case study 1

before: floor joists were supported with makeshift cinder blocks, bricks and rocks.

The Village House restaurant in Clemmons, NC, was built around 1830, and stands next to the oldest building in town, the family home of Peter Clemmons. Last year, while planning an expansion to add a bar area, owner Cisca Weber discovered that the foundation had completely deteriorated. She laughs wryly, remembering, “When the inspector saw the basement, he said ‘Oh my God!’ He told me I would have to either tear everything down and start from scratch, or have some serious work done.” Now, Weber hails from the Netherlands, and while 150 years isn’t really impressive by their standards, she wasn’t about to give up on this old house just yet. At the same time, she was very concerned about the safety of her staff and guests, and she knew she must take immediate action. “I was afraid the floor was going to collapse. When a large group of people would sit at one table, it started to make me very nervous.”

Structural engineer Karl Von Isenberg recommended Ram Jack of Charlotte. Weber had heard good things from other people about Ram Jack, so she made an appointment with Merl Long of Ram Jack. Long brought in John Huggins, and together with Von Isenberg, they came up with a plan. They worked within Weber’s budget and addressed all of the critical issues in order to provide structural stability for the house. They determined that, with the thorough deterioration of the foundation, the best solution was to add helical piers in the ground and steel beams throughout the basement to support the entire structure.

The basement’s left wall was slowly caving in and it needed structural support. Weber says, “I could hardly believe it when they told me it was because of so many vehicles driving on the driveway next to the house!” During the project, the left wall actually served as an entry/exit point for a lot of materials that Ram Jack had to move in and out of the basement. At the end of the project, they added helical tie back anchors, two steel beams and concrete support to provide the structural stability the wall lacked.

after: adjustable interior bracket systems, in place, support the structure.

case study 2

The South Port Business Park in Morrisville is located very close to Crabtree Lake, and suffers from poorly compacted soil and severe groundwater intrusion. The facility is comprised of buildings with steel skeletal frames on precast concrete cladding shallow spread footings that basically left the buildings resting on top of the ground, which compounded the stability issues. There were visible signs of slab floor failure, including interior sunken floors, cracked sheet rock, sticking doors, and exterior cracking. Using helical piers and standard brackets, Ram Jack piered the perimeter of the slabs, then piered each column footing. Pressure grouting was applied under the floor slabs once they were raised to level. Two weeks after the installation, there was no sign of landscape disturbance.

before: South Port interior floor close-up

pier placed

South Port exterior during excavation

before: South Port interior

after: South Port exterior

case study 3

A church site in Charlotte, built within the past two years, consists of a 21,000-square-foot, pre-engineered steel building. The contractor worked with a geotechnical engineering firm to prepare the building site – they tried to do everything right, and there were still problems! The connection between the foyer and sanctuary started to settle. Cosmetic repairs of the visible signs proved futile, and the settling continued to 2-1/2”. Using a combination of hydraulically driven piers under individual footings and interior helical piers with slab brackets under interior partition walls, Ram Jack was able to restore the original elevation in the building. They installed a total of 53 piers, with an average pier depth of 81 feet – their patented steel pipe design enables the piers to reach those depths and still handle the load.