The footprint of a steel pile is less than three inches in diameter. This could result in very serious damage to the both the building structure and its foundation.The Steel Piling Method of foundation repair is a more advanced version of the concrete piling and concrete piling with insert methods. If a vertical column of steel piles has not reached stable soil or the refusal point then it is offering little or no support. This leaves the columns of steel piles vulnerable to the annual shrinking and swelling of soil. The interior of the foundation simply is not thick enough to bear the weight of the house and force cylinders into the ground.

Therefore, numerous columns of steel piles will have to be driven into the ground to offer the proper support for the home or building foundation. The piles are just along for the ride when the soil is expanding and contracting. The steel piles may or may not have reach stable soil or bedrock.The steel piling method of foundation repair has some improvements over its concrete piling predecessors but it fails as a long term solution for commercial and residential foundations. When the steel piles are being driven into the ground they will reach a refusal point which is the point where the weight of the home or building is no longer sufficient to push more steel piles into the ground.

A piling system relies on pushing concrete cylinders or steel cylinders into the ground near the perimeter of a building foundation. If a column of vertical piles are misaligned then they have little to no long term value as a support column.The steel piling method of foundation repair often uses unconnected steel piles. The method used to push or force the cylinders into the ground is to use the weight of the home or building. It has resolved a couple of the disadvantages of these two earlier methods but its overall performance as a long term foundation repair method is poor and inadequate.Other disadvantages of the steel piling method of foundation repair include the cost of the steel piers/piles, lack of a soil test, inability to resist uplift, a small footprint, and failure to reach the refusal point. Any further attempts to drive piles beyond the refusal point will result in the hydraulic equipment lifting the building and foundation into the air.

A concrete pile has a six inch diameter footprint galvanized steel coil and a poured concrete Bell Bottom Pier has a 22 inch diameter footprint. However, this method of driving piles into the soil presents a risk to the home or building foundation.</p>. six inches for concrete) and they are less prone to breakage. Since it is a well known fact that soils can swell and shrink as much as ten vertical inches, unconnected steel piles can easily become misaligned during these horizontal and vertical movements of soil (uplift or upheaval). Sometimes the columns of steel piles are spaced too far apart to offer the proper support the foundation needs. Therefore the contractor is guessing when he chooses a driving depth for the piles. There is simply no way to confirm that steel piles 10, 20, 30, or 60 feet below the surface are aligned in a vertical column.