Start with the opening drawing note of the issued Section 31 62 16.16: confirm that the pile plan and schedule give each pile’s location, H-section, and cutoff elevation, that test piles are identified, and that the boring logs and staging area appear in the set. Then check that the steel grade, corrosion protection, pile points, splice and weld requirements, steel cap plates or tension anchors, tolerances, hammer energy, and test program kept in the section agree with the pile cap details, the structural notes, and the geotechnical report, and that the coating and welding requirements the section refers out exist in sections the project actually issues.
Assemble the review package
Gather the foundation or pile plan with pile marks and test piles, the pile schedule with H-section, steel grade, capacities, tip and cutoff elevations, and batter, the pile tip, point, splice, and encasement details, the pile cap plan, schedule, and details showing the pile head, any steel cap plate or tension anchor, and its embedment, the structural general notes with design loads, bending moments, lateral loads, and uplift, the geotechnical report with boring logs, the refusal stratum, groundwater, and corrosivity results, the site plan with the staging area, any waterfront elevations with the mudline and tide levels, the statement of special inspections, any coating schedule for the piles, and the issued Section 31 62 16.16 with Sections 31 00 00, 03 30 00, 01 45 35, the welding section the project uses, and the coating section. Follow one pile from its schedule line through its tip and splice to its cap before assuming the others match.
WBDG publishes UFGS 31 62 16.16: Steel H-Piles as a public guide-specification reference (accessed November 7, 2026). Use your project’s issued specification and amendments for the actual comparison; the guide specification does not automatically govern your project. The checklist below is an original suggested review workflow, not a reproduction of the UFGS requirements.
Eight checks to run against the issued set
Use one record per location or system. The CSV contains the same eight prompts plus fields for source revisions, observed evidence, the review owner, the decision, and closure references.
| Check | Sources to compare | Question to resolve |
|---|---|---|
| Pile plan, schedule, and test piles | Opening drawing note (location, size, and cutoff elevation of project piles; location, size, cutoff elevation, and identification of test piles; soil data logs; staging area) + PART 1 structural engineer note + Description article + H-Piles article (shape and sections shown) + foundation plan, pile schedule, and structural general notes | Does every pile mark resolve to an H-section, steel grade, cutoff elevation, capacity, and tip elevation or penetration, are test piles identified with their own size and cutoff elevation, as the note requires, are the boring logs and the staging area in the set, and do the general notes or schedule give the bending moments, lateral loads, and other design requirements the PART 1 note says the structural engineer must provide, since the Description article has the contractor design, furnish, install, and test the piles? |
| Steel grade and corrosion protection | Materials and H-Piles articles and their notes (strength, cost, and corrosion; splash zone steels; coatings, cathodic protection, and concrete encasement; encasement below the mudline or coated) + concrete encasement option and Pile Encasements shop drawing + Touchup Painting article + geotechnical corrosivity data + pile elevations with mudline and tide levels | Is one steel grade kept and does it match the schedule, where the report or site shows seawater, a splash zone, or corrosive soil, do the drawings show which protection the design uses and its limits, coating extent, encasement top and bottom, or cathodic protection, does a section the project issues specify that coating, since the Touchup Painting article reuses the paint “as specified” but the section has no coating article of its own, and where encasement sits in continuously submerged low-resistivity water, does it extend below the mudline or carry the insulating coating the note requires? |
| Pile points and tip reinforcement | Pile Points article and note + H-Piles article tip options (square and blunt mill tips, tip reinforcements, or cast steel points) + Pile Reinforcing Tips or Steel Points shop drawing + Pile Driving Shoes and Points payment item + boring logs and pile tip detail | Where the logs show dense sand or gravel, cobbles and boulders, or a hard layer or bedrock the piles are driven to refusal on, the conditions the note names, is a point or tip reinforcement kept rather than mill tips, is one option chosen, cast steel points or plate tip reinforcement, with a detail showing its type, and does the section say whether points go on all piles or only on those indicated? |
