How to install screw piles by hand. Installation of screw piles

Familiarity with the basic rules of how screw piles are installed will make it easier to choose the appropriate course of action, and will help in the selection of equipment and inventory.

Unlike other zero-cycle technologies, work can be performed at any time of the year, with the exception of especially cold periods, which allows to optimize construction planning.

Pile properties

A design feature of the screw pile is the small diameter of the bearing pipe and the presence of one or more rows of blades. The principle of their operation resembles the movement of a self-tapping screw, which forms a channel during rotation, thanks to a threaded notch. In addition to facilitating the installation of screw piles, these elements create a bearing area many times greater than the cross section of the pipe on which they are fixed.

To install a support of the same diameter made of reinforced concrete, you will need a whole fleet of mechanisms for transporting, unloading, moving multi-ton products around the site and driving them into the ground. Installation of a screw pile can even be done manually, and the moderate weight of the elements makes it possible to do without lifting equipment.

Choosing a dive method

Specialized equipment will spin the piles much faster

Manual installation of piles requires physical strength, the pace of work is low, and the help of several people is needed.

A slightly more advanced solution is to use special gearboxes that convert the high-speed rotational movement of a hand drill into a slow but powerful rotation. This equipment requires moderate rental costs, but will greatly reduce labor intensity.

It is convenient to work with the nozzle only at a low height, so sometimes it is used after manual screwing with the upper cut of the screw pile set to an acceptable level.

Two men can handle a pile twister

Portable pile twisters designed for this type of work are classified as specialized equipment. Their price is higher, an operator is required for qualified use. The mechanisms use an electric or hydraulic drive.

The working body is attached to the pile head, after which it is installed vertically. The tool is fixed by a counterholder, blocking its rotation around the stand, and is started.

Two people are enough to install piles, although usually a team consists of four or five, which allows you to effectively control the process and distribute efforts.

The best results are achieved with the involvement of specialized equipment, which allows mechanizing the movement, positioning and installation of elements.

The working body that creates the rotational moment is powered by the hydraulic system of the platform, which can be played even by small tractors and manipulators.

More advanced machines are equipped with computerized equipment and sensors that allow you to clearly monitor process parameters and respond to deviations in time.

Site preparation and marking

The small diameter of the support column places demands on the installation accuracy.

The displacement of the pile center relative to the design position should not exceed one and a half centimeters in the transverse direction.

With a large deviation, eccentricity occurs at the level of the grillage or cap, which may require additional measures to compensate.

Carelessly exposed screw piles will create problems with the installation of the strapping and make the work of the foundation structure of the house unpredictable.

Taking into account these circumstances, it is necessary to be as attentive as possible to the removal of the centers of supports into nature. The best solution is the use of laser surveying equipment, which guarantees the highest accuracy.

When erecting buildings over one floor and half-timbered houses, this method should be used, despite the additional costs. In simple cases, it is permissible to stake out using a hand-held measuring tool, the ranks of which have been replenished with inexpensive and effective laser rangefinders.

Before work, at least 8 pairs of durable wooden racks and the required number of even boards about a meter long are prepared, which will be needed for the cast-off device. After that, a baseline is determined corresponding to one of the axes of the house. The starting point is fixed on the baseline, which means the crosshairs of the outer longitudinal and transverse axes. For more information about the pile foundation, see this video:

Distances are plotted from it according to the project along each axis and the remaining corner points are fixed. Opposite the intersections, with a distance of 3 - 5 m, cast-off racks are clogged, and a transverse board is sewn on. The lines are placed on a horizontally installed board, fixed with a mark or a nail and hung out with a marking thread. Thus, all the main axes are indicated. Then, along the axes, the distances between the centers of the piles are beaten off and fixed with marks.

Do not save time and materials on marking work, this will result in big losses.

Mounting order

When driving piles, make sure they are centered

Disregard claims that this will cause a reduction in the bearing capacity of the element, they are not related to reality.

At the same time, the prepared section will allow you to reliably install, center and direct the bore, which is otherwise very difficult to do.

After that, you can start piling in any chosen way. At the same time, it is necessary to control

stem centering
verticality
immersion depth

Pile shafts do not need to be concreted

Centering is checked with a thread stretched between the uprights of the cast-off, corresponding to the position of the center line of the wall of the house; for convenience, it can be shifted by half the diameter of the trunk.

