Foundations hold up everything built above them. So why has the process of installing them barely changed in decades? And when will the industry embrace FRP push pile foundations?
That question anchors a new Q&A between FASTepc President and CEO Tim Bronish and New Jersey business publication BINJE, published July 30. You can read the full conversation here.
What the conversation covers
BINJE pressed Bronish on the comparison he’s made before — that FASTepc aims to do for foundations what Henry Ford did for automobiles. His answer draws the distinction that matters: Ford’s contribution wasn’t a better car, it was a better way of building and delivering one. The FASTepc system applies the same logic underground, redesigning the process around speed and consistency rather than accepting a slow one because it’s familiar.
From there, the discussion moves through the questions engineers and owners actually ask:
- How installation works on the ground. Prefabricated fiber-reinforced polymer piles pressed in with controlled static force. No excavation, no rebar cages, no wet concrete, no slurry, no cure time. Crews move pile to pile.
- The strength misconception. The most common objection Bronish hears is that faster must mean weaker. Each foundation is engineered to the project’s specific loads and soil conditions, and the system has been through independent full-scale testing.
- Where the advantage is largest. Restricted access, high water tables, tight work areas, sensitive surroundings, demanding schedules. Urban sites, rail and highway corridors, substations and transmission lines, hospitals, schools and occupied facilities.
- How to build the financial case. Unit price is the wrong measure. The real comparison includes labor, equipment, site access, spoil removal, schedule exposure, change orders and time to revenue.
The point that lands hardest
Bronish doesn’t argue that drilled caissons should disappear. He argues something narrower and harder to dismiss — that they “should not be treated as the automatic solution” when a faster, cleaner and more predictable option exists.
That’s the reckoning in the headline. Not that the old method fails, but that it stopped being examined. Defaults don’t get audited. They get repeated.
See the system for yourself
FASTepc’s patented push pile system installs foundations up to 89% faster than drilled concrete caissons, with roughly 15% average total project savings and under 1% change-order exposure.
Read the full BINJE Q&A · Download the FASTepc brochure · Get answers to technical questions · Contact our team
