Removal of soil nails 2

[snsl123]

I am not a geoengineer, but I have some geoengineering questions and I hope you don't mind me posting it here. As part of a construction project next to our house (they are building a house), a shoring company began drilling grouted, threaded soil nails into the hillside between our two houses. In weeks prior, an excavation company had excavated all the earth in the side yard next door right up to our property line, which left a 20' drop to the property below where they are building the house (we are on a hillside). In order to prepare for a retaining wall, the shoring company began drilling these nails into our yard, but neither the builder nor the shoring company told us they were going to do this work and they did so without our permission (It is unbelievable--at least to us!) Since they began drilling the nails into the hillside right along our property line, and the nails are approximately 16 feet long, the nails breached our property line by about 15 feet (there is a foot of nail still sticking out of the earthen wall). We were able to stop them just as they were finishing the installation of the sixth nail, but apparently dozens more were planned to be drilled into our yard to hold up the wall. Of course, all work ceased, and has been stopped for one week now. The builder apparently had other methods to shore up this earthen wall, but utilizing our yard was the cheapest route. We are now in need of a geotech expert (something I am working on) to help us figure out what to do with these metal rods in our yard. Do they stay or do they go? We want them gone.

My (curious) question is; can grouted soil nails be removed without taking our yard out with them? Do the rods come out cleanly or does the grout come out with them? Will pulling them out (and the dirt with them) create a sink hole in our yard? One of the rods was drilled into our yard at only about a 25 degree angle and a 18" depth (I saw that one go in). I am wondering if we can ever trench for sprinkler repairs at that depth. We have lots of other questions regarding this, but we are mostly curious if grouted soil nails can even be removed without causing greater problems for us. We really want them removed in case we need to or have to excavate our yard some day. They are probably tying up about 20 feet of our yard.

In the meantime, I have some calls in for a referral for a geotech/soil engineer in my city to help us sort out this mess. I am, unfortunately, learning more about soil nails than I ever wanted to. It will probably take weeks to get answers, but in the meantime I am curious if grouted soil nails can even be removed. Thank you.

 

[PEinc]

Well said, geostructural. Any compensation for allowing temporary (left-in-place) nails under another's property would probably be minimal, if anything at all. Unfortunately, the job is probably done by now. I wonder how it turned out.

snsn123?????

 

[snsl123]

Here is a bit of an update. Our side yard, sprinkler system, and our hand-crafted wrought iron fence, that bordered the construction site, collapsed in February. The collapse took out a five-foot-wide by 20-foot-long area of our side yard. The fence and side yard collapsed about eight feet down into the construction site next door. The excavation company had previously replaced much of the dirt in that side yard because of the instability of our side yard (it HAD been about a 15 foot drop before they replaced the dirt), so our collapse didn't fall that far down into their yard. If it would have been a longer drop, our wrought iron fence is so heavy, that it would have pulled a much longer section of our fence down the hillside. Mind you, this side yard excavation next door was an extraordinary undertaking for our neighborhood; nobody had attempted to excavate a side yard before (just for the owners to have the luxury of a side patio), because we live on a hillside and the forces of nature are too great. The contractor took full responsibility for our collapse, though, and had a temporary fence installed in our yard that afternoon. They have since reconstructed our side yard, sprinkler system, and wrought iron fence on their dime. So, Geostructural had it nailed pretty well, as far as the outcome to our situation. I would still debate the compensation part for tying up our front yard with rods, though. When asked her opinion regarding leaving the rods in vs. removing them, our real estate agent said, "Take them out." Her feeling is that it leaves doubt in a purchaser's mind as to what problems these rods could cause some day. She likened it to any other past mechanical issues with a house. Buyers don't like to hear about any potential issues. And, I know you will say the rods won't cause any problems, but in an ignorant buyer's mind, it causes doubt and could give us a re-sale problem some day. My husband and I have debated these rods in length ourselves; he thinks they should stay and I think they should go. So far, they are still in place and will probably stay that way. We did determine that our utilities (water, gas, electrical) all enter our property more in the middle of our front yard, rather than down our property line where these 16 foot rods are currently in position, so there are no issues with the rods and utilities. The rods are just sitting there one or two feet underground.

In the end, after all of this mess with the hillside, the final result is laughable. Everyone in the neighborhood chuckles when they see the side yard for this new house. Forget plan B, geotechnical, they had to move on to plan C. And you are totally correct about starting with the cheapest route to building this retaining wall, which was drilling the rods into our front yard. That is exactly what they attempted to do until I caught them in the act. Thankfully, I was home that day, otherwise our entire side yard would have been full of dozens of 16-foot rods; without ever being able to make that decision ourselves. It was a terrible thing for this construction company to try and pull off without telling us ahead of time.

Plan B, which was to drill very long rods vertically into the earth to hold up a retaining wall, encountered too many huge boulders in the earth and they couldn't drill far enough down to support any kind of tall retaining wall. Their final try was Plan C and that was to build a series of "stepped" planter boxes that start at the level of our side yard and work their way down the hillside towards the side wall of their house. Their walkout side yard (and patio they had hoped for) ended up being a two-foot-wide cement walkway alongside their house; then there is this series of planter boxes stepping up the hillside towards our property line. So, they will now walk out their side door to find a 4-foot high cement wall two feet away from the door, and a series of stepped walls up the hillside. I am sure this mess ended up costing a fortune. Plan A was in the $14,000 range, but we cut those plans short; Plan B was supposedly in the $30,000 range and had to be abandoned, and they ended up with plan C. They ended up drilling rods into the earth to hold back/up each of these smaller planter box walls (maybe each 4 feet high). I didn't see how long those rods ended up being.

The house next door is still under construction (mainly just landscaping remains). Total construction time will almost be 2-years for this custom home, so not all has been resolved. We will be sending the construction company all the repair bids in the next month.

And, geotechnical, you won't believe it, but we get along with our new neighbors well (they are here checking on the construction site almost everyday). We each have a fairly healthy sense of humor. They complain about the contractor just as much as we do (you can only imagine what they have been through--this side yard mess was just a part of their many many problems), so we understand one another. Our humor ends with the construction company themselves, though. The construction company is NOT invited to the BBQ.

 

[snsl123]

Sorry, geostructural. I meant to write geostructural, not geotechnical.

 

[MSEMan]

snsl23,

Glad to hear its worked out, more or less okay. But the point is that you still have, in effect, granted a permanent easement onto your property without getting compensated for it. And you have no idea what the extent of the encroachment onto your property actually is.

You need to find out what was done and agree equitable compensation for it (probably 30K-50K) from the contractor before he hands over the house to the owners.