Site Investigation
A site investigation is essential when planning any development for example residential or commercial buildings, roads, railways and pipelines.
Apart from the requirements of the NHBC (National House Building Council) or Local Authority a good quality site investigation will provide invaluable information allowing sound judgement to be made on the future use of land and therefore ensuring a safe and economic design.
The increased use of marginal or brownfield land in more recent years makes a professional site investigation even more important with the potential risks to human health and the possible liability of huge contaminated land remediation costs.
Before an intrusive ground investigation is carried out it is often economically beneficial to schedule a Desk Study or Phase 1 investigation.
Past data including research into the site geology, former site usage, environmental issues, past pollution incidents, mining records and potential future issues will provide the basis for decisions on land use.
The ground is a natural entity and as such can be highly changeable and unpredictable. Add the influences of humans, mining and indiscriminately contaminating the land and it is clear that a well planned ground investigation is required.
Various techniques can be employed to obtain samples and information about ground conditions. The method employed will depend on the nature of the soil and rocks, the nature of the proposed construction and even access to the site.
Trial Pits
Trial pits or trial holes are extensively used and are particularly useful where due to the nature of the development only shallow excavations are required.
Light Cable Percussion Boring
Where trial pits do not provide sufficient information due to the nature of the ground or where a deeper investigation is required, shell and auger light cable percussion boring rigs provide samples down to approximately 40m.
Other techniques such as window sampling, rotary coring, dynamic probing, soakaways, monitoring standpipes, in-situ CBRs and plate bearing can be used to provide more specialist data.
Laboratory testing provides important design criteria such as strength, density, compressibility and chemical composition.
All of the data obtained in a site investigation is of little value without the expert knowledge of an industry professional such as a geo-environmental engineer to collate the data into a report. Geo-environmental engineers are usually a mixture of civil engineers and geologists amongst others.
Nicholls Colton Geotechnical have over forty years experience in site investigation and are one of the few independent organisations with a registered SiLC (Specialist in Land Condition).
A fully integrated professional service for all of your site investigation needs is available, please contact Nick Hutt or Kevin Willfratt on 0116 2536333 or e-mail to discuss how we can help you.