COVER FEATURE
The top three challenges Canadian
contractors face on deep foundation
construction sites across the
country, and how to solve them
By Lisa Kopochinski
In a country as vast as Canada and with terrain that varies greatly from coast
to coast and up north, it’s little surprise that deep foundation contractors
share similar challenges – with site conditions ranking the most common.
Piling Canada had the opportunity to talk with a number of deep foundation
contractors to find out the common problems they face, and how they
typically solve them. From our conversations, three challenges were consistently
echoed – site conditions, soil conditions and staffing issues.
A special thanks to the following industry professionals for their input:
Banain Cote, Innovative Piling Solutions; Phil Toma, Formula Contractors
Ltd.; Jeff Grieder, Keller Canada; Joe Roper, Cyntech (part of Keller Canada);
and Andrew Sneddon, Graham Piling. Here is what they shared.
Site conditions
“Terrain is absolutely a challenge for us in Northern Saskatchewan and
Manitoba,” said Banain Cote, co-owner of Innovative Piling Solutions,
Saskatchewan’s largest piling company. Based in Martensville, Sask., 10 km
north of Saskatoon, the firm offers drilled cast-in place piles; drilled cast-inplace
caisson (belled) piles; helical steel screw piles; driven timber, pipe and
H-piles; temporary shoring; and underpinning and foundation remediation.
“Not only is it a challenge access and egress-wise, but also capacity-wise,”
said Cote. “When we perform work in northern communities in Saskatchewan
and Manitoba, the first question that pops up at a pre-mobilization meeting
is, ‘How are we getting there?’ There are some projects that we can only do in
winter because we need to have ice roads open compared to not having an
actual road built in. We’re always challenged with servicing northern communities
such as La Loche, Southend and Stony Rapids. We’ll typically propose a
mobilization plan and the client will work with us to build access into the site.”
Phil Toma can certainly relate. As senior project manager at Formula
Contractors Ltd., a heavy civil and industrial construction company based
in Prince George, B.C. that provides construction services to municipal, civil
and resource-based sectors, he says a common occurrence his company faces
during construction of deep foundation solutions comes with the large area in
which it operates.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 21
Inuvik to Tuktoyuktuk Highway
construction by Formula Contractors
PILING CANADA 19