The most common mistake we see on Dublin sites is treating the city's glacial till as uniform, competent ground. A contractor will open a cut on the south side near Ranelagh expecting stiff boulder clay and hit pockets of loose, water-bearing sands left by the last glaciation. That single change in ground conditions, if not accounted for in the excavation design, can trigger a collapse within hours. Our analysis maps these transitions before a bucket goes into the ground. For projects where the stratigraphy is particularly erratic, combining the excavation plan with a CPT test gives us continuous soil profiling without gaps, which is essential when designing shoring in mixed glacial sequences where boulders sit right next to silty lenses.
Dublin's glacial till demands excavation designs that handle abrupt transitions from stiff clay to water-bearing gravel within a single meter of depth.