Verticality is monitored in two perpendicular directions by plumb lines, building levels, laser plane builders or geodetic instruments. The immersion depth is determined relative to the selected benchmark using a water or laser level (plane builder), level.

Having completed the screwing of one of the piles, proceed to the next one until all are installed. Then, the mark of the heads is checked, if necessary, the excess metal is cut off to the level, shoes are welded onto them for attaching the grillage or the lower harness.

It is not necessary to concrete pile shafts, it is meaningless and does not affect anything. To learn how screw piles are twisted with a drill, see this video:

The steel beams of the grillage are welded onto the mounted supports or the strapping bars are mounted. The foundation of the house on screw metal piles is ready.

Do not forget that welds and unprotected iron are primed and painted in several layers with an anti-corrosion compound.

Screw piles are not an absolute novelty, although they are especially popular in use due to the widespread construction of country houses made of wood and with low material costs from the customer, despite the fact that such a foundation is no less strong and reliable in terms of stability than many traditional types of foundations. You can order screw piles both with installation and by installing them yourself using the video on installing screw piles.

The installation of screw piles is a process that requires experience and professionalism, although it is quite fast. When installing such a foundation, you should follow the instructions in order to avoid serious mistakes, which can subsequently lead to poor quality and a decrease in the service life of the structure. Even the smallest unscrewing of a pile, if it is necessary to align the trajectory of movement, can lead to subsidence of the structure, holes in the walls, malfunction of thermal insulation, etc. It is the competent screwing of the pile that leads to compaction of the soil and, as a result, ensuring the durability and high quality of the foundation. By unscrewing the pile, the soil is loosened, and subsequently, under load, the soil settles to the depth of unscrewing.

To align the uneven trajectory, there are rules for installing piles:

screw piles are not installed at an angle. When resting against an underground barrier, having gone to the side by 2 or more degrees, the stability of the pile will be minimal. It is necessary to replace the diameter of the pile, giving a vertical position;
it is forbidden to twist the pile into an intentionally created recess. Such actions prevent the achievement of solid ground;
piles should be concreted to the very top, so as not to provoke internal corrosion, which will reduce the shelf life of the structure.

The installation process of piles can be divided into successive installation steps:

At the beginning, the preparation of the project of the planned foundation is underway. First you need to determine the type of soil for the future foundation, because soil of various types has an appropriate bearing capacity. In this regard, it is necessary to fix the depth of the installed screw piles. You should also take into account the evenness of the surface of the site and study the elevation differences. Next, the length of the screw piles is determined. Their number and diameter depend on the material of the future structure, the partitions of the internal building, and other factors. It is also necessary to determine whether additional work is needed at this stage of construction: for example, tying the piles around the base with a profile pipe or tightening the screw pile heads with a metal channel, etc.
Next, the building spot is marked. First screw the corner piles, then the rest.
After installing the piles, they are leveled in height. It should be taken into account that screw piles are screwed into the ground until they stop. The pile blades can be located at different depths, and the heads can be at different heights above the soil surface.
A sand-cement mortar is poured into the perimeter of the installed piles to displace air and prevent corrosion of the metal inside the foundation. From the outside, screw piles are already protected by a profile pipe, which prolongs their service life.
The next step will be the final part of building the foundation. That is, a metal channel is welded to the pile in order to attach a strapping beam to it. During welding, the seams are covered by treating them with an anti-corrosion preparation.

Independent, manual installation of screw piles can be done without the help of specialists.

Do-it-yourself installation of screw piles

The foundation on screw piles can be made with your own hands, adhering to the rules. It is quite possible to weld the piles yourself, using the drawings that can be found on the Internet. The screw pile installation technology is based on the following basic principles:

It is necessary to make piles using new pipes of the required thickness, having previously cleaned them of rust and covered them with a protective agent. Particular attention should be paid to strong welding of the base of the pile with the blade, so that the seams in dense soil do not burst under heavy load.
To facilitate the screwing of the pile, two holes must be made on its head, into which “rods” will be threaded, helping to screw the pile into the soil.

