MANGAHAO CURRENT

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 176, 13 April 1923, Page 9

MANGAHAO CURRENT

BREAKING-DOWN STATIONS IN CITY

SOUND-PROOF BUILDING PLANNED

The city engineer’s department is calling for tenders for the erection of tho first sub-station in Wellington in connection with the introduction of power from Mangahao. The Government breaking-down station will bo erected at Khandallah on a site already selected near the Cashmere Estate. Tlie City Council’s main breakingdown station is now being built next to the tramways power house in Jervois Quay, but sub-stations in various other parts of the city are needed to distribute the work entailed in the reduction of the current to 230 volts. The sub-starton, about to be erected, will be on tho City Council’s own land in Riddiford Street, ipposite Our Theatre, near the junction of Constable and Riddiford Streets. It will have a frontage to Riddiford Street of 41ft Gin., and a depth of 58ft. In the front part of the building will be provided two large windows for the display and sale of electrical goods, and there the building will be two-storied. All the rest, however, will be simply a one-floored engine room. As under ordinary conditions the machinery, which will run night and day, would cause considerable noise, care has been taken in drafting tho plans and specifications to make the building as nearly sound-proof as-pos-sible. The walls will be of brick 14 inches in thickness. Inside that will bo a damp-course, and then two layers of sound-absorbing insulation (known as the Cabot quilt), lj inches thick, and inside that again a wall of hollow bricks made of coke breeze concrete. So lined, and with a concrete and' breeze ceiling, it is believed that very little sound, it any, will escape from the station.