Transcription
Pay attention, Brian. Today I'm going to show you how to drive these Pyx helicop pile deck foundation systems in the DIY way. All you'll need is an Allen key, a hammer, a measuring tape, and a piece of 2x4.
Step one: You want to remove this set screw that comes inside it. A lot of people think this set screw is in place to help hold the saddle from spinning side to side, but the truth is, it's to help with uplift and honestly, just for them to store it on the shelf. Remove the saddle completely, and you'll see this nut on the threaded rod attached to the saddle that lets you go up or down to adjust the height of the saddle. In this case, because we're driving it by hand, we're going to remove this nut completely. Seems like a lot of work, but trust me, it's pretty quick.
Want to make sure you save the nut and the set screw aside. Put them in your pocket, you're going to need them later. What you'll notice is the square base of the saddle that the threaded rod enters into is the same shape as the top of the pile. Now, that is designed to fit over it, and that allows you to get the torque you need to turn this in.
Now we're going to determine where we're going to put our PT. We recommend you put a piece of rebar in the ground exactly where your pile's going to go for two reasons. One is this will scalp for any rocks or roots you might encounter on the way down, and it'll keep your pile nice and straight on the mark that it's supposed to be on. If you're DIYing this, you want to get a decent-sized hammer and just hammer that in. If you're lucky enough to have power tools like me, you just use a jackhammer with a cup on it and drive it in.
There you have it. Rebar is in place, and now we know exactly where our pile is going. We take our pile and fit the saddle right over it without the nut to make sure it seats. Then you see the pile is hollow on the inside, like a tube, and that slips over the rebar.
Okay, you're going to put the first few turns in by hand. Once you can't turn it anymore, like in my case, you're going to grab a piece of 2x4. Start small with your 2x4. This will give you the leverage you need to keep turning the pile. You want to use a torpedo level. I recommend something magnetic to make sure your pile stays plumb throughout the process.
Go. Then we wind in with the 2x4. As soon as you feel like the torque is getting a bit too much for the small 2x4, it's just a matter of trading up. In this case, the longer the better, gives us more leverage. The harder it gets, the more leverage you need. The longer piece of 2x4 from between you and the pile, then you can start running around in circles, careful not to get dizzy. This is probably the funnest part of doing this kind of job.
All right, once you get it down to about a foot, now you want to check for compaction. So you want to get a decent-sized hammer. Where's my decent hammer? A decent hammer like this, and we're going to give it a smack. So first, we're going to verify the exact height from the ground. We have 11 1/2 inches to the saddle. I'm going to give it a few smacks with the hammer. If we see any compaction, that will dictate whether or not we need to use an extension for this pile. And we are at 11 and 1/2 inches. It hasn't moved a bit. So in this case, we do not need an extension. But if your pile moves 4 inches or more, you're going to have to get an extension, put the extension on, and continue winding until you get to the 12-inch mark again, and then redo the test and see if you need more extensions from there.
All right, you want to continue winding. Now, here's before the stuff in our pocket comes back into play. All kinds of stuff in there. Don't need that stuff. All right, so you get that on there. We're going to wind that nut all the way to the top.
Now we can replace our pile on the saddle. If you're concerned about uplift, that's where this comes in handy, the little set screws from earlier. Once you know where your pile is and you've adjusted to the right height, you're going to access the hole on the side here and put our set screw back in where we found it, and that will give it about 300 pounds of uplift protection where that now will take 300 pounds of force to break that uplift. And for a deck, uplift is not our major concern, but it is a minor concern, and they've addressed that with the set screw.