road
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 3266
We concentrated on a stretch of road we call "the hill" this year. We were concerned that stretch of road may wash out. There was more work to that stretch than a single year's total contributions so thanks to all those who doubled-up this year. We made it.
Our contractor, Darrel Naugler, did a bang up job again and brought the job in right on our budget. We attach his invoice to us below. The work was:
Excavator, 18 hours : $1620.
Moving machinery : $160
Culvert : $356.49
Class A gravel, 42.27 tons : 829.20
Shale, 24 loads : $3600.
Tax : $984.85
Total: $7550.54
The lot owners worked hard on the woods-work and clearing along the edge of the road. Starting at the hill where that work was needed before the construction work and continuing a good long stretch down the hill and in the road. We have cleared several other stretches along the road particularly where the trees hang down under snow load and in places where the sun was not reaching the road to dry it up.
More recently we have cut small drainage channels from some of the deeper puddles. We think this may help dry up the road a bit between rainstorms but that is only a stop-gap until the machine work can be done on those parts.
Here is a view of the new roadwork.
Here is a photo of one end of the culvert.
And another photo with a longer view of the new section.
Take a walking tour of the road with Bob.
New Elm Estates Road 2014 walking tour
NEw Elm Estatates Road, 2014 maintenance and inbound driving tour
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 3024
2013 maintenance:
The residents did some woods work to clear back from the road surface. We agreed that we should make the clearing wider - at least 8 to 10 feet back from the edge of the road surface.
We note that the right-of-way is a 66 feet wide. The single lane sections of road are about 14 feet wide. We could clear back about 25 feet from the edge of road surface on each side (33 feet from the centre line) and still be within our right-of-way.
Some of us noticed that one part of the road is washing out more than others. It is on a hill. We call it the wash hill in the maps. We did some woods work clear into a ditch on each side of the road at the top of the hill; mostly so we can see the ditch and discuss with our contractor. We also did a large section of clearing between the road edge and the far side of the ditch starting at the bottom of the hill and running most of the way to the top. We may likely finish that ditch on the east side of the road sometime this year. We are discussing the approach to upgrade that piece of road on the wash hill and all suggestions are welcome.
All that machine work starts with just-plain work clearing trees along the shoulder with chain saws. We know of at least one dedicated guy who would rather do that in the rain than the bugs - now that's a maritime Canadian eh!
Stay tuned to this spot for an update on the work we did in 2013. More pictures coming soon.
Our contractor did another outstanding job this year and we made good progress. We extended our re-surfacing about 750 feet (230 m) further north. We crossed a low wet area adding elevation to the road surface with gravel and we graded the shoulder over another short wet stretch further north from the end of the new surface. We didn't make it to the gravel pit - oh so close.
This photo shows the place where the 2012 ended and the 2013 work began. Spot the boundary where the top-coat gravel on the new (2013) work is a lighter shade. We took this picture during the construction.
This next photo shows the shale interrupted over a wet land section where we used gravel instead.
This photo below shows the work in progress. This is what it looks like with just shale before the top-coat of class A gravel. You can see the graded shoulder for drainage and the elevation of the shale layer. The new layer is thicker in some places than others to get drainage and cover bumps and hollows.
Here is another photo showing the end of this years (2013) work. The view is looking south as we drive in the road and come upon the new road surface. You can see the shoulders are graded back to the ditch on either side beyond the end of the new surface. This was a bit of a low gully in earlier times; but, it was dry when other parts were wet on the 17th of November, 2013.
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 2988
Dear New Elm Lot Owners;
We all share an interest in the New Elm Estates Drive, the road leading to our lots in Molega lake. New Elm Estates is a wonderful group of private and secluded waterfront lots rich in wildlife. Various people have enjoyed their lands in a variety of ways over the years. More recently, a group of us have been travelling regularly to our lots in New Elm Estates. One owner is nearing completion of their cottage on Lot 18 and several other owners are camping and more regularly visiting the area. Several of the owners have been contributing on a yearly basis to a road fund since 2010 and through those contributions have achieved some of the needed improvements on the New Elm Estates Drive. There is more work to do to restore the road surface, perform ditching, drainage, and woods clearing thereby ensuring our continued use and enjoyment of our lands. So far, eight owners have contributed to the upkeep and improvement to the road; although, that road serves the 22 waterfront lots as well as several larger parcels of land through which it travels.
