Church Retaining Wall Repair Soil Stabilization – KY
Soil Stabilization to preserve church staircase for this retaining wall repair project.
At the First Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY the front staircase’s retaining walls were beginning to fail and was causing the soil to undermine leading to inadequate support fot the staircase. On this retaining wall repair project, the soils needed to be stabilized to prevent further undermining and to reestablish the bearing capacity of the support soils of its new footing to ensure the staircase was adequately supported. The stabilized soil also allowed for the failed brick retaining wall to be excavated without compromising the staircase.
Retaining Wall Repair Project Challenges
- Retaining walls on either side of the staircase were failing
- Constructed out of brick with a brick footing
- A new concrete footing and wall had been designed for the retaining wall repair
- Prior to construction, needed to tie back granular soils to avoid stair undermining as well as increase bearing capacity for new footing
Solution
- Inject URETEK 486Star Polymer directly behind brick wall to encapsulate the soil mass and inject into the soil beneath the proposed footing to increase bearing capacity
- Worked with structural engineer to determine best injection locations to increase bearing capacity for proposed footing
Outcome
- Work completed in 4 hours
- Stabilized (2) excavation walls (18’) and stabilized footing soil along (18’)
- Brick wall was removed immediately after injection
- Excavation soil was tied back and successfully underpinned the stair structure
