road
- Details
- Written by Natalie Keegan
- Category: road
- Hits: 2621
August 14, 2016
Dear New Elm Estates Lot Owners;
Firstly, Thank you all for your “double” contributions for 2016 and 2017. Some things have been happening here at the lake, so we wanted to take the time to update everyone on recent happenings..
As you know, for the past number of years we have had funding enough to repair and rebuild small stretches of the worst parts of the road at a time. So far we have accomplished about 1 (one) KM of the 3.5 KM run of New Elm Estates Dr. Last winter we installed a culvert where a washout had occurred in the previous year; that $1600 expense, covered by advanced contribution from some of the lot owners, is an example of how we come together to deal with the unexpected as well as the planned road maintenance.
Our building method uses gravel covering a shale base. Some of the work that needs to be done this year is to apply gravel over the previously built areas. Additional gravel protects the shale base to prevent deterioration and enable raking and grading as well as water run-off.
This summer we welcome 3 new families at lots 3, 8 and 22. And, thanks!, for your help in getting the developer to cut the trees off of New Elm Estates Dr about a month ago. This is a really welcome improvement that makes working on the road surface possible, as well as improving visibility, drying out in the rain and melting snow in the winter. Thanks and welcome!
Several of us are seeing the recent woods work as an opportune time to do more road repair and rebuilding. Our road builder, Mr. Naugler, has estimated that completing a major overhaul of the road would cost between $30,000 and $35,000. That overhaul should finish the job of upgrading the surface with shale base and gravel together with culverts where needed.
So far we have a show of interest from three lot owners for a commitment of $5,000 each to accomplish more extensive work. We have deposits in the bank of $4100.00 and commitments of $1,600 plus that $15,000 and potentially $2400 from new owners, potentially bringing our current working funds to be approximately $23,000.00 for the 2016 overhaul work. That’s a long way toward our estimated need and will make a huge difference if we are able to realize that potential.
In the spirit of a shared vision for a functioning road, we are asking for additional funding from any of you who would also like to contribute toward this road building project. Once the overhaul is completed we can look forward to doing only yearly maintenance and/or building a reserve for the unexpected.
I invite each of you to contact Dave for a more complete discussion of the details.
We are at the cottage this season until early October and Dave can be reached by phone 902-521-7887 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Additionally, if you are a “Facebooker” there is a site called “New Elm Lot Owners” where I post pics of the roadwork when in progress, etc. If you would like, you can friend request : )
Bob Allan has also set up summary and documentation of the road work on his personal site:(http://www.boballan.ca/newelm/) You will also find the road account banking information on this site, and thank you, Bob, for helping me to pen this letter : )
Thanking everyone in advance for your consideration and on behalf of the lot owners,
Natalie and Dave Correll
88 Long Cove Trail (lot 18)
Molega North, NS, CA
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 2601
A brief history of the work on the road
Here is a brief history of the recent work on the road. See the article at the 2013 season road work.
Work before 2010
Some of the lot owners had some work done on parts of the road now and again. Thanks to all who contributed; but, we don't have any records of that so we will begin our tale with the 2010 season. We opened a bank account and started to pool our resources in the fall (October) of 2009 in preparation for the 2010 work.
The 2010 season work
We contracted with Darrell Naugler to patch a number bad spots on the road. Here's what we bought.
The 2011 season work
The residents started an upgrading of New Elm Estates Drive beginning at (near) the intersection with Long Cove Road.
We used a new building/upgrading approach this year.
The method is:
- begin at the inner end of the New Elm Estates drive where it is used in common by all
- lay a layer of shale, pack it in and grade it with a buldozer
- lay a layer of class A gravel over the shale to cover.
- the shale is thick enough to cover the rough spots, fill the pot holes, and raise the road surface above the ground beside to enable drainage.
Here's a photo of the beginning of that piece of updated road; it is much more smooth and dry and seems to hold up well (writing this in August, 2013).
We contracted Darrrell Naugler to do the work.
The work was:
- 71.52 tonnes of class A gravel (that's 5 loads at about 14.3 tonnes per load)
- 7 loads of shale (a load is about 10 cu yards in that truck;
We did some woods work to clear back from the edge of the road surface. We clear the trees back from the road surface far enough for:
- clearance for the road surface work,
- clearance for vehicles passing without brushing the trees,
- clearance of the tucker bush to prevent scratching vehicles, and
- adequate sight line at corners.
The 2012 season work
We contracted more road surface upgrade using the same method as 2012.
We collected $3600 from 7 owners of 9 lots ($400. per lot).
