This is an example of turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse.  Home Depot has agreed to build a store on a site that was considered unusable for regular commercial purposes.  (There is a golf driving range next to this project on the same landfill.)  Construction required the installation of 1100 steel pilings which are visible in some of the pictures.  Reinforced concrete beams were poured on top and integral to the pilings and then the normal (with lots of reinforcing steel bar) slab was poured integral to the concrete beams.  The entire building is on the piling and the infrastructure including water, sewer, fire and storm piping is buried in the usual fashion in the landfill.  The connections from the piping in the landfill which will continue to settle for many years to come are attached to the piping in the building and piping attached to the piling with flexible, extendable ball joints called Flex-Tends® manufactured by EBAA Iron of Eastland, Texas .  The purpose of the Flex-Tends® is to allow the buried piping to pull away from the building as the landfill settles without causing the piping system to fail.  

So far the contractor has used 66 of these units all featuring 3 extension sleeves and 2 balls.  The sizes range from 4” (roof drains) to 24” (main storm sewer line).  The piping system is being installed by Ken Leahy Construction of Hillsboro, Oregon.  The piping materials were supplied by US Filter, Distribution Group, Lake Oswego , Oregon   The piping design was supplied by WRG of Beaverton, Oregon.