Foun­da­tion Repair Meth­ods: Heli­cal Piers vs. Hydraulic Push Piers

Jun 15, 2015 • By Matthew Stock.

When the foun­da­tion of a home sinks, drops or set­tles, it caus­es struc­tur­al hav­oc through­out the home. Walls shift out of plumb, brick- and stonework crack, mor­tar crum­bles, win­dows and doors stick and open­ings for seep­age appear in the basement.

As dis­as­trous as that sounds, it’s not a fatal prog­no­sis for the home. In fact, a home with a severe­ly dam­aged foun­da­tion can be repaired by rais­ing it back to its orig­i­nal lev­el and sta­bi­liz­ing it there. It’s not a small job but it’s also not an uncom­mon one.

The basics of this type of foun­da­tion repair are the same regard­less of method – place sup­port­ing struc­tures in the soil below the foun­da­tion, employ a means of rais­ing the house to lev­el and attach the foun­da­tion to the supports.

Those sup­port­ing struc­tures are known as ​“pil­ings” or ​“piers” and can be made of con­crete or steel. Using drilled con­crete piers or pressed con­crete pil­ings are old­er meth­ods that have large­ly been sup­plant­ed by the use of steel – a stronger mate­r­i­al that allows for eas­i­er, faster place­ment and an inte­grat­ed approach to rais­ing the structure.

When it comes to steel piers, there are two kinds – hydraulic push piers and heli­cal piers. How do they dif­fer and is one bet­ter than the other?

Hydraulic Push Piers or Heli­cal Piers?

A hydraulic push pier is a col­umn of steel tub­ing that, as the name implies, is pushed into the soil below the dam­aged foun­da­tion by a hydraulic ram until it reach­es a load-bear­ing stra­tum. This process uses the home as a sort of coun­ter­weight to ensure pen­e­tra­tion to full depth.

Installing the push pier starts with exca­vat­ing a spot along­side the foun­da­tion, notch­ing the foot­ing and attach­ing a steel brack­et to the foun­da­tion. The hydraulic ram is attached to the brack­et and is used to dri­ve sec­tions of steel into the soil until the col­umn is com­plet­ed. When all piers have been dri­ven to the appro­pri­ate depth, a hydraulic pump attached to each one is used to raise the house back to lev­el. The columns are then secured to the brack­ets and the exca­va­tions are backfilled.

A heli­cal pier most close­ly resem­bles a very large screw. It con­sists of a long steel shaft with a num­ber of spi­ral plates called helices weld­ed to it. The heli­cal pier is dri­ven into the soil by a large rotat­ing bit until a torque test deter­mines that it is solid­ly engaged enough to pro­vide the nec­es­sary support.

Both have dis­ad­van­tages, although the worst for hydraulic push piers is that they should not be used to sup­port or sta­bi­lize light con­struc­tion such as small addi­tions because these struc­tures lack the nec­es­sary weight to enable the piers to be driven.

Heli­cal piers, how­ev­er, have a num­ber of short­com­ings. For exam­ple, they are sup­port­ed by the same active soil that may have been part of the cause of the dam­age in the first place. Also, they are more like­ly to buck­le under too-heavy loads or weight shifts than are push piers. They do work very well for lighter struc­tures and can be installed quick­ly and used immediately.

For major foun­da­tion dam­age caused by set­tling, sink­ing or drop­ping, how­ev­er, hydraulic push piers are the rec­om­mend­ed solu­tion for the sta­bil­i­ty and integri­ty they pro­vide. A com­pe­tent foun­da­tion repair con­trac­tor will use per­ti­nent engi­neer­ing data to rec­om­mend the prop­er num­ber and place­ment of piers and instal­la­tion can be accom­plished quick­ly to achieve per­ma­nent sta­bil­i­ty with a min­i­mum of dis­rup­tion and no last­ing exter­nal signs of the work.

At U.S. Water­proof­ing, our foun­da­tion repair experts rely on sol­id engi­neer­ing data and the lat­est repair tech­nolo­gies to per­ma­nent­ly sta­bi­lize homes with sunken or dropped foun­da­tions. We are able to diag­nose foun­da­tion prob­lems accu­rate­ly and rec­om­mend approach­es rang­ing minor repairs to com­plete foun­da­tion replace­ment. Why not ask for our free advice?

Want to know more about the dif­fer­ence between hydraulic push piers and heli­cal piers? Please post your ques­tions in the Com­ments box below.

Tags: helical piers vs. hydraulic push piers, helical piers, hydraulic push piers

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