Good People
Great Handshakes
Remarkable Work
NEWS
From where we started:
Why we were called in for Remediation & Landslides
The way we set-up our team and find the balance between in-house services and subcontracting is motivated entirely by three things:
1.) good people - workmates we want to be around;
2.) great handshakes - honesty and reliability; and
3.) remarkable workmanship - whatever it takes to create the best quality outcomes in our work.
Our team is constantly evolving to suit our work in those ways.
To find out a little about our key people and their experience leading them up to this point, please check out our LinkedIn profiles below.
Sophie McGuire
PROJECT MANAGER
Daniel Goodman
DIRECTOR
0434 897 429
0404 481 004
Diesel
LEAD CFA OPERATOR
Scotty
LEADING OPERATOR
Charlie
OFFSIDER
Tom
CFA OFFSIDER
Tanya
ADMIN
We are very lucky to be supported by some fantastic subcontractors & suppliers who we like to consider as Heavies.
The crews that step up to our most challenging jobs, and rip at their trades to make our work possible include:
- Kevin McDaid Steelfixing
- Laing Concrete Pumping
- Allcoast Concrete Pumping
- Troy Heavy Haulage
- Shotcrete Australia
- Gato Sales & Service
- Monster Rigs
- Ausipile Contractors
- Aclass Piling
- Landfill Drilling
They're good people.
LET'S GET YOU STARTED
Hello, we're The Heavies. Thanks for looking us up!
Our small crew knows the rewards of doing a job right, respecting the nature of groundwork and being able to work with it effectively, safely and efficiently.
From remediation works for failed retaining walls and landslides, to managing complete basement packages, our capabilities include:
pile retaining walls;
foundation screw piling;
conventional bored pile and continuous flight auger (cfa) pile foundations; and
related civil concrete construction.
Our points of difference are known to be our friendly honest crew, the reliability of our costs and quality, and our ability to do extremely technical jobs successfully.
Please give us a call if you think we might be able to help with your project.
Daniel Goodman
Director
m. 0404 481 004
OUR TEAM
We also have to acknowledge the special local bloke that hangs around any job he sees, David Goodman, who, as most Australian piling companies would know is especially good at unsolicited consulting on short falls and room for improvement.
For us, we just see him a lot more.
Conventional Bored &
CFA Piling
PRODUCTS & SERVICES
Screw Piling
Struts & Propping
Top-down
Construction
'Hole Packages
Qualified
Supervision
Remediation & Landslides
We were called in to fix f***-ups.
2016 was the peak of a bad time for the industry, where competition was achieved in cutting corners in design, rather than in delivering efficiency or quality. Foundation work usually gets burried, hidden away and forgotten, but dramas were starting to make the news. Mascott Towers was cracking, soon to be followed by Opal Tower, and they were just the tip of the iceberg.
In the past, the foundations and piling industry used to be one where huge responsibility & trust were met with pride & honesty. However, with the huge overheads involved in running piling equipment & crews, it's not hard too imagine the pressure that some companies must have felt to keep work on their books, and therefore to join the corner cutting race to the bottom.
At the same time, Daniel was running Heavy Foundations Pty Ltd as a side project to a gas drilling company, because it was enjoyable and a good way to stay social with local builders. In a relaxed position with plenty of experience, good contacts and low overheads, Heavy Foundations was the perfect company to call to pick up the pieces of an industry in troube. Although not yet recognised as Good People, Great Handshakes and Remarkable Workmanship, our core values were similar back then, and defnitely contained the old fashioned values of pride and honesty that a lot of the industry had lost. In 2016 our motto was "if it is worth building then it's worth buiding right".
Experienced builders & engineers knew our position and our capacity, and we were fortunate to be given the opporunity to help make-right some projects that they weren't satisfied other contractors could complete.
Remediation of Significant Failure 1: Newcastle West, Undermining
In 2017, an attempt was made at shoring a Newcastle West tower basement with the conventinal CFA piling method. With the underground sands being extremely saturated, the drilling resulted in sand mining or sand being displaced from around the auger away from the pile locations. The neighbouring buildings were undermined and cracked.
We were called in and referred the job to Ausipile Contractors, who designed a secant pile wall which we could install with safer cased-CFA piles, and which provided better basement walls for the end user.
Remediation of Significant Failure 2: Smith's Lake, Landslide
When a large cut was hit with a record 300mm of rain in 48hrs it collapsed to within feet of neighbouring structures.
We were called on to mobilise immediately, and with effective engineering by Steve Morton from Regional Geotechnical Solutions we were able to work through the continuing challenging weather, access and ground conditions to first stabilise the large ground area and then also provide a retaining solution that suited the future use of the site.
Remediation of Significant Failure 3: The Entrance North, Failed Soil Mixing
A system was promoted to jet grout the existing underground sand for a basement excavation. Upon excavation, it was discovered that the cemented sands were globular, with large voids and insufficent embedment to retain the neighbouring areas.
When the experienced builder called us in, we set about reinstating the block to immediately support the neighbouring structures and then carried out a CFA soldier pile wall design by Northrop Consulting Engineers, which locked back the partially cemented sands for a safe and tidy basement excavation.
Remediation of Significant Failure 4: Copacabana, Unsafe Project Staging
During inspection of works on a substantial excvation, the experienced geotech' from Douglas Partners identified that the construction works were not being carried out in a way that suited the structural engineer's design, which risked neighbouring properties and could not be completed without significant risk to the site workers immediately involved or those that would have to take over the works later-on.
We were called on the manage the risks competently. We worked to a design revised by Eddy Consulting structural engineers, which allowed the permanent works to be completed with mediated risks, and completely removed safety hazards for any future trades and users.
