Geo Pier

[elizilla]

Geo Pier is a super cool construction thing, and we have a front row seat. It is a method of stabilizing soft ground by drilling wells and then vibrating tons of limestone chips into them. Every couple feet, another hole is drilled. It is unbelievable how many truckloads of limestone chips go into the ground.

They are building a new fire station, half a block away from our house, next to the creek. They spent a couple weeks putting in Geo Piers, in early spring. Then the equipment was hauled away. It is massive stuff. They load it onto oversized load tractor trailer rigs, the kind that have a trailer with a low platform in the middle, and it comes apart in the middle to load the thing on. Then they put it back together. And the truck got stuck, the driven wheels spun and sank. They hooked two bulldozers to the trailer, one on each side, and still couldn’t budge it. They filled the bulldozer scoops with gravel to make them heavier, and finally got it moving. What a show!

It was only a couple weeks before the Geo Pier crew came back. Now they are on the other side of the creek, on a completely unrelated project, building condos. I guess the condo developer has a big overtime budget, because they work late, they work Saturdays. Tonight they worked until after dark. It’s June 11 so they were still out there past 10pm.

I don’t mind the development the way some people here do. People gotta have a place to live, and I prefer to see 18 condos in town to seeing another farm carved up outside of town.

But I am tired of the late night Geo Pier thing. It is way too loud to run this late.

Comments

[the_rigger]

The City of Cupcake is building a new city hall directly across the street from the main CATA bus station downtown in a lot that once was a parking lot and Davenport College. They had to Geo Pier the land to stabilze it, and you're right; it was utterly fascinating. I think they sunk 700-800 piers in an area about 100' x 100' in one corner of the building site.

-R