Thread: Bugger the rain

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

can you not write up when its wet and save what you have written until some fine weather....then send it in and enjoy the sunshine???

Not when you have set deadline dates to get stuff in by for a monthly mag

Originally Posted by gonetropo

all those "quality" cold asphalt patches used around christchurch have floated off, its like driving thru craters now..................just hope those bloody cycle lanes got the same treatment

Having begun my working life on a MOW roading gang, I despair at what I see passing for pothole repairs all over NZ. My supervisors would be turning in their graves. I yarned with an older dude breast feeding his shovel on the side of one set of road repairs on Poihipi road, and he commiserated. He said all the old guys who knew what they were doing have retired long ago, and its just the flash harry road construction bosses fixated on minimal costs and maximum profit that rule the roost now. A month ago a Taupo Facebook page warned people heading North to look out for potholes: there was a line of 8 cars, all pulled over changing tyres over a 2km stretch. Low profile tyres make this a very common occurence nowadays

Originally Posted by Mrs Beeman

We've had over 300mls this month - not good for the septic tank or animals
Attachment 202336
this is our Granny flat where the worker lives - his car nearly got swamped so he learnt very quickly to move it to higher ground.
Attachment 202337

Is that a small school of fish there? low in the centre of the pic

Originally Posted by XR500

Having begun my working life on a MOW roading gang, I despair at what I see passing for pothole repairs all over NZ. My supervisors would be turning in their graves. I yarned with an older dude breast feeding his shovel on the side of one set of road repairs on Poihipi road, and he commiserated. He said all the old guys who knew what they were doing have retired long ago, and its just the flash harry road construction bosses fixated on minimal costs and maximum profit that rule the roost now. A month ago a Taupo Facebook page warned people heading North to look out for potholes: there was a line of 8 cars, all pulled over changing tyres over a 2km stretch. Low profile tyres make this a very common occurence nowadays

hoskyns rd onto SH1 about 10am this morning, one car buggered tyre/rim. one with 2, one who had way bigger issues, i think the suspension was ripped out. later in the day..........yep.................quicky patch up job.
drove past it 3.30 and its undulating and falling apart already.
drove home zig zagging like i was drunk but just avoiding bloody deep holes, i wont drive thru the flooded bits as i dont know how big the holes are underneath but when you see an 18 wheeler lurch you know its bad.
never mind cycle ways, rainbows and unicorns are way more important than roads

Effects of the rain.. Wandered out to look at Selwyn river near Coe's Ford just south of christchurch this afternoon. A wee river usually dry for most of the year - but not today. Running at 156 cumecs/tonnes per second flow rate. Photo is of the roadway straight across to other side - decided not to bother crossing!. 110m wide here and 200m+ a little further up: Now this is a tiny southern river. The Waimakariri, Hurunui, Waiau etc can reach 10-15x this flow, and the Rakaia a few years was up over 4000 cumecs or 27x this volume..

Note - a 4wd driver was chopper rescued from his truck in the north Canterbury Okuku river a week or so ago after trying to cross it at about same volume... Crazy!

Now thats a fair bit of water

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

Here in Taranaki the closed one lane of the road between Inglewood and Tariki for a few months during summer. All of the traffic had to go round the back of Inglewood to Midhirst. So it was a major rebuild. That "brand new" road is chocka with major tyre/wheel busting potholes already! How the hell does that happen?

Majority of funding goes towards traffic management and consultancy fees, minority goes into actual roading materials.

Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

Nah you have it all wrong XR.
The flash Harry whipper snappers running our roading here reckon it was you old roading gangs who didn't make a good enough base to sit the roads on.

Taupo East Arterial road. Opened in 2010. 12 years old. Designed and built on greenfields by flash Harry whipper snappers from the sub base up. Falling to pieces as we speak. Began falling to pieces 4 years ago, so was 8 years old when it began failing. 55T heavy goods vehicles have been a thing on Kiwi roads for just under 20 years I believe, so they have no excuse now a days for brand new roads failing due to excessive axle loadings. But many roads in NZ were designed from the bottom up to take only 44 tonne vehicles. So spreading a new pavement all over the top of these roads, without redesigning the base course and top course to bear additional loadings, is just a recipie for continuous pavement failings.

Grumpy old road builder retires to his beer

The new council built wharf at the Paeroa Maritime Museum.

Hope its still there tomorrow….

Had a gutsfull of it all ready. You can mark it on a calender, the day the first cow drops a calf it will rain 40 bastards for the next six weeks. Been down here four years now and the locals still try telling me "it's not like this every year"
Yea yea, I've been hearing that old chestnut for four years now....

One of my pet peeves, they fix the same hole or patch many times over and never once have I seen a roading crew take the road down to base and add more ballast to that before pouring more icing on the cake. I guess why get paid once to fix something when you can "fix" it many times and get paid each time.

Originally Posted by XR500

Taupo East Arterial road. Opened in 2010. 12 years old. Designed and built on greenfields by flash Harry whipper snappers from the sub base up. Falling to pieces as we speak. Began falling to pieces 4 years ago, so was 8 years old when it began failing. 55T heavy goods vehicles have been a thing on Kiwi roads for just under 20 years I believe, so they have no excuse now a days for brand new roads failing due to excessive axle loadings. But many roads in NZ were designed from the bottom up to take only 44 tonne vehicles. So spreading a new pavement all over the top of these roads, without redesigning the base course and top course to bear additional loadings, is just a recipie for continuous pavement failings.

Grumpy old road builder retires to his beer

down here 20 years ago we often saw the road repair guys with a machine like a ditchwitch (giant chainsaw with 4" teeth) chewing up stuffed bits of road,then chucking in bags of cement to try and firm it all up again.....definitely more effort than the current chuck some icing on it. road between mayfield and geraldine is a disgrace.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

down here 20 years ago we often saw the road repair guys with a machine like a ditchwitch (giant chainsaw with 4" teeth) chewing up stuffed bits of road,then chucking in bags of cement to try and firm it all up again.....definitely more effort than the current chuck some icing on it. road between mayfield and geraldine is a disgrace.

They spent some big coin on that road,i wouldv done 20 return trips on that road last summer.Yours eye gota be watching 200yds ahead for pot holes.I hate to run a wee mini on that road,youd kill it or any other small car.Some of the pot holes are axle breakers.

MD that leg from Geraldine to Mayfield ain't a road,it's a 20km long cow cookies race.Agree it's a friggin disgrace

try it in truck loaded with pregnant moomoos with 2" of water flooding across road in half dozen or more places,NO WAY to see potholes.... in last ten years its been redone at least 4 times.none done properly...sooner or later the ywill just reduce it to a 60kmph zone and forget about potholes.