PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
ONE-STOP
PILE CLEANING
Pilecap Inc. offers novel automated pile cleaning solution
People are always skeptical,” said Thomas Huckabee.
“It’s been a very tough sell because it almost sounds
too good to be true. People have known one way for
the past 30 or 40 years. When you tell people there’s
a way that’s safer, faster and costs less, they don’t really
believe you.”
This is surprising because Huckabee seems anything but
disingenuous. Huckabee is from south Louisiana and grew
up around boat docks and oil docks, and always wanted to be
involved with docks somehow. He studied naval architecture
and is presently the operations manager at Pilecap Inc., a
Texas-based firm that specializes in the cleaning, inspection
and repair of marine piles. Pilecap started in the mid-1990s
because “a lot of companies were spending a lot of money
installing new piles,” said Huckabee. “We thought we could
repair them instead.”
Concrete and steel piles in marine environments are prone
to structural damage over time. In the case of concrete piles
in tidal zones, also known as “splash zones,” water gets inside
because concrete is porous. Once inside, the trapped water
By Bilal Rana
PHOTOS: PILECAP INC.
Pilecap developed a ring-shaped
system that clamps around a pile’s
circumference. It can be set up
around a pile by one person in as
little as 10 to 15 minutes.
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