Six metres of soft alluvium over limestone bedrock. That is what we hit on a recent job near the River Nore, right behind the castle stables. The architect had designed a light steel-frame extension, but the borehole logs from the 90s did not match what we were seeing at all. We ran a 2-tonne CPT crawler in through the back gate, pushed a 15 cm² cone down to refusal at 7.2 m, and had a continuous qc and fs profile ready before the crew finished their tea. In a town like Kilkenny, where the glacial till can pinch out without warning and the water table sits barely a metre down, moving fast with reliable data is the only way to protect the programme. Our laboratory integrates the CPT sleeve friction and pore pressure readings with in-situ permeability data, so the drainage assumptions in the foundation report are grounded in actual site behaviour rather than textbook tables.
A CPT log from Kilkenny's river gravels gives you stratigraphy in real time — no waiting for lab results, no guesswork on layer thickness.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a CPT test cost in Kilkenny?
A single CPT sounding in the Kilkenny area typically runs between €140 and €220 per test point, depending on depth, access conditions, and whether piezocone or seismic cone is required. Mobilisation is quoted separately based on the rig size and distance. For a tight city-centre site where we need a mini-tracked unit, the rate sits at the upper end of that range because of the slower setup and shorter pushes.
When is a CPT better than a standard borehole?
CPT gives you a continuous, high-resolution profile without disturbing the soil. In layered ground — like the fluvioglacial deposits under Kilkenny — a borehole log can miss thin sand seams or soft clay lenses. The cone picks them up. CPT is also faster: we can log 20 metres in a couple of hours, whereas a cable-tool borehole to the same depth might take a full day.
Can you push through gravel or cobbles under Kilkenny?
It depends on the particle size and matrix. The limestone gravels in the Nore valley are often sub-angular and tightly packed. A 20-tonne rig will push through sandy gravel, but cobbles larger than 100 mm can cause refusal. We pre-auger the top metre if the fill is bouldery, and we always run a dissipation test before hitting refusal to confirm whether we are on a large boulder or true bedrock.
What standards do you follow for CPT testing in Ireland?
All our CPT work complies with I.S. EN ISO 22476-1:2012, which defines cone geometry, penetration rate, and calibration requirements. We also follow the Eurocode 7 framework (I.S. EN 1997-2:2007) for deriving geotechnical parameters from CPT data, and we use the Irish National Annex for correlation factors when calculating pile capacity from cone resistance.