The foundation itself on screw piles is constructed in the following sequence:

With pegs, mark the places where the piles are planned to be located. Check the evenness of all corners, the distance between the piles in accordance with the drawing.
At the designated places, it is necessary to dig leader holes (removal of the top layer of soil with grass) with a depth of 10-15 cm and a width of 2-3 cm more than the diameter of the pile blade. It is possible not to dig leader holes, which can increase the stability of the pile, but at the same time it increases the difficulty of screwing the piles into the soil manually. It is forbidden to dig deep holes, simply by installing piles in them. It is impossible to touch the soil around the piles, the pile must transfer the load from immersion not only by the blade, but also by its entire base.
When screwing in, it is necessary to constantly check the vertical position of the piles. They must be submerged below the freezing level of the soil in winter.
After screwing, the tops of the piles are leveled to one level using a level. The excess length is cut off with a grinder.
Next, the concrete mass is poured into the foundation.
Weld a metal channel to the heads so that it protrudes several centimeters beyond the borders of the head.
Make a grillage by welding the beams to the channel or attaching them to it with bolts.

Do-it-yourself installation of screw piles is completed. You can proceed to the further construction of the house.

Installation of screw piles: video

Screw pile installation technology is a very delicate process that requires theoretical and, preferably, practical knowledge. You can find out more detailed technology for installing a screw foundation by watching a video on the correct installation of screw piles.

Installation of screw piles: price

The price of installing screw piles, taking into account the situation of fluctuations in the dollar exchange rate in the country, often changes - metal becomes more expensive.
The cost of a pile also depends on its design (base diameter, wall thickness, blade diameter, length of the entire pile). It is also possible to order screw piles together with the installation.

This is the ability to build buildings on soils that do not allow the use of any other type of supporting structure.

A feature of piles is the ability to sink to the required depth, reach dense layers of soil and provide a reliable foundation for buildings of any category, up to the most massive, responsible and specific.

The possibilities of the pile foundation are very wide, which clearly demonstrates the number of varieties and design options for the supports.

There are powerful and heavy samples, which can only be worked with the help of construction equipment.

There are also lighter types available for self-assembly, such as screw piles.

The classification of pile foundations includes many positions.

They differ in the following ways:

Method of action (hanging and pile-racks).
Barrel type (monolithic and shell)
Material (wood, metal, reinforced concrete)
Method of immersion (driving, bored or screw).

NOTE!

In private housing construction, bored and pile-screw options are most common, allowing you to work in a densely built-up area without causing damage to surrounding buildings.

Types of piles

Screw piles have two main types:

Welded.
Cast.

The difference between them is in the design of the tip. This is an important element that takes on the main load when diving.

The quality of the tip determines how the pile behaves when it comes into contact with a man-made or natural obstacle that is not a dense soil layer. Welded tips are less durable in this respect; when they meet with rock fragments, they often deform and fail.

The cast tip is much stronger and is able to pass through obstacles, destroying them and without losing the pile's performance.

In addition, there are differences in the number of blades.

There are screw piles:

Single-blade.
Multi-blade.

Single-blade piles have a single spiral-shaped blade that provides translational movement when the pile rotates around a vertical axis. They are designed to be installed in relatively soft and homogeneous ground without dense or rocky inclusions.

The bearing capacity of such piles is lower than that of multi-blade samples, which are much more stable and more firmly connected to the ground. The presence of several support nodes allows you to reduce the diameter of the trunk, which facilitates installation and ensures the integrity of the structure.

Complete with a molded tip, they are optimally suited for working on dense soils, in permafrost zones or with a large number of man-made inclusions.

According to the type of protective coating, piles are divided into galvanized and non-galvanized. The latter are practically not protected from the effects of ground moisture, since the layer of paint that is applied to give the products greater solidity comes off when screwing.

In addition, all types of screw piles are practically not protected from electrochemical corrosion or the effects of stray currents, which is difficult to foresee or determine in advance.

Which are best suited for private construction

The choice of a specific brand and size of trunks, first of all, is made on the basis of the type and characteristics of the soil.

After determining the most suitable variety (single- or multi-bladed, length, tip type), the barrel diameter is selected. The calculation is made according to the bearing capacity of the support.

For private houses, trunks of a relatively small diameter are usually used.:

BC-57.
VS-76.
VS-89.
VS-108.

Large diameters require significant effort when immersed, so they are practically not used for private housing construction.

What soils are they suitable for?

Screw piles are driven to a sufficient depth to exclude the effect of vertical loads of frost heaving. Only lateral influences remain, which, due to the small contact area, are not capable of exerting a decisive influence on the supports.

