Tougher Than Bedrock

GeoRocFor celebrates 30 years of drilling and new success in its XS overburden systems By Sarah B. Hood If you ask the folks at GeoRocFor Inc. how business is do-ing, they like to say they're “getting through the toughest conditions.” That's not because business is bad - quite the contrary: the Sherbrooke, Que.-based company is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2015 as a leading manufac-turer of drilling tools and an industry leader in overburden casing systems.ebrating its 30th anniversary in 2015 as a leading manufac-turer of drilling tools and an industry leader in overburden casing systems.

Eliminating the Blind Spots

Operators can now put "eye" wherever they need them

Company Announcements, Key Events and Other News Important to Canada’s Deep Foundation Construction Industry

Hercules Machinery, Equipment Corporation of America, Construction project failures, and more

New research is first to link CEO behaviours to workplace safety culture and injuries

The Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) recently announced publication of research it funded in the Journal of Applied Psychology, entitled “Safety in the C-Suite: How CEOs Influence Organizational Safety Climate and Employee Injuries.” The study's authors are Dr. Sean Tucker (University of Regina), Dr. Babatunde Ogunfowora (University of Calgary) and Dayle Ehr (University of Regina).

GRL Engineers author Geotechnical Engineering Circular No. 12 – Design and Construction of Driven Pile Foundations

The recently released Geotechnical Engineering Circular No. 12 - Design and Construction of Driven Pile Foundations is the US Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) primary guidance and reference document on driven pile foundations.

DFI’s Testing and Evaluation Committee announces a new video

Static Load Testing of Deep Foundations Elements The Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) and the Testing and Evaluation Committee recently announced the release of a video on Static Load Testing of Deep Foundations Elements: Top-Down and Bi-Directional Static Load Testing.

Northstar Sharp’s Foundation Specialists: An amalgamation of two great companies

Northstar and Sharp's Construction join forces

Pacifica Piling Ltd.

After a year in the market, this steel supplier continues to pick up steam By Colleen Birchwood When Rick Cable and his then-girlfriend Melissa Butler left the East Coast and arrived in Vancouver with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothes in 1996, he never imagined that 20 years later he would be the president of Pacifica Piling Ltd.

Female Powered Industry

The construction industry needs to attract more women to the trades - one Canadian partnership is attempting to bridge this gap

Emergency Access

Formula Contractors stepped in to construct an emergency bridge when a rainstorm washed out an important thoroughfare

Up to the Challenge

How innovative products from American Piledriving Equipment are proving their worth in the Canadian North By Mark Halsall It's called the Polar Penetrator. When it comes to piling work in the Canadian North, it's hard to think of another piece of equipment that's more aptly named. The Polar Penetrator drill bit was invented by American Piledriving Equipment (APE) and is part of the company's HD Driver system that's uniquely suited to deep foundation construction in cold, northerly locations. “It's a drill bit that executes typically in frozen tundra or ground with permafrost or discontinuous frost, and I tell you what, it's a game-changer,” said Colin Grindle, Canadian regional manager for APE. “We've been able to tackle any project in any terrain with our HD system.”

Meeting Arctic Demands

PND Engineers tackles tough projects in the north

Experienced Hands

For over 40 years, Waterworks Construction Inc. has been building its toolkit of experience and reliability

Rigours of the North

Ledger Foundations has been doing deep foundation work for oil and gas projects - mostly in northern locations and under challenging conditions - for 10 years now By Mark Halsall Workers with Ledcor Foundations have been specializing in deep foundation work for oil and gas projects in northern Alberta and British Columbia since 2006. One of the things they've learned this past decade is that it takes a strong commitment to work in remote locations in the north. “It's tough on the people being away from home and in a work camp for 14 days straight. Not everybody wants to get out of bed, get on a plane and go to work for two weeks, and then only be back home for a week. It takes a commitment to work in this sector,” said Jerrod Dersch, operations manager for Ledcor Foundations.

Hard Roads, Tough Haul

Canada's remote northern communities rely on a network of challenging winter and ice roads. Transport firms have stepped up with logistics and experience to get goods to isolated residents. By Kelly Gray Canada has some very unforgiving northern territory when it comes to moving freight. The weather is brutal and the infrastructure is a constant challenge with thawing permafrost, heaving roadbeds and winter ice roads open fewer weeks than ever. Indeed, just getting cartons of milk to remote First Nations communities can be a daunting task. Consider the challenges of getting multi-ton construction piles, turbine blades or heavy equipment to sites that are accessible only during winter months along a network of ice and winter roads that add to the complexity of construction projects.

Filling the Gap

As baby boomers retire and the traditional labour pool shrinks, the construction industry is focusing on alternative workforces

Prepping Heavy Equipment for Remote Jobs

Lost time can be prevented by properly planning the project, having the recommended parts on site, and scheduling sufficient time for inspections and maintenance on the equipment By Lisa Kopochinski One needs only to watch the television show Ice Road Truckers - which features drivers who operate trucks across frozen lakes, rivers and tundra in both Alaska and Canada's north - to get an idea of the challenges involved when transporting equipment and supplies to remote locations in extreme and often treacherous conditions. These conditions also spotlight the importance of diligent planning to help ensure that heavy equipment will perform at peak capacity once they reach these locations. Machines must not only be prepped and maintained prior to transport, but inspected and maintained regularly on site.

Meet a Piling Professional

Mario Roussel, Selix Equipment Describe your current job.My day-to-day job is to organize everything with suppliers and manufactures for all the equipment brands we represent and make sure all financial aspects of the company are in order. What are your areas of responsibility?Sales would be my major responsibility, but I oversee almost everything to be sure we do the best possible jobs for our customers in a timely fashion. How did you get to where you are now?I started renting and selling heavy equipment back in 1985 for McIntosh Equipment of Ottawa, then I represented Holder of North America, a German municipal tractor company covering all of Canada and approximately 23 states. I was working with a dealer network, and then I started developing a liking to the rock breaking and drilling industry. In 1992, I helped develop and introduce a new Japanese hydraulic rock drill brand, called Furukawa, to our country for almost 20 years. In the summer of 2011, I took the opportunity to start my own distributorship, and Selix was born.

Instruction, Information, Supervision

Failure to take reasonable safety precautions and provide adequate training can result in hefty fines By Kirk A. Vilks, Fillmore Riley LLP In the Q4 2013 edition of Piling Canada, James Wishart wrote about the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in R. v. Metron Construction Corp. (Metron). In that case, the Ontario Court of Appeal handed out fines to corporate defendants for criminal negligence that were large enough to potentially bankrupt the companies. It was held that that the courts should not take companies' financial situation into account when determining fines for criminal negligence. More recently, Canadian courts have continued to follow this approach by awarding large fines without consideration of the financial implications for the companies In 2013, the Ontario Court of Justice convicted Sunrise Propane Energy Group Inc. for multiple regulatory offences under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). The judgement - R. v. Sunrise Propane Energy, 2016 CarswellOnt 3399 - pertained to an incident that caused propane explosions in Toronto in 2008 that killed a young worker and caused a fire. There were a series of explosions that caused extensive damage to surrounding properties and injuries to neighbours. Some surrounding homes were left uninhabitable for over a year. Approximately 12,000 residents had to evacuate the area within a 1.6-kilometre radius. Local businesses were forced to close, and one nearby car dealership was completely destroyed. At the time of the explosion, there were two employees on site; one was able to escape with minor injuries, but the other was killed.