| Splices, welding, and weld testing | Pile Splices material and fabrication articles and notes + Splicing Piles article and note + Welding article (AWS D1.1/D1.1M, Section 05 50 14) + Welding Inspection and Weld Testing articles + Procedure for Insufficient Pile Length submittal + splice detail + statement of special inspections and Section 01 45 35 | Is splicing excluded where one-piece lengths are available or the pile is designed for a moment connection, as the splice note advises, and where it stays, is the splice detail on the structural drawings, since the splicing note still points to PCI standard drawings, which detail concrete piles, is the field splice frequency blank filled in, does the project issue Section 05 50 14, which the Welding article names and whose note describes custom civil works fabrications, or has the article been edited to the welding section the project uses, is the weld testing share filled in, and does the statement of special inspections list the splice welds? |
| Steel cap plates, tension anchors, and cap embedment | Pile Caps and Pile Tension Anchors articles + attachment article (attach as shown; grind pile tops for structural-shape caps) + Fabrication article’s Division 05 references + concrete pile cap plan, schedule, and details + uplift loads in the general notes | Since the section’s Pile Caps article means a steel plate or structural shape on the pile head, not the concrete pile cap, do the concrete cap details show which head condition applies, plain embedment, a steel cap plate, tension anchors, or welded bars, with the cutoff elevation and embedment for each pile type, are tension anchors detailed wherever the schedule has uplift, are unused cap, point, anchor, and shoe paragraphs deleted, and are the Fabrication article’s bracketed references to miscellaneous metal, ladder, railing, and stair sections edited to the one that applies? |
| Placement tolerances, cutoff, and as-driven survey | Pile Placement and Tolerances in Driving article + Survey Data article + Pile Butt Location and Elevation article + Installation article (cutoff grade; excavation, sheeting, and dewatering before driving to a cutoff below grade) + pile cap plan and details + Section 31 00 00 | Do the cap dimensions leave the clear distance from pile head to cap edge the tolerance article requires for a pile at the limit of its lateral tolerance, do the cutoff elevations on the schedule agree with the cap bottoms and embedment within the article’s vertical tolerance, has the structural engineer seen that the article puts any cap redesign for mislocated piles on the contractor, where a cutoff sits below grade or the mudline, are the excavation, sheeting, and dewatering the Installation article requires shown or specified, and does the schedule hold cap work until the survey is reviewed and the pile group’s safe load verified? |
| Hammers, leads, jetting, and driving criteria | Pile Driving Hammers note (minimum hammer energy by design capacity) + Impact Hammers and Vibratory Hammers articles + Pile Driving Leads note + Jetting Equipment note + Wave Equation Analysis of Pile Drivability article + Order List, Lengths of Production Piles, and Pile Penetration Criteria articles + Production Pile Acceptance Criteria + pile schedule | Is the minimum hammer energy bracket filled in to match the scheduled design capacity, from the note’s table or from wave equation analyses, are vibratory hammers kept only where the pile tests will confirm them, are fixed leads required where the drawings need accurate placement, since the leads note rules out suspended leads there, is jetting kept off piles carrying significant tension, lateral, or skin friction loads, as the jetting note directs, does the order list follow the pile lengths at each plan location, and does the safe design capacity blank match the schedule? |
| Test piles, load tests, records, and adjacent work | Test Piles article and note + Dynamic Pile Analysis, CAPWAP, Static Load Tests, Tensile Load Test, and Lateral Load Test articles + Pile Load Test Frame shop drawing + Heaved Piles and Obstructions articles + Protection of Existing Structures, Vibration Control, Noise Control, Preconstruction Condition Survey, and Instrumentation articles + Section 31 00 00 Pile Cap Excavation article + boring plan and site plan | Are test piles located on the plans or tied to boring numbers, as the test pile note asks, where the schedule carries tension or lateral piles, are tensile or lateral load tests kept, with their number and the anchor pile choice decided, are heave observations planned where piles sit in clusters, do the drawings show the structures and facilities to be protected, with the project-specific document issued, and do this section’s excavation option and the Pile Cap Excavation article of Section 31 00 00 keep the same sequence? |
Worked example: mill tips over a cobble layer and a coating no section specifies
Illustrative example: a new small-boat maintenance shop on a waterfront site is supported on steel H-piles driven through hydraulic fill and soft clay to weathered rock, with concrete pile caps and grade beams. The boring logs record cobbles and boulders in the fill and refusal on the rock, but the issued Section 31 62 16.16 keeps square and blunt mill tips and no point detail exists. The pile schedule names a corrosion-resistant grade while the section keeps a different one, the pile elevation notes a coating over the upper length of the piles that no issued section specifies, the section keeps “Make splices as indicated” with no splice detail, and its Welding article still names Section 05 50 14, which the project does not issue. A two-pile cap at a column next to the property line leaves almost no edge distance beyond the piles.