Therefore, when determining the suitability of the soil, it is customary to consider only mechanical properties.

The most suitable types are the following types of soil (in descending order of suitability):

Sandy.
Sandy loam.
Loams.
Clayey.

Absolutely unsuitable soils are rocky and rocky-clastic species. In addition, biogenic types are contraindicated - peat bogs, or loose subsidence soils.

Caution should be taken in heavily watered areas subject to strong seasonal fluctuations in groundwater levels.

During construction in such areas, it is necessary to carry out test drilling and increase the immersion depth to the maximum.

General installation scheme of a pile-screw foundation

Do-it-yourself step-by-step instructions for installing piles with your own hands consists of the following steps:

Preparatory work. Marking the site, checking the parallelism of lines and compliance with right angles.
Immersion of angled shafts.
Installation of intermediate supports.
Stem cutting. The surface of the supports should form a flat horizontal plane.
Concreting the internal cavities of piles to enhance strength.
Header installation. They are installed on the upper end, welded and serve as attachment points for the grillage. All places located near the welding or areas with a damaged protective coating are immediately tinted.

When marking, one should proceed from the axes of the walls, and not from the boundaries of the perimeter of the house. The walls should stand on the heads, and not hang from them.

How to calculate the amount of material?

The calculation of the number of supports is carried out in two directions:

On the lines of the greatest load.
According to the bearing capacity of the pile.

The first stage consists in counting the number of piles along all lines of location of external and internal load-bearing walls. The distance between them should not exceed 2-3 m (the heavier the house, the closer the supports should be installed to each other).

The second stage consists in checking the obtained number of supports. The total weight of the house, together with the calculated additional loads (the weight of snow, furniture and household appliances, ceilings, people, etc.) must be divided by the allowable load per pile.

If the resulting number is less than what was found in the first step, then the calculation is correct. If the second stage shows a higher value, it is necessary to increase the number of piles along the load lines.

You can do it easier and use the online calculator, which will perform the entire calculation on its own. You just need to substitute your parameters in the required fields and get an answer.

How to properly mark installation sites?

To perform this operation, you will need a plan for the first floor of the house. First, the corner points are marked, the junctions of the bearing walls are internal and external. Then the remaining number of piles is evenly distributed along all lines.

If there are large gaps, intermediate supports are provided to support the floor beams.

NOTE!

A distance of more than 6 meters between the supports is considered unacceptable.

How to determine the depth of immersion?

Determination of the depth of immersion of supports can only be done on the basis of an analysis of the soil and its composition. In addition, an important factor is the depth of soil freezing, above which it is not recommended to bury piles, especially for critical (residential) buildings.

For auxiliary buildings and structures (arbors, fences, sheds, etc.) erected on suitable soils, the minimum immersion depth is assumed to be 1.5 m.

When diving, it is necessary to know the limit value of soil resistance and not exceed the allowable limits established by the manufacturer. Otherwise, there is a risk of turning the technological hole until the desired depth is reached, which means that the pile is out of order and needs to be replaced.

Driving piles into the soil

There are two ways to drive piles:

Manual dive.
mechanical way.

Manual installation is allowed only for relatively thin piles and in the construction of non-critical auxiliary structures. For residential buildings, it is necessary to use construction equipment. First of all, this is due to the impossibility of manually screwing a pile with a diameter of 108 mm.

The percentage of pile failure is too high, and the reverse is unacceptable due to the loss of proper connection strength. In addition, the allowable vertical misalignment of the barrel is only 2°, which is impossible to achieve manually.

The mechanical method makes it possible to ensure high-quality immersion in compliance with the vertical and the specified force value. For residential buildings, only a mechanical method is permissible, although advertisements in every possible way assert the possibility of acting with the help of muscular strength in any situation.

This creates the opportunity for various violations, when inexperienced builders begin to act on their own and as a result receive an unstable and mobile foundation. In practice, a mini-excavator with a mounted pile driver is usually used.

It is capable of immersing trunks with a diameter of up to 159 mm to a depth of 12 m, which in most cases is quite enough for private construction.

How to align horizontally

Submerged screw piles must be leveled horizontally. To do this, a laser building level is set (you need a model that can outline a horizontal plane) at the desired height from the soil surface.

According to the existing mark, all trunks are trimmed. If any of them are too short, a preliminary build-up is performed.

