Timberless sawmill

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33577, 4 July 1974, Page 17

Timberless sawmill

A $500,000 timber mill is in the process of being built at Harewood — using not a stick of wood.

The Rangiora builders, Wadey and Efford, Ltd, have won two large contracts recently — the Apple and Pear Board processing plant in Kaiapoi, and the McVicar Timber Industries, Ltd, sawmill in Johns Road, Harewood. The mill will be the biggest in Canterbury, covering 27 acres and expected to cost $500,000. It is of a concrete floored concrete block and steel construction, with no timber at all being used

—• a major departure from the conventional sawmills — because of the high fire risk.

The illustration shows the heavy concrete foundations. The new mill' is on the site of the present timber yard in Johns Road, where there is. already a pre-cut-ting and treatment plant. It will be automated to a great extent, and will employ only 12 men. However, the yard staff will be about 50. The output of the mill, which should be working by November, will be 50,000 board measures a day. IM APPLE PLANT The other contract won by Wadey and Efford, Ltd, is for the new processing plant

of the Apple and Pear Marketing Board, which at present occupies a building in Riccarton.

The new plant is in Bowler Street, on four acres and a half of land leased from the Railways, and is expected to cost about slm. Built in three sections, the plant will include a 28,000 sq. ft. cool store, which will be capable of holding 165,000 packed cases of fruit, or up to 200,000 cases of binned fruit. The . cool store is connected by a 180 ft long canopy to a 410 sq. ft. packing and dry storage building, where the fruit will be received in. bins, washed, graded and packed in cardboard cartons, ready to be sold.

Adjoining the packing house will be a 2000 sq. ft. office block. The board is relinquishing its operations at Riccarton, and will employ up to 50 people in season, with about 25 permanent staff, half of which will be female packers. The buildings are expected to be completed by the beginningof 1975.