POLLEN STREET.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16425, 24 February 1925, Page 5

POLLEN STREET.

COST OF CONCRETING. ENGINEER'S FIG U RES. j SATISFACTORY RESULT. The Borough engineer, Mr E. F. Adams, forwarded the following report on the concreting of Pollen Street, to the Council, and it was read at last evening’s meeting. No comment was made on it, owing, no doubt, that councillors had other matters before them that were going to take a lot of time. The position, however, is a very satisfactory one, and shows what can be done by day labour under good supervision. Mr Adams’ report says: The lowest tendered price was 0 0 Add to this Roller cost and Roller labour and carting, which was to be supplied by the Council under the conditions of tender and contract £375 2 0 £6956 2 0 The actual cost to Council by day labour to do the above work, including Air Hay's salary wag £6382 15 9 Saving £M3 16 3 On top of this the further expenditure of £3OO as required by the Contractor to trim the road against the concrete would have been of no value towards the metalling and bitumen work now in hand £3OO 0 0 Total Saving .. •• £913 16 3 The next tender for the same work was .. • • £9930 10 0 A dissection of the working cost of laying the concrete slab is interesting: s. Total cost per super-yard (in shillings and decimals) was 13.68 Of this Wages represented .. • • HI Cement represented a. 98 Sand represented 116 Aggregate represented .. . . 2.92 Forms and laying represented .. 1.04 Sundries anil supervision represented .. . . 1 0-87 13.68 The excavation and preparation of sub-base cost a further 2.9/- per yard super, of which wages and hire of teams represented 2.3/- per yard super. To compare the actual cost with the estimates: The estimate cost was .. £6998 0 0 The actual cost as before £0382 15 9 The peculiarities of the Pollen Street foundation made the sub-grade preparation in material, wages and rolling costs particularly heavy; also the investment in forms is quite out of proportion to the extent of the work, for the same reason. Bitumen Penetration. The bitumen penetration of Pollen Street should commence in another fortnight’s time. There is the same foundation trouble here that we had for the concrete slab, and only care and patient consolidation will ever

make a road of it,