Pile trimming is the job of taking a pile down to its cut off level cleanly, leaving the reinforcement intact and the concrete sound, so the pile cap or capping beam can go straight on top of it.
It sounds simple. On a real site it is the job that holds up the piling rig, the cappers and the concrete pour if it is done badly or done late. We trim piles for builders, piling contractors and civil contractors in Sydney, in Brisbane and South East Queensland, and on jobs up and down the East Coast.
We own the gear and we are buying more of it. Hydraulic pile croppers, excavator mounted breakers, compressor and Hilti jackhammers, and hand trimming where the tolerance is tight. The method gets picked to suit the pile, not to suit whatever is on the truck.
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What pile trimming actually involves
A pile is poured or driven long on purpose. Nobody can hit the exact level first go, and the top of a bored pile is always the worst concrete in it, full of laitance and contaminated spoil. So the pile comes up proud and someone has to take it back down.
That someone has to do three things at once. Break the concrete back to the design cut off level, keep the starter bars straight and undamaged so they can be tied into the cap, and leave a clean sound face for the next pour. Get any one of those wrong and the engineer will not sign it off.
On a big job that is hundreds of piles. We have two jobs coming up with a thousand driven piles at 400 by 400 between them. At that volume the difference between a good method and a bad one is weeks on the programme.
Driven, bored and screw piles are three different jobs
Driven precast piles. Square or round precast concrete, driven to set. High strength concrete, heavy reinforcement, and they need to be cropped square without cracking the pile below the cut line. This is where a hydraulic cropper earns its money, it squeezes the pile and shears the concrete off in one go without shaking the pile.
Bored and CFA piles. Poured in place, so the top is soft, wet and full of rubbish. Usually more forgiving to break but far messier to clean up, and the spoil has to go somewhere. Often a breaker and jackhammer job, finished by hand.
Screw and helical piles. Steel, so it is a cutting job not a breaking job. Cut to level, cap plate welded or bolted on.
Tell us which you have, how many, and what the cut off level is relative to the working platform, and we can tell you the method and the rate.
The methods we use, and when
Hydraulic pile croppers. Excavator mounted. Fastest and cleanest option on driven precast and on uniform bored piles. No hand vibration exposure, no operator in the firing line, and the crop is square. This is the direction we are heading and we are adding units.
Excavator mounted hydraulic breakers. The workhorse on bored and CFA piles, and on anything oversized or irregular. Quick, but it needs a careful operator or you shatter concrete below the cut line and create rework.
Compressor and Hilti jackhammers. Hand work, for the last part of the trim, for tight access, for piles inside a building, and for anywhere a machine cannot reach or cannot be permitted.
Saw cutting a control line. Where the tolerance is tight or the pile is exposed in the finished work, we cut a line at the cut off level first so the break stops where it is supposed to stop. Perfect Concrete Care sits inside the same group, so that is an internal call not a subcontract.
Protecting the reinforcement is the whole point
The bars sticking out of the top of the pile are what tie it into the cap. Bend them, nick them, or work harden them and you have a structural problem and a conversation with the engineer that nobody wants.
So we work down to the bars rather than through them, we keep the breaker off the steel, and we straighten by hand where a bar has been knocked during driving. Where bars have already been damaged before we arrived, we say so in writing before we touch anything. It is not our damage and we are not going to inherit it.
Fitting in around the piling rig
Trimming almost never happens in a clean window of its own. The rig is still working, the cappers want to start, the crane is booked and the concrete is ordered.
What works is trimming in runs, following the rig at a set distance, so the capping crew always has a face of trimmed piles in front of them and nobody is standing around. We will sit down with your programme and work out that distance with you rather than turning up and asking where to start.
We can also take the spoil away with it. We run tippers and skips, so the broken concrete does not sit in a pile on your site waiting for someone else to book a truck.
Where we do it
Sydney and greater NSW out of our Marrickville yard, Brisbane and South East Queensland out of Slacks Creek, and interstate for the right job. We move crews and plant up and down the East Coast regularly, so a job in Newcastle, on the Gold Coast, on the Sunshine Coast or in Wollongong is normal work for us, not a special case.
If you are piling somewhere we do not have a depot, ask anyway. The answer is usually yes if the volume is there.
Frequently asked
Do you price per pile or per day? Per pile on volume work, where the piles are consistent and we can get a run at them. Day rate on small numbers, awkward access, or where we are working around other trades.
Can you trim piles under an existing structure? Yes. That is hand work with jackhammers and usually dust and noise controls as well. Tell us what is above it.
Do you take the concrete away? Yes. We run our own tippers and skip bins, so trimming and spoil removal can come as one price.
What about dust and silica? Concrete cutting and breaking generates respirable crystalline silica. We work to water suppression and on tool extraction, with the right respiratory protection, under our own SWMS. Ask and we will send it.
Can you start next week? Often yes. Ring us rather than emailing if it is that soon.
Send us the pile schedule
The quickest way to get a real number is to send the pile layout, the pile type and size, the cut off levels and the count. We will come back with a method and a rate, not a vague range.
Sydney 02 7908 4944. Brisbane and South East Queensland 07 2145 6581.
Pile trimming by city. We have a page for each area we trim piles in most, with the local number and the pile types we see there: Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.
Perfect Stripout & Demolition acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians and Elders past, present and future, and honour their connection to the land and ongoing contribution to society.