American Piledriving Equipment (APE) recently teamed up with Lita Construction to install twenty-two 7.625-inch diameter pile at a 40-foot depth to support a 19-foot by six-inch cantilevered retaining wall. This wall was constructed in efforts to expand the usable square footage of a residential lot overlooking the East River.
APE, based in Kent, Wash., is a leader in research and development, production and sales of foundation construction equipment. APE produces the world’s largest pile drivers, and has offices in every corner of the United States, Asia and has distribution worldwide. APE has a unique way of doing business in the deep foundation construction industry. They devise, manufacture, load and ship their own products. APE builds innovative foundations for buildings, bridges, utility poles and structures of all sizes with a focus on modern and green technology. They specialize in producing their own pile material and installation tools, patented steel piles, grouted piles and micropiles, excavator-mounted multi-purpose HD Drivers, as well as geo-exchange building heating and cooling systems.
“In the spirit of ingenuity, APE has always had a sound focus on ways to not only make our products better, but also to increase the function in which our products can be used in the industry,” said Matt Fenwick, operations manager for APE Drilling. “We feel that introducing our geo-exchange system to our HD piles being installed on projects was a way to do just that. We may not have discovered geothermal technology, but we will be damned if can’t make it better.”
Lita Construction, Inc., based in Jamaica, N.Y., focuses their main line of business on concrete construction, which includes reinforced concrete, concrete sidewalks, floors and flats as well as foundation contractors and concrete and block.
All 22 piles in this project were designed to incorporate APE’s geo-exchange system. This system creates a closed loop that can be run in series to exchange the water temperature circulating through the loop with ground temperature for both the heating and cooling needs of the home.
Load testing was preformed proving a 280 kip ultimate load was achieved on the piles and a geo-thermal strain test was carried out to qualify that the design minimum of 110 BTUs per foot was met. Post testing results not only achieved 110 BTUs, but exceeded expectation by over 90 BTUs per foot in each of the piling. 
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