July 24, 2007

Driving home demanding foundations

Contractor has international rep

PETER KENTER

correspondent

Hamilton contractor Bermingham Construction Ltd. is not only one of the world’s leading suppliers of pile drivers, but has the expertise in using them to engineer some of the most demanding foundation construction jobs around.

“We’ve been in the pile driving and infrastructure building business since 1897,” says company president Patrick Bermingham, a direct descendant of the company’s founder, William Bermingham. “The company was established in Kingston, Ontario, and we won a contract from Canadian Pacific Railway to provide railway bedding at Crow’s Nest Pass.”

In the mid-1960s, the company created a second unit, now known as Berminghammer, to manufacture pile drivers to its own specifications.

Today, the company makes drivers ranging between 900 and 10,000 kilograms.

“In the GTA we’re known as a local pile driving company,” says Bermingham. “Internationally, anyone building a large dock, bridge or difficult foundation has heard of us.

BERMINGHAM CONSTRUCTION LTD.

It’s not just the equipment but the expertise that takes Bermingham Construction Ltd. far and wide.

“We’ve gained a lot of experience working in Ontario over the years in a variety of soil conditions and we’ve been told that if you can succeed in building foundations in this province, you can build them anywhere in the world.”

Major Ontario projects have included the construction of bridge foundations for the 407 highway.

“We not only provided the pile driving equipment, but drove the piles for every bridge on the initial phase of highway construction,” says Peter Smith, the company’s general manager and vice-president.

After last year’s Hurricane Katrina disaster, the company’s phone rang off the hook, with requests for pile-driving equipment. “There are a limited number of big pile drivers on the continent and we’re known for having them,” says Smith.

Over the past year, the $40-million-a-year company has completed major projects across the globe. “We’re building the cofferdam around the construction site of the new Niagara Falls tunnel,” says Smith. “It’s a good example of a site where there’s no substitute for the skill and experience required to do the job right.”

Last winter, the company drove 600-foot conductor casings into the bed of the Beaufort Sea on behalf of exploration company Devon Energy Corp.

Other recent contracts include building the foundations for a cruise ship terminal at the Vancouver Convention Centre; a ferry terminal on Grand Mannan Island, in the treacherous Bay of Fundy; the Woodrow Wilson Bridges spanning the Potomac River; supplying specialty equipment for a Liquid Natural Gas receiving dock in Tampico, Mexico, and supplying the U.S. military with 120 portable pile-driving machines, which can be parachuted into the field. Future contracts may include the proposed Mediterranean gate project designed to protect Venice from the sea.

“We’ve been continuously improving the tools we use in our business.”

The company has developed a pile tester known as the Statnamic. Instead of testing foundation piles by loading them with weights over several days, the device uses a solid pyrotechnic charge to create an instant load. The device was used to test the foundations of one of the world’s tallest buildings, the Taipei 101, in Taiwan.

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