Chowderhead Piling Contractors

[Ian McColgin]

This guy puts those pilings with a natural taper in narrow end first. Since it's not pointed, it does not drive any easier and doesn't set any better since the driving wiggles the piling and the hole takes a little while to settle in around the pole anyway.

So every few years we have enough ice that at low tide the ice gets a good grip on the pilings and yanks them right out. The dead parallel sided pilings don't come out and those pilings installed by contractors with half a brain, planted fat end down, don't give the ice the grip so they stay.

But why let reality get in the way of repeat business, especially if the marina owner is as dumb as the contractor.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10998366_1008328049196190_6480105180313819134_n.jp g?oh=04ead4d4c0fd87f3e1ca6869d2a6fcf4&oe=5548980B&__gda__=1431480923_b526a4436e6e31630fb37272269fc17 c

[Ian McColgin]

https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10995917_1008328135862848_7840347009765725324_n.jp g?oh=8e0ea2f64d6f33ba46c2391cab80e738&oe=55810D2C

Both pix by MaryEllen, of Barnstable Harbor

[htom]

:chuckling: There are nuances to the simplest of tasks.

[slug]

The ice and tide always pulls pilings . In the old days they had young boys like me who went around every afternoon and broke the ice with steel pipes for a fistful of dollars.
Nowadays kids are too fat to walk on ice because of finger poking electronic gizmos plus lawyers are on the prowl.

[Breakaway]

Boy the tide is super low round here today. Same in your area, looks like.

As for pilings, most I see nowadays are jetted in, rather than driven.

Kevin

[Ian McColgin]

Jet or drive, a hard ice drift will either yank out or break off most anything. These sticks are not exposed to much lateral motion but they get nine or ten feet up and down per day. Only tapered pilings that are planted thin end down lift out.

[hokiefan]

:chuckling: There are nuances to the simplest of tasks.

Yup, the devil is in the details.

[slug]

In springtime are job as young boys was to reseat any pulled pilings

To reset a pile one boy would strap a steel pipe ,hooked to a gasoline powered water pump , to the piling, another boy would climb on top the pile and wiggle it. The pump powered waterjet would reseat the pile back into the mud or sand in a few minutes .

Good for another handy fistfull of dollars.

[Canoeyawl]

I had a little "spud" that I used as a mud anchor. A broken off full length Shakespeare fiberglass VHF antenna with a nice long taper. If you stuck that in the mud (big end first) more than about 18"- 2 feet, you would never get it back, ever.