[TheForge] long time to read

[Andrew Vida]

On 7/10/2013 9:16 PM, terry l. ridder wrote:
> This is where the metalworking comes in.
> Two engineering firms are suggesting that the ground and cliff be
> stablized by driving steel plates into the ground on the boundaries of
> the property and using a horizontal boring unit use cables to connect
> the plates together underground. basically, creating an open cube below
> the ground. The theory is that the amount of earth that would have to
> move at one time as a rough cube would be to much and the ground would
> thereby to stablized.

If I am reading this right then I can only conclude that they breed 
their engineers especially stoopid in the UK.  The solution sounds 
idiotically complicated and I doubt it would work.

If the cliff is subsiding, there is either a slip plane along which it 
is occurring or it is simply undermined, perhaps by surf action.  Either 
way, there is a dividing line, either the slip plane or the natural 
angle of repose.  Stabilization has to be rooted below the line or you 
do not achieve stability.  This proposal to make the slipping mass so 
large a coherent chunk that it will no longer slip borders on idiotic. 
It is a rube.

One idea that comes immediately to mind in terms of a retaining 
structure would involve sinking a series of bore holes about 20-24" in 
diameter, dropping in some serious rebar and then fill with concrete. 
Because there is no pounding, there is minimal exacerbation of the 
extant instability.  Because the bores are relatively small, there is 
less disturbance as well.  Bore, fill, repeat.  Then bring in the 
truckloads of fill... looks like several hundred thousand yards of it.

Too $$.  Cheaper to dismantle the dwelling, sell the assets and call it 
a day.