PAVING STARTS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 77, 27 September 1924, Page 6

PAVING STARTS

WET WEATHER AND FINE

THORNDON QUAY AND PIPITEA WHARF.

It is particularly unfortunate "that so late a start has been made again this year in the commencement of the 1924-25 paving season, but now that the work is under way the council's officers and roadmakers have started off with the expressed intention of making things move.

Preparation work on Thorndon quay is well advanced, and this long-necessary work will be pushed ahead when the weather smiles. When cold ' and rain combine to make road-laying inadvisable, the plant, however, will not spell, off, for an arrangement has been made, in accordance with, an undertaking given some time ago by the late City. Engineer, Mr. W. H. Morton, that the Corporation shall undertake the surfacing of the Pipitea Wharf with a two-inch course of sheet asphajp. This arrangement will enable the mixing plant to I run, wet or fine, at any rate while the shed floor is being surfaced, and is acjcordingly considered satisfactorily both by the Corporation and Harbour Board.

, It comes as rather a surprise to be told that the area," of\ pavement to be laid on the new ' wharf, 18,000 squareyards, is actually greater than the area still to be paved (i.c:, the road surface on either side of the tram tracks) in Thorndon quay, 17.000 square yards. The figure's certainly impress one withthe fact that the Pipitea Wharf is a very fully-grown wharf indeed. • Compared with the paving of Thorndon quay, all the same, the work to be uoue on the wharf is not actually very great, for though, the wharf area may be a, little greater a two-inch course only.is to be put down, as against an eightinch course on Thorndon quay, so that the quay job will call for, almost four times the amount of material. The preparation •work also is heavy, considerably more so than was the case in the

laying of the Hutt road surface.

Various improvements have been made to the mixing plant; a dust catcher has been installed to serve a double purposed to put an end as far as is possible to' the nuisance caused by flying grit and penetrating dust, and to collect that grit and dust for use in the "filling." The "filler" is an essential ingredient in the mix, filling in when the mixing is com-, plete the tiniest interstices between metal and Baud particles, and also giving added' wearing qualities—in theory and in practice as well—to the pavement.. Last year the dust went with the wind, lost completely as "filler," and leading to the presentatidn by the residents nearby of a right tidy* little bill for compensation. A bin for" discard (out-size) metal has also been constructed, and improvements have been made in the p.umping of the heated bitumen, to the mixing hopper. It is proposed to move the Ngahauranga plant to a site in the Hutt Valley a little before Christmas that it may. be right on the spot for work on the extension scheme.

A dust-catcher similar to that installed at Ngahauranga will be fitted to the No. 2 plant' to be erected at KUbirnie East, and the plans prepared provide also for a more, sightly arrangement, as much as possible being placed under one roof, the power, mining, and bitumenheating sections of the plant being more compactly arranged than are those ofj the Ngahauranga plant at present.