An additional pipe is welded to the cut part of the trunk (a section with a technological hole is cut off), which increases the missing length, after which trimming is performed at the general level.

All welded seams and sections of metal exposed during trimming must be immediately tinted with protective polymer paint. It is necessary to choose moisture-impervious species or use bituminous mastic.

pouring concrete

The internal cavities of the piles are filled with concrete. This allows you to significantly increase the mechanical rigidity of the pipe, reduce the risk of corrosion inside the barrel.

Concreting increases the bearing capacity of the trunk by a third, allowing you to get a certain margin of safety of the foundation, which is necessary for resistance to unforeseen situations. For pouring, dense concrete grades are used - M200 and above. Filling is carried out at a level slightly lower than the cutting height.

In the first hours, the concrete in the well will sag a few centimeters, therefore, after filling, a dry sand-cement mixture is poured to the top of the shaft. It will absorb water particles squeezed out during subsidence and form a plug that seals the barrel before mounting the head.

Strapping grillage

A grillage is a strapping belt that connects individual supports into a single system. It is needed to take the weight of walls or other structural elements of the house, to evenly distribute the load throughout the pile field.

There are different ways of mounting the grillage, due to the material of manufacture:

Wood

A wooden beam with a minimum thickness of 150: 150 mm is used. Alternatively, you can use packs of boards 50 mm thick and 200 mm wide, combined into a single package measuring 150: 200 mm. High-quality dry lumber of 1 or 2 grades is used.

The surface of the tree is covered with an antiseptic and flame retardant composition (currently there is an impregnation that performs both functions). The beams are connected halfway up the tree and only above the pile head.

Joints located in the span are not allowed. A double layer of roofing material (waterproofing) is laid between metal and wood in all places. Installation is carried out so that the pile is located exactly along the longitudinal axis of the beam.

Metal

Various types of rolled metal are used:

Channel.
I-beam.
Rectangular pipe.

When using a channel, heads are not needed, although their presence is mandatory for a pipe or an I-beam. For the channel, special embedded parts are used, installed in the pipe when pouring concrete.

It becomes possible to do without waterproofing between the heads and the strapping, but between the metal and the wall it is used in any case. The parts are connected by welding with mandatory reinforcement with bolts.

With increased strength of the metal grillage, a large metal structural element arises, which requires maintenance - periodic painting with protective compounds.

reinforced concrete

This is the most time-consuming and time-consuming option for creating a grillage, but also the most durable and reliable, not subject to corrosion or decay. To create it, it is necessary to make a formwork installed on top of the heads.

A reinforcing cage is placed inside, after which they begin to pour concrete.

The formwork is covered from the inside with a layer of roofing material or polyethylene to prevent moisture leaks. Sometimes the grillage is poured below the level of the heads, welding the reinforcing cage directly to the trunks. Most often this is done at a sufficient height above ground level.

In such cases, horizontal trimming is performed after the concrete has hardened (28 days), and the shafts are filled after trimming.

How to make a false base

The false base is designed to protect the space of the pile field under the house from the penetration of animals or birds, sweeping with snow in winter, from wind and moisture. To create such a base, various materials are used.

The most budgetary and aesthetically attractive option is a strip along the outer perimeter of corrugated board. It is attached with the upper part to a special wooden board installed around the perimeter of the grillage.

The lower part is attached to a wooden beam laid on stands made of brick, cinder block, etc. to cut off contact with the ground.

A concrete tide is arranged along the lower edge, and a tide must be mounted along the upper boundary to remove rainwater.

Useful video

In this video you will see the technology of installing a pile-screw foundation:

Conclusion

Screw pile foundations are a quick and cheap option for creating foundations for private houses or ancillary buildings. The ease of installation and the high speed of creating a structure attract many users, but the need for constant maintenance of metal parts is a disadvantage.

If the decision is made to use screw piles, it is very important to find a team of professionals with experience in working with similar foundations, otherwise, instead of a solid and reliable foundation, an unstable palisade of not deep enough immersed trunks will appear.

With the proper approach and proper observance of technology, such a foundation can withstand about 75 years.

In contact with

For the owner of a suburban area inexperienced in construction technologies installation of screw piles can lead to a decrease in the resource, strength of the foundation. To avoid this, it is enough to follow the instructions of the experts below.

