Okay, within this site I have tried to remain informative and believe it or not quite concise. Well this section is mine for rambling and so I make no apologies for wandering off topics or standing on my soap box!
Many visitors to this site marvel over the concept of plastic piling, it has been around for nearly two decades, and yet for many it is still an undiscovered territory.
I get asked frequently by many a sceptic, well if plastic piling is so good why isn't everyone using it?
I answer to this that within the applications that we are targetting, it is often a case of convention, doing things the way they always have been done. Combined with a fear or apathy that to stray from convention for something structural, would be an erroneous thing to do. Apathy is also rife, that people only investigate alternatives when they have a reason to, be this a previous steel or timber or concrete systems has failed, or costs far too much.
Plastic piling has always held a connotation that it is cheap, and for many products it is true that they are a cheaper form of sheet piling, but you only have to look at the SuperLoc 1610 to realise that plastic piling can carry a premium price too.
I have to admit that many early producers of plastic piling focused too much on making cheap replicas of steel piling, and many were inferior products, either they could not support the loads that claimed to or simply they were near on impossible to drive into the ground.
Plastic piling has evolved over the past five years, and one thing to appreciate is that at last we have some products that do as the claim, in many case better since plastic piling is actually quite conservative when it comes to specifications.
We have a wide range of products that balance cost with features such as easier installation, we do still have some budget products, but these are clearly highlighted. The epitome of this has to be the advanced range, the first plastic piles that have designs unique to plastic piling, or sheet piling generically. Manufacturers have finally realised that the true benefit of working with plastics is that many novel and intricate designs can be produced in volume in plastic that would be near on impossible with steel.
The piles designs can be optimise to allow for the fact that pvc will never compete with steel for rigidity and strength.
The old age critisim for sheet piling cna finally be put to bed, yes we all agree corrugation will makie an environment look artifical, and if this is the only reason holding you back from sheet piling then look at our advanced range, these have either shallow or completely flat frontages - no visible corrugations!
Why do I offer other, clearly deeply corrugated sections? Well believe it or not some plastic piling users still dip back to convention, they want a pile to look like a pile. If this is you then no problem, we have some fantastic traditional designs, and if these encourage you to switch to plastic piling then they were well worth including in the range.
In summary, I say that yes plastic piling does provide a long lasting solutions, that it is exceptional value and will not rust and rot and you do not need to the terminator to handle it. But really, the main advantages of plastic piling is that we provide good structrual support, good water exclusion, but quite frankly we make it look good!