Piling Delivers Bonus For Manufacturer

Strategic use of steep land has enabled one of the world’s leading industrial manufacturers to take advantage of a canny piece of value engineering by HBPW professionals.

The Durrans Group was established in 1863 and, since then, has continuously supplied the world’s manufacturing industries with carbonaceous materials. Family owned, it has operations in Asia, Europe and South African.

But it was their site at Thurlstone in South Yorkshire that gave engineers an opportunity to shine.

HBPW’s Tom Flint, said: “Durrans took the decision to demolish a number of small stone buildings on part of their site. However, most of the structures had only occupied a small portion of the 1000m² plot in question, and it didn’t take us long to realise there was an opportunity to value engineer the project.”

Tom and his team came up with the idea of utilizing a series of bored “contiguous” piles – 135 in total – measuring between 300mm and 500mm in width and up to 11m in length.

“There are houses above the land at the top end of the site where soil will be cut away to accommodate new, larger ‘sheds’ for use by the company. However, we needed to ensure that none of the residential dwellings were compromised, hence the strategic use of piling.

“In some ways they serve a dual function: not only do they enable more of the plot to be opened up for development, but they also give residents peace of mind knowing that their homes will be safe throughout the development period.”

Eventually a permanent retaining wall will be built rendering the piles unnecessary, however, they will remain in place, serving as another area of strength to the perimeter of the Durrans site.

HBPW designed the piling, drainage and retaining wall.