Installation of screw piles

Unlike conventional piles, screw modifications are deepened when the lower blade rotates. This is an Archimedes screw that reduces the screwing force to a comfortable tightening torque. going on installation of screw piles step by step, it is very difficult to break the sequence of actions, which reduces the mistakes of private developers to a minimum.

Preparatory stage

To make a pile field suitable for long-term operation, it is necessary to solve several problems:

If the piles do not have a hot zinc coating, the internal cavities will have to be concreted to prevent corrosion. This is true even for SHS with a polymer, fiberglass coating, which cannot create a continuous layer inside the pipe.

Trial screwing in the foundations of the SVF replaces geological surveys:

one product is immersed in several places to determine the depth of the bearing layer
along the way, the presence of a “perch water”, a water-resistant layer (sandstone or limestone) above it is specified

This is quite enough for the production of further operations. The marking for SVF is standard - cords on cast-offs, marking the centers of piles with crosses. Then guide holes are drilled or pits are dug out.

Screwing lighthouse piles

Beacons in the pile field are corner SVS, products installed in the junctions of the walls. They are mounted first of all to guarantee the contours of the building in accordance with the project. Small deviations of the rest of the piles can be corrected by heads with wide platforms within a few centimeters.

Leader holes for these piles are extremely necessary, since they facilitate both the vertical positioning of the tubular structure and the entry of the spiral into the ground.

If it is impossible to make a mistake of more than 5 cm in lighthouse piles, intermediate SHS are less responsible. However, with high-quality drilling of leader holes, each pile will be installed evenly. In addition, the individual developer at this point has sufficient practice, productivity increases.

Piles for load-bearing structures, equipment

The pile field will be incomplete without immersion of the WSS in the places of the proposed operation of the following structures:

If you forget about these piles, later they will have to be mounted from the inside after opening the subfloor. At the same stage, it is recommended to bring engineering systems into the house for the reasons indicated above. They must be deepened by 1 - 1.5 m, covered with thermal insulation in the underground, if necessary, supplemented with a heating cable.

SHS diving methods

Renting special equipment for screwing SHS is expensive, so 70% of private developers prefer the other two methods of immersion:

With approximately equal productivity of both methods, labor costs are practically absent in the first variant. However, experts recommend a manual method that makes it possible to reliably determine the bearing layer by a sharply increased tightening force.

Installation of caps, grillage

To reduce the construction budget, the feasibility of using caps must be clarified at the design stage. However, with a significant deviation of individual SHS from the axis, they still have to be mounted. Metal, reinforced concrete grillage do not need heads. In the first case, the assortment is welded to the pile pipes, in the second case, the upper part of the SHS (usually 20–30 cm) is poured with concrete into the formwork.

In 70% of cases, the heads are welded to the pile, forming pockets of corrosion, which must be protected with zinc-containing aluminum-filled paints after the removal of slag and scale. Similar protection should be provided to the attachment points of the metal grillage. The monolithic structure is additionally waterproofed after stripping.

When are headers used?

The main purpose of the head pads is to correct linearity. When screwing in, the upper part of the pile can move to the side, the plates can align the axes of the walls when tying the pile field with a grillage. Headers are required in the following cases:

In all other options, welded plates, reinforced with scarves, made from a piece of a channel (U-shaped modifications), heads are not needed.

When choosing the SVF Foundation for a brick building, a monolithic grillage is definitely necessary. For log cabins, multi-storey "frameworks" the margin of safety is provided by a grillage from a channel, an I-beam. For light buildings, tying with a beam (frame, half-timbered technology) or a board (SIP panels, panel cottage) is enough. Manufacturing features are as follows:

If the pile field is mounted on a slope with a difference of more than 1.5 m between the opposite walls of the building, it will additionally be necessary to tie the structure with stiffeners (spacers, vertical ties) fastened with flange connections.

If this technology is observed, it is possible to provide a 70-100 year resource of a pile-screw foundation. Mechanized technology will reduce the labor intensity of the process, pay more attention to the vertical position of the pile body. It is much more convenient in difficult terrain than manual screwing.

Screw piles are a fairly ancient technology that was successful during the Napoleonic Wars and was patented in the early 19th century. Today, piles are used in construction as an element of a pile-screw foundation. The installation of piles is not difficult, it is done quickly, and if the base is being erected under a one-story light building, then the piles can even be made by hand.

