Geotechnical Drilling Citrus Park Reasons Developers Should Opt for Geotechnical Drilling
Citrus Park is home to a number of new construction projects, but developers can’t simply start building on a site. A fair amount of investigation is required to ensure that the land will be safe and sufficiently stable to support the new building(s), whether it’s a single office building, a five-story apartment building or a 30-unit townhome community.
Citrus Park geotechnical drilling crews can provide very useful information to developers, helping them to determine the suitability of a particular site, along with whether any special structural design elements will need to be included in order to ensure long term stability and safety.
What is Geotechnical Drilling?
Citrus Park geotechnical drilling service providers will begin by providing the client with a price estimate based upon the size of the site being evaluated and the depth of the drilling. To begin the project, a portable drilling rig will be transported to the site to begin extracting core samples.
A fairly small site may require just a couple days to complete the project, whereas a large area with dozens of core samples could take weeks.
A core sample is a long column of earth that’s extracted from the site. The core provides you with a look at each layer of soil and stone, allowing laboratory technicians to evaluate the composition and integrity of each one.
Analysts will look at many different properties of the core samples, including (but not limited to) the compositions and materials, strength and density, the depth and thickness of each layer, the quality of the bedrock, density, water content and compaction level.
This crucial information helps developers determine if the site can support the planned structure. If the soil is not sufficiently compacted, the building may sink into the ground over time, causing significant structural damage.
In other situations, the drilling operation may reveal the presence of an underground cavity or void. These voids are very dangerous because they can collapse, resulting in a sinkhole. So if one of these voids is discovered through the drilling operation, remediation crews can drill into the cavity and fill it with concrete. This reinforces the void and prevents a collapse in the future.
The state of Florida is very prone to problems with ground instability and sinkholes due to the sandy soil, the porous limestone bedrock and the heavy rainfall during certain times of year. The sandy soil is easily penetrated by water, which can seep down to the limestone layer, carrying acids from the soil and rain. Those acids dissolve the stone, causing voids to form. When those voids collapse, the result is a sinkhole.
*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*