We are reaching out to all owners so that we can expand the amount of the work that can be done each year. We hope all owners will share the goal to make the road completely passable again and then to continue with a smaller amount of maintenance-only upkeep.
Our annual contribution has been $400.00 CA PER LOT. Those who contributed so far agreed that was a reasonable amount. Two of the owners took the initiative to establish a bank account in 2009 held by them in trust for all the New Elm Estate Lot Owners for the purpose of paying for road work. The account is held at ScotiaBank in Bridgewater, NS.
This year our total contributions paid for $3612.00 in improvements. In addition to the paid work the owners volunteered a significant amount of effort in brush trimming and tree cutting along the road way. They prepared the area around the roadway before this years construction work and began work on another area that is high priority for future years construction.
Some of the owners have prepared a brief web page so we can check-in from time to time and see the progress. We encourage you to look there to see some photographs and maps of our road and the progress and plans. (about-the-road)
Owners usually contribute their share of the money in the spring. One of our volunteers coordinates our contractor to start work after the rainy season to do as much as we can with that year's contributions. We have contracted to Darrell Naugler, a local expert that we have all worked with quite well over the years.
Our informal arrangement has been quite successful with full voluntary participation by all the owners that we have contacted. We hope you will join us in our efforts at maintaining the road for everyone's use and enjoyment as well as to maintain the value in the lots that we all own in New Elm Estates.
Thank you
Danke schon!
- Details
- Written by Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 3566
The New Elm Estates lot owners road maintenance notes.
See also, a map view: http://boballan.ca/molega_road/NewElmRoadMarkers_link.kmz
For the iPhone and iPAD ios users, try this link:
http://boballan.ca/molega_road/NewElmRoadMarkers_updated_remotePhoto.kmz
Background
The developer built the road in the mid 90's to service the lakefront lots. The trees have regrown considerably since the original clearing and road construction.
Organization
The residents all hold a right-of-way in common on the road and so it is in each of our interest to maintain the road. We do this together by contributing equally to the cost of each years contracted work. We also each contribute according to inclination and ability to the woods work and tending of the bush, trimming and such. We tend to discuss and agree the approach each year.
(Updated 2018-07-28) We thank Bob Allan, Ian Goldswith and Kelly Donaldson for collecting our donations and paying the contractor. Our bank account is:
Scotiabank,
71613
421 Lahave Street,
Bridgewater, NS B4V 3A2
Robert Allan/Ian Golsmith ITF New Elm Estate Lot Owners
Account # 71613 0492825
Maintenance work and re-surfacing
The right-of-way is a 66 feet wide. The single lane sections of road are about 14 feet wide. We could clear back about 25 feet from the edge of road surface on each side (33 feet from the centre line) and still be within our right-of-way. We usually try to clear at least 8 or 10 feet back from the edge of the road.
Fast facts:
- Class A gravel weights about 1.5 tonnes per cu yard.
- Slate or shale weigh about 2.2 tonnes per cu yard.
- A good load on Darrell's dump truck is about 10 cu yards.
Cost summary
We measured our road and annotated a map with some main features. This map may help us when we talk about parts of the road that we have upgraded, and parts that we plan to do in the future.
http://boballan.ca/molega_road/NewElmRoadMarkers_link.kmz
Taking stock of our progress over two years (2011, 2012), we estimate the cost of re-surfacing. We measured the distance on a trip meter with a gps in m, and we converted between weight, loads and volume using some conversion factors:
- Class A gravel, tons per cubic yard: 1.43
- Shale, tons per cubic yard: 2.2
- Size of a load, in yards: 10
- and our metric conversion of yards per meter: 1.09361
Our re-surfacing work to the end of 2012 was:
- Length of surface: 503m (550 yds)
- Cu yards of shale: 210
- Cu yards of Class A: 90
We find that we have spread the shale about 3 inches thick and the Class A at about 1 1/4 inches thick. We presume that's about what our contractor was aiming for, and, we think it's pretty good road surface to drive on.
We add the two years total costs including HST, $6509.27, and we estimate the cost of road surface at $11.83 per linear yard ($3.94 / foot) ($12.94 / m for the metric crowd). Since only a very small amount of the cost is fixed per-session, we can use these estimates to plan our distance covered according to our budget.
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