Benefits of screw piles

Screw piles are pipes made of steel and empty inside. On one side there is a sharp tip with a cutting blade that allows you to screw the pile into the ground to the desired depth. After reaching the mark, the penetration stops, the piles are securely fixed in the ground, since the blade prevents them from being pushed out in the opposite direction.

The advantages of screw piles are as follows:

When installing them, there is no need to plan the site and provide for paths leading to it.
The use of piles does not depend on the season and weather.
The possibilities of using piles are wide, as they are used both on swampy soil and on permafrost.
Low labor costs for the construction of such a foundation, when compared with other types of foundations.
Construction work begins immediately after the installation of piles, without waiting for the foundation to shrink.
When erecting an extension to a building, there is no shrinkage of the new foundation relative to the old one.
Installation of piles is allowed in the area where underground communications are developed.
A pile foundation in combination with a reinforced concrete strip foundation will be the best solution if construction is carried out on soft soils, not excluding even quicksand.
After the piles are removed from the ground, they can be reused.

Disadvantages of screw piles

Along with numerous advantages, screw piles are not without disadvantages:

When used in moist soils, the reaction of which is different from neutral, the service life of the piles is limited. The duration of operation of metal products is 50-60 years, drill-driven products are much longer, reaching 100-120 years.
You can not build multi-storey buildings on such a foundation.
With a pile foundation, it is impossible to build a basement, otherwise the interaction of the piles with the soil will be disrupted.
It requires complex finishing of the basement and the creation of a high-quality scaffold to prevent water from entering the underground.
When constructing a pile foundation, it is impossible to use a standard project; calculations are carried out individually for each individual case.

Screw piles are used in the construction of foundations for temporary and light houses, for example, prefabricated panel, wooden baths, outbuildings, sheds, fences. Sliding gates using piles are not recommended. They are also not suitable for the construction of the base for the garage.

Production of screw piles

Screw pile - a structure consisting of 3 parts, which is made as follows:

The bearing part is the pipe. A product with a diameter of 85 millimeters or more is used. Next, the screw is welded, it should be located at the pointed end. The harness is attached to a special head.
To create a tip, the ends of the pipes must be cut into sectors of a certain size, facing inward, and then welded into a cone, not forgetting about straightening the seams.
For the screw, used discs or new ones, cut according to a template, or steel of 5-6 millimeters are used. When choosing the outer diameter, take into account the characteristics of the soil. The screw is made smaller with a deeper pile location.
Clamp the screw blank and stretch it using a vise and attach it to the pile. The connection is made by welding. From above, the attachment point is recommended to be coated with an anti-corrosion compound or painted without fail.
Now we will make a head for the pile. A channel will be attached to it. Choose such a size of the blades that they are wider than the pipe by 30 millimeters.

Pile field installation

The installation procedure for the pile field is as follows:

Prepare a set of tools, including fittings, welding, grinder, building level, pipe segments that serve as levers.
Calculate the number of piles that will be needed when installing the foundation, and their length, and also mark the field. For convenience, when marking the building plan, divide it into rectangles.
Clear the site of debris, remove the top layer of soil and level it.
Place reinforcing bars at the corners of the site. For their connection, a strongly stretched, not sagging rope is used.
Focusing on it, mark all points with reinforcement, starting from the place where the rope intersects. During installation, keep in mind that the drilling sites are located next to the reinforcement. To confirm that the distances are the same, it is customary to measure the diagonals.
Choose a hole drill that is slightly larger than the diameter of the pipe.
Piles are installed in drilled holes, starting from the corners, and aligned vertically.
There should be the same distance between adjacent products, the denser you plan to make the pile field, the more reliable the foundation will be.
Twisting the piles, pipe sections are used as levers. A crowbar is inserted into the hole of the pile, with the help of which levers are put on.
Carefully screw the pile in until it reaches the bottom of the hole. On light soils, piles, the length of which does not exceed 5 m, are wrapped by hand. The mechanical method of driving piles involves the use of a mini-excavator.
Check its location with a level. The maximum angle of inclination should not exceed 1-2 degrees with a pile length of 5 m. If it was not possible to install the pile in a strictly vertical position, cut it off and screw another next to it. If the pile has gone to the side, you should not screw it up, as this provokes its subsidence.

Thus, the process of installing screw piles does not involve any specific and complex work, although it is laborious. Therefore, it is important to use only high-quality piles that will last you for many years.