Site distress response · Greater Boston
Something is moving that should not be. Call us.
Failed excavation support, a slipping slope, a bulging retaining wall, a settling foundation, a scoured abutment, or a stop-work order on an adjacent structure — we drive pile, drill anchors and underpin, with our own rigs and our own crews.
Call now
+1 978 846 6851We answer the phone during business hours, Monday–Friday, 7:00am–5:00pm. Outside those hours leave a voicemail or use the callback form below — we pick it up as soon as we are back on.
What we can put on your site
- Soldier piles, sheet piles, lagging, wales and internal bracing to re-support a failed cut
- Tiebacks, ground anchors, helical anchors and micropiles drilled and stressed into competent ground
- Underpinning with driven precast piles to carry a settling structure past disturbed soil
- Sheet-pile cutoff to close a scour or washout path and re-establish a face
- Low-vibration drilled shafts where an adjacent structure cannot take driving
We build to the engineer of record’s stamped design. If the fix is outside what we self-perform, we will say so on the first call.
Before we get there
What to do in the next 30 minutes
Do these five things while you are on the phone with us. They cost nothing, they are the right call on almost any distressed excavation or wall, and they buy the engineer time to make a decision.
Get people out of the zone and keep them out
Clear the trench, the wall's fall zone, and anything within roughly one-and-a-half times the wall height on both sides. Hard-barricade it — tape is not a barrier. Account for everyone before you do anything else.
Stop all loading next to the failure
Move spoil piles, plate, material laydown, and parked plant back from the crest. Stop traffic and crane picks over the affected ground. Surcharge next to a distressed wall is very often what turns movement into collapse.
Get the water off it
Water is usually either the cause or the accelerant. Divert runoff away from the crest, shut off or isolate any leaking service, and keep pumps running on any excavation that is taking water — but do not dewater aggressively next to a settling structure without the engineer's direction.
Document it now, before anything moves
Timestamped photos and video from fixed positions, wide and close. Mark and date crack ends, measure offsets, and set a simple reference — a nail, a string line, a level mark — so you can tell in an hour whether it is still moving. This record matters for the engineer, the building department, and the insurer.
Call your engineer of record, then call us
The EOR owns the fix; we build it. Notify the owner, the GC, and — if there is a stop-work order, a public way, or an adjacent property involved — the local building department. Then call us with the photos in hand and we can talk through what it would take to mobilise.
If the ground is actively moving, people are trapped, or a building is at risk of collapse, call 911 first. Emergency services and your local building department control the site in that situation. Call us once the scene is secure.
What we respond to
Failures we can put steel into the ground for
These are the conditions that fall inside what we self-perform. If your problem is not on this list, call anyway — we would rather tell you it is not ours and point you somewhere useful than have you lose an afternoon.
Excavation or shoring failure
What you are seeing
Lagging bowing or blown out between flanges, a soldier pile leaning into the cut, a sheet interlock declutched, wales deflecting, or a trench box that is no longer square.What we bring
Stabilise and rebuild the support system: drive replacement soldier piles or sheets with the APE 200-6 vibratory driver, re-lag, add wales and internal bracing, and drill and stress tiebacks where the geometry and the engineer's design allow.Slope and embankment failure
What you are seeing
A scarp at the crest, tension cracks running parallel to the slope face, bulging at the toe, or material that keeps sloughing after rain.What we bring
Cut back and support, or retain in place with a driven or drilled pile wall tied back into competent ground. The Klemm KR 806 limited-access drill reaches slope benches and back-lot positions a truck rig cannot.Retaining wall movement
What you are seeing
A wall leaning, bulging, or shearing at a course line — a school yard, a parking structure, a roadway wall — often with new cracking and a drainage problem behind it.What we bring
Relieve the driver, then hold the wall: ground anchors and tiebacks drilled and stressed through or behind the wall, or a new pile wall built in front of it to take the load off entirely.Foundation settlement or undermining
What you are seeing
New stair-step cracking in masonry, doors and windows racking, a slab dropping, or soil washed out from beneath a footing next to an open excavation.What we bring
Underpin to competent strata — driven precast concrete piles and needle beams, or micropiles and helical anchors where headroom and access are tight — to arrest movement and carry the load past the disturbed ground.Scour and washout
What you are seeing
A storm event has scoured a bridge abutment, a culvert headwall, or a bank; fill is gone from behind a wall; a pipe or utility is left spanning open air.What we bring
Drive sheet piling to cut off the flow path and re-establish a face, then backfill and restore support behind it. The Liebherr LR 1130 crawler crane sets and drives from soft or restricted ground near water.Adjacent-property protection
What you are seeing
The neighbouring building is showing distress, an abutter has complained, or the building department has issued a stop-work order tied to an adjacent structure.What we bring
Install the support of excavation the adjacent structure needs — low-vibration drilled shafts and underpinning where driving is unacceptable — so work can restart under the engineer's and the department's terms.
Scope shown is what Earth Support self-performs. The remedial design and its sequencing stay with the engineer of record; we build to their stamped drawings.
Why call us and not start a search
Owned plant, a written safety program, and a licensed supervisor
We own the iron
No rental queue and no waiting on an availability window — the plant is ours: Caterpillar 336 · APE 200-6 · Liebherr LR 1130 · Klemm KR 806-3GS.
Written safety program
An OSHA-aligned written safety program (Rev 1.0) plus 12 task-level job hazard analyses, issued before crews mobilise rather than written up afterwards.
MA CSL CS-122896
Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License, issued by the Board of Building Regulations and Standards — the credential a building department will ask you for.
Competent Person on site
Jean Prinsloo is the designated Competent Person and carries stop-work authority — the call to pull a crew out is his to make, not the schedule's.
Frequently asked
The fastest thing you can do is call
Have your photos open and know roughly how deep the cut is and what is standing next to it. We will tell you straight away whether this is our scope.
Call now
+1 978 846 6851We answer the phone during business hours, Monday–Friday, 7:00am–5:00pm. Outside those hours leave a voicemail or use the callback form below — we pick it up as soon as we are back on.
Answered Mon–Fri, 7am–5pm