We contracted Darrrell Naugler to do the work.
The work was:
- 14 loads shale; $1890; @$135/load (we pay by the load).
- 4 loads class A gravel; $1048; $262/load (we pay by the tonne).
- $70 to move the dozer; $70 1 hour at $70 per hour, and
- 1.25 hours dozing work; $87.50 @$70/hr.
The residents did some woods work to clear back from the road surface.
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 2880
End of season summary: 2016-09-30
We have completed the road work for this year. Thanks to everyone who has participated this year. This brief update to provide a link to a recent video showing the road work and a few notes:
Here's what we got done this year:
- Installed the culvert where a washout had occurred (this was 2016 work done early)
- Cover the previously repaired area with additional gravel at about 170 feet per load (estimating somewhere around 2" deep)
- Complete the hill repair and replace a wooden culvert on the outbound side of the hill [ditching done 2016-08-22]
- Continue the inner rebuilt section out through a wet-spot to the pit.
- We pulled a pile of rocks, some much larger that we could by hand. This makes the road smoother in places and significantly reduces the bashed-bottom on shorter cars.
- filled the deepest pot holes with shale including a full load over one of the snow gulleys.
- ditching and grading in a few places to improve run-off
- extended the road outward from the top of hill section and wet spot out though the wet spot 4 and up the hill on the far side.
We left some exposed shale in the potholes and the snow gulley to be efficient about the use of gravel. Those are likely next-up in our planning for future years.
We built a beaver excluder to keep the culvert clear. It's anyone's guess if the industrius little beggers will build a giat dam around our fence, but at least it won't be in the culvert.
We received and paid Darrell his invoice ($17,037,11)
I posted a high-def version of a driving tour. You can use Vimeo tool while watching the link below to adjust the resolution appropriate for your device.
We can all think about the work plan for comming years. Some folks elected to contribute one year at a time so we expect a small budget for 2017 and a larger one again in 2018. Let's all think about our favorite pot hole or area for improvement and we can chat it over a camp fire and come to agreement about our future plans.
The remaining work areas include:
- The road around the gravel pit hill between the two extended areas of new work. We have started some grading and ditching on the inner end and pulled some rocks. This likely needs more work to remain dry and hard and smooth. Notice the widened area on the inner end - a dump truck pulled off there without sinking so it's more solid than it looks.
- including the low spot where some puddles form
- The road out-bound from the outer section of new road. There is more shale than gravel cover and the ditching should likely be extended further out and up that hill. This leads on through
- Patch 1: shale filled
- Patch 2: shale filled
- Some pretty good road with a few low spots though to Flying Bear Pond
- The Flying Bear Pond causeway. We patched with a bit of shale and we may want to do some more gravel cover and a bit of ditching or grading along that stretch.
- The outer stretch including the two Snow Gulleys and Patch 4. We should think about covering that shale with gravel sometime in the next couple of years before it disolves. There is likely more work to do along that stretch but the base is pretty solid so we should expect slightly lower cost per foot on that.
Hope this helps us all stay in touch with the road project.
Thansk, Bob.
Cost details for road work in 2016
| Item | Amount | Cost |
| Class A Gravel | 333.47 Tons | $6,544.88 |
| Shale | 43 loads | $6,450.00 |
| Machine Time (mini excavator) | 24 hours | $1,680.00 |
| Machine time (moving it around) | 1 lot | $140.00 |
| Subtotal | $14,814.88 | |
| Tax (HST) | $2222.23 | |
| Total | $17,037.11 |
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 2909
The 2016 year started off early with a somewhat urgent culvert installation in December 2015. With thanks to Darrel for patience, we arranged with some of the lot owners to gather 2016 and future year contributions a bit early and pay this repair out of 2016 funds. Recall that our 2015 year was a year-off in contributions since we had a double in 2014.
The total cost was: $1,539.65 including taxes.
| Item | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Class A Gravel | 15.21 Tons | $288.83 |
| Shale | 1 loads | $150.00 |
| Machine Time (mini excavator) | 4 hours | $280.00 |
| Machine time (moving it around) | 1 lot | $70.00 |
| Culvert | 1 ea. | $550.00 |
| Subtotal | $1,388.83 | |
| Tax (HST) | $200.82 | |
| Total | $1,539.65 |
Receipt below:
This picture shows the upstream side of the new (2015 December) culvert with moderately low water level.
The downstream side flowing well after removing some beaver dam blockage in the culvert.
One photo of the washed out road before the repair. It was a particularly heavy rain.
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