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Written by Bob Allan

Category: road

Published: 20 March 2022

Hits: 781

September, 2021

Dear New Elm Lot Owners;

Hoping this note finds everyone well. This note brings an update about our road since June 2020.

Last year’s (2020) work finished the gap around the hill and the new road surface is continuous. We seem to have won our beaver battle and the pond has not over-flowed the road since last spring. Last year (2020 summer) we over-spent our bank for that stretch around the hill and Bob loaned $3200. to the road to cover that; we’ll catch that up over the next couple of years.

This year we did not plan any major road work. For those who contribute annually we will appreciate your contributions this year of course. Our historical annual contribution of $400. or biannual (double) contribution of $800. per lot per year has enabled the work done so far. We are looking forward to a double contribution year next year and planning to begin at the outer end of the new sections and run until the money runs out.

Our voluntary arrangement has worked well. Some have asked about contributing for this year and at least one person has already. Please tell Ian or Bob when you deposit in our account just so we can keep track of who contributed because the bank statement doesn't say. We keep all un-spent contributions in the bank ($1189.34 today) which neither earns interest nor incurs fees. There are now 16 of us owning 17 lots between us. We are all in this together and voluntarily.

Bank account is the same as last time (2018):

Scotiabank: LAHAVE STREET, PO BOX 400 BRIDGEWATER NOVA SCOTIA B4V 2X6

Your account number: 71613 04928 25

Account holder: Robert Allan and Ian Goldsmith (ITF New Elm Estates Lot Owners Road).

Reporting our contribution and costs for 2020 and 2021 to date:

Finally, you may have noticed some new shale on the inner most end of the New Elm Estates Road and on down toward Mint Brook. I know Bob told some who asked that we weren’t doing anything on the road this year, but that little project sort of grew from a couple loads of gravel in the potholes to a larger job. That work was done at cost shared by six of the folks along that stretch, five sharing the $2450. for the shale and Ian Goldsmith on the mini excavator. Thanks to all those folks for their extra effort.

As always, we’re in it together so please tell us your suggestions on how or what we should do together.

Bob Allan and Ian Goldsmith

Details

Written by Bob Allan

Category: road

Published: 20 March 2022

Hits: 708

New Elm Estates Drive road maintenance summary August 2018 through May 2020

Date: 2020-06-12

Our most recent update on the road maintenance was back in August, 2018. We outlined some plans for work by contract to Darrell Naugler and by way of contribution by Ian Goldsmith. We followed that plan and report a few highlights:

Darrell’s work: Shale with Class A build over the outbound section from the end of 2016 work for a distance of about 430 metres (470 yards) at a cost of $19.66/metre ($16.90/yd)

Ian’s work: Concentrated on the gap section between the hill and the pit. This is in lieu of Goldsmith’s (Lot 2) cash contribution for the 2018 year.

• Mini-excavator ditching in the section around the hill, rock picking and smoothing the road.
• Supplied and installed a culvert ($350.) c/w a load of shale ($300.) at the low point in the gap draining the up-hill side ditch and pond.
• Supplied and installed a culvert replacing the wooden one on outbound side of the low point. You may notice this still needs a little fill. The rut is because the old wooden work failed again after placing a culvert underneath it.
• Supplied and installed a culvert at the wet spot where we had only clear-stone for drainage before. Ran a ditch off into the down-stream side and re-filled with the existing stone.
• Drained several puddles including a notch in the down-stream side of the road at the beaver pond.

Short summary of all work to date over the many years:

• About 1.9 km of Shale base and Class A topped road built
  • about 1.45 km of that re-coated with Class A in 2016
  • moving the road sideways at the hill (2014) with lots of shale and a culvert needed
• Large culvert and beaver excluder installed which dried up the inner beaver pond (2016)
• Spot filling of pot holes with shale in several places neither included in the distance covered.

 Remaining work to do:

A remaining 2.9 km of road has not been rebuilt including the remainder of New Elm Estates Drive consisting of the gap at the base of the hill and out bound sections to the highway (~1.5 km) and the lake-front section of New Elm Estates Drive to Mint Brook plus Mint Brook and all of Long Cove to the end of all developed lots (~1.4 km).

Details

Written by Bob Allan

Category: road

Published: 20 March 2022

Hits: 776

Date: 2020-06-12

New Elm Estates Drive road maintenance future cost estimates
Work done:
    • About 1.9 km of Shale base and Class A topped road built
        ◦ about 1.45 km of that re-coated with Class A in 2016
        ◦ moving the road sideways at the hill (2014) with lots of shale needed
    • Large culvert and beaver excluder installed which dried up the inner beaver pond (2016)
    • Spot filling of pot holes with shale in several places neither included in the distance covered.
    • Historical cost of shale-base gravel-top is about $20. per linear metre of road on the last couple of large jobs; typically constructed as:
        ◦ 14 foot wide road
        ◦ 4 to 5 inches thick shale on average (Shale is $150 / 10 cu yd load historically)
        ◦ 3/4” to 1.5” thick gravel over-top (gravel is $20./ton as laid historically)
        ◦ Over-top with 1” at 14 ft wide costs $4.67/m. (maintenance)

Work remaining and build alternatives:

Remaining 2.9 km of road including all of Long Cove and Mint Brook to the end of all developed lots and the remainder of New Elm Estates Drive to Mint Brook, the gap at the hill, and out bound past the beaver pond to the highway.  See the list in Table 1 and map in Figure 1.

Historical build uses 4.5” shale and 1.5” Class A gravel plus the machine time which has been about 15 percent of the shale cost.  The road requires periodic over-top coating with Class C to maintain cover and smoothness. Can’t smooth this with a grader because of the shale base.

An alternative using Class C gravel in place of the shale would reduce the machine time at the expense of material for the base and allows a grader to maintain smoothness and spot-filling with gravel.  Estimate with same thickness of of Class C as shale and same thickness of Class A and reduce the equipment burden to 2/3.  The gravel road build estimate is about $29./m at current gravel prices.  Alternatively, using only three inches of Class C gravel without shale or Class A is a half-step to get a good-enough road quality at a reduced cost of $15./m

The beaver pond culvert installation will require a culvert (~$550.) plus a load of gravel (~$350.) plus machine time which Ian Goldsmith can contribute. (estimate $1,000. materials plus Ian’s effort)

The section of road built in 2018 needs an over-top with Class A.  That section had thinner gravel top when-built (to stretch the budget).  We have had enough traffic to wear-through to shale proving we need the planned thickness.  Estimate this work at $2,000. for the 1” cover on the 14 foot width.

Ian Goldsmith will be doing some pot hole filling with his equipment and a couple of loads of material that he is contributing beginning weed of 22nd June, 2020.  That will help a lot.

Colour coded segments show green (done), red (to-do urgent), and yellow (to-do less urgent)

Details

Written by Natalie Keegan

Category: road

Published: 22 August 2016

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