Ask the structural engineer to keep one steel grade in the section and the schedule, to choose cast steel points or tip reinforcement and add the detail, since the logs show the cobble and rock conditions the pile point note describes, and to add the splice detail or keep “Splicing of piles is not permitted” if one-piece lengths are available. Ask the specifier to point the Welding article to the welding section the project issues and to specify the coating system and its limits in a section the touchup article can rely on. Ask the structural engineer to show the pile head in the cap, plain embedment, a cap plate, or tension anchors, with its embedment, to delete the unused steel cap and anchor paragraphs, and to widen the two-pile cap or move the piles so the clear distance to the cap edge survives the placement tolerance.
Avoid a false conflict
Section 31 62 16.16 covers steel H-piles, their points, splices, steel cap plates, and tension anchors, and their driving and testing. Its Pile Caps article means steel plates or structural shapes on the pile head: the concrete pile cap, grade beams, and any concrete encasement follow Section 03 30 00 and the concrete guide, excavation and backfill follow Section 31 00 00, splice welding follows AWS D1.1 through the section the Welding article names (Section 05 50 14 in the guide text, whose note frames it for custom civil works fabrications; Sections 05 05 23.16 Structural Welding and 05 12 00 Structural Steel are also Active), and the coating system belongs to whichever section the project uses for it, since this section carries only touchup painting; check those before calling a requirement missing. Steel pipe piles, with their seam testing, cutting shoes, concrete infill, and fusion-bonded epoxy option, are UFGS 31 62 16.13, concrete-filled steel piles are 31 62 23.13, and precast prestressed concrete piles, which can carry H-pile extensions as composite piles, are 31 62 13.20 and the precast concrete pile guide, all Active on WBDG. Pile capacity, driving stresses, hammer selection, terminal driving criteria, and load test interpretation are decisions for the structural and geotechnical engineers and the contractor’s geotechnical consultant. Its Safe Design Capacity paragraph points to UFC 3-220-01, listed as the digital version while the legacy WBDG record still shows the 2012 edition with Change 3 of July 2025; confirm the version your task order invokes. The current guide section cites AWS D1.1, SSPC PA 1, ASTM A36, A148, A572, A588, A690, D1143, D3689, D3966, D4945, E94, E164, E165, E329, and E709; confirm the editions your project invokes.
When requirements disagree, follow the project’s document-control and clarification process. Do not assume that drawings always override specifications, or the reverse. Identify the exact sources and request an authorized decision.
Close the issue across the affected documents
Record the location or tag, drawing and specification references, issue dates, observed difference, and the decision needed. Assign an owner and keep the item open until the response identifies the governing requirement. Check the revised drawings and specification references together; a response email alone may leave the issued package inconsistent.
For the overall process, use the guide to drawing and specification conflicts. Mark an inapplicable checklist row with a reason, and distinguish a verified correction from a question that still needs design information.
Where Groundbook fits
Groundbook’s drawing and specification review helps investigate potential disagreements in the documents you supply. Include the relevant specification sections and drawing references, then verify the cited evidence with the responsible reviewers before acting on a finding.