BURST IN OLD MAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 30, 4 August 1939, Page 11

BURST IN OLD MAIN

FLOOD ON HUTT ROAD

A minor flood washed across the Hutt Road about a mile' on the city side of the Petone railway crossing from a break or the blowing out of a joint in the old 24-inch cast-iron main.

This main has been in use for over 40 years and has given an increasing amount of trouble in recent years, often in' fits of perverseness—a year without trouble and then half a dozen breaks and joint failures in succession. The main was laid on the line of the first-formed Hutt Road, winding round the toes and gullies of the hills, and so it now crosses and recrosses the present road formation. When the pavement was 24 feet wide.there was ah even chance that breaks and excavations would miss the bitumen, but the new motor surface will cover the full formation. The break this morning was in the midle of the new work, traffic passing on either side.

There are two other mains along the Hutt Road, a 21-inch cast-iron main from Wainui and a 24-inch steel main from Orongorongo. These are both laid under the cycle track, where there is still room for a third main when the time comes for an increased city water supply or for the replacement of the aging 24-inch cast-iron main. The modernising of the roadway may speed this latter work up, for every break in future will mean the reopening of the road surface.