City Rock Climbing Wall Project

Project: Rock Climbing Wall

Year: 2021

Dealer: Techno Metal Post Pikes Peak Region

Location: Colorado Springs, CO

Partner: Bob Mcgrath Construction

Engineer Involved: JAC Engineering

Project Goals and Challenges: Installing helical piers for a walkway, located behind and above, a climbing wall, to support existing climbing walls. The helical piers were installed through holes in the upper deck into the exposed soil below. The climbing walls were built above an old theater so there were certainly obstacles in creating these holes for the helical piers to be installed into the concrete steps below. Ventilation was also a challenge as the piers were being installed inside a building that did not have windows aside from the sky roof. Because we installed the piers from above, we needed to use hex extensions to spin the helical piers into the ground.

Type of Soil: Expansive clay.

Advantages using TMP: The area of the restored boardwalk was under water when we first visited the site. The Parks Dept. was able to drain the water, so the soil was simply soft mud and slightly frozen mud. The big advantage of using helical piers was the fast and easy installation of a deep pier system with no digging or concrete.

Materials used: (7) P3-HD, 10” helix, 10’-6” long, black steel; (6) P3, 10” helix, 7’ long, black steel; (13) RC3-3 Vertical Rebar caps; (10) P3 Black Steel extensions. 

Equipment used: EM1

Bearing capacity: The loads varied from 8.5 kips all the way to nearly 28 kips. There were some instances in which the piers hit a very hard layer at 5’ of depth. We went slightly above each recommended load capacity for each helical pier to ensure load bearing capacity was met for the structure. 

Depth: 10’ minimum but we ended up 12’-6” deep on average to get through some expansive clay that was shown in some old soils test documents.

Structure Details: Steel frame stairs and additional foundation support for vertical climbing walls all supported by TMP helical piers.

Testimonials: The Project Manager was very pleased with the ability of our machine to install helical piers quickly and into areas underneath the subfloor that would have otherwise been hard to complete with other types of machinery. This job could not have been completed without the use of helical piers.