Morris-Shea Installs Deep Foundation for EGGER Wood Products Linwood, NC Facility

Foundation Contractor Drilled 753 DeWaal Piles at New Particle Board Plant

(Birmingham, AL – May 23, 2019)

Irondale, Alabama-based Morris-Shea installed deep foundation DeWaal Piles for the construction of the new EGGER Wood Products plant in Linwood, North Carolina. Morris-Shea worked with general contractor Gray Construction, Inc. and structural engineer Teasley Services Group, LLC to redesign the initial foundation from H-piles to Morris-Shea’s patented DeWaal Drilled Displacement Pile System.The successful installation of DeWaal Piles in the first of three construction phases decreased material expenses and improved project scheduling at the new particle board manufacturing facility. The DeWaal Pile System provided superior load strength in comparison to the initial driven H-pile design and minimized noise and vibration concerns at the I-85 Corporate Center building site.

DeWaal Piles are a drilled, full displacement, cast-in-place concrete pile installed by powerful, fixed mast drill rigs capable of applying high rotational torque and crowd forces to the unique DeWaal tool. Morris-Shea utilized a Fundex 3500 drill rig to install 753 DeWaal Drilled Displacement Piles with lengths to 84-feet. The Morris-Shea deep foundation system provides support for key high load bearing areas in the plant where soil conditions include clayey sand above partially weathered rock (PWR).

Morris-Shea has successfully designed and installed hundreds of thousands of DeWaal Piles for projects throughout North America and the Caribbean. DeWaal Piles are the original drilled displacement pile system invented in Europe in 1985. Morris-Shea is the U.S. patent holder and sole licensee for DeWaal Drilled Displacement Piles in the Western Hemisphere and has been installing DeWaal Piles in the U.S. since 1992.

The EGGER Group, headquartered in St. Johann in Tyrol, Austria, is a leading international wood-based materials manufacturer. The Linwood, North Carolina facility will be the company’s first manufacturing plant in the U.S. This facility will be a state-of-the-art particle board manufacturing plant with the best available technology.