News

A tight squeeze for compact Hyundai

Manufor Fondations is underpinning the foundations of the €4m ‘Knibbeler’ apartment block at Saint-Saulve near Valenciennes in France. An interesting but highly technical project with numerous problems meant that the company had to acquire a Hyundai HX10A compact crawler excavator from dealer Promatex.

Established in April 2008 by Bertrand Wydooghe, SARL Manufor Fondations specialises in micro-piles, foundations, short piles, underpinning and repairs after damage. Based at two sites, one at Sailly-sur-la-Lys (Pas-de-Calais) which includes the head office and the other at Haubourdin (Nord) which includes the depot, the company has 21 employees and undertakes around 40 construction projects per year, turning over around €4m per annum.

The company, which is based in the north of France, has spent just over a year working on the site of the Knibbeler building which dates from the 1960s in Saint-Saulve. The building has 58 co-owners who noticed the cracks appearing in the facades. Following consultations and legal assessments, it was found that the building was slowly subsiding, and the foundations of 12 to 15m depth had to be underpinned as they had not been supported.

The company often undertakes underpinning work, but was here faced with one of the major difficulties of the site: its restricted size. For this project, the HX10A compact excavator was the ideal machine. Equipped with a 50-litre bucket, the HX10A is powered by a 13.3hp Yanmar 3 TNV70 engine and boasts a miniscule tail swing radius of 747mm. Its maximum digging depth is 1.77m and its maximum digging radius is 3.1m. The bucket’s breakout force peaks at 8.9kN (ISO) and the arm tear-out force is a handy 4.5kN (ISO).

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