products leach deadly zinc products into the soil. This is not true, as the actual product that is leaked into the soil is zinc oxide. This is the same zinc oxide that we take as a vitamin supplement. Hardly deadly.

One last bit of advantage is that the hot dipped galvanized products actually gain strength from this process and provide more overall strength because of it.

Feel free to weigh in with your opinion in the comments portion.