road
- Details
- Written by: Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 1675
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 $15./m
| Section | Distance (m) | Shale road, historical ($) | Gravel Road, Estimate ($) | Gravel (3”) only Estimate ($) |
| Hill gap completion | 550 | $11,000.00 | $16,002.00 | $8,302.76 |
| Inner to Mint Brook | 283 | $5,660.00 | $8,234.00 | $4,272.00 |
| Mint Brook to Lot 2 | 460 | $9,200.00 | $13,379.00 | $6,939.77 |
| Outer part 1, to beaver pond | 306 | $6,120.00 | $8,911.00 | $4,627.78 |
| Outer part 2, beaver pond to highway | 640 | $12,800.00 | $18,624.00 | $9,665.75 |
| Long Cove part 1 | 446 | $8,920.00 | $12,970.00 | $6,726.69 |
| Long Cove part 2 | 225 | $4,500.00 | $6,542.00 | $3,391.50 |
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: Bob Allan
- Category: road
- Hits: 1601
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)
|
Item |
Amount |
Cost |
|
Class A Gravel |
62.69 Tons |
$1,247.20 |
|
Shale |
31 loads |
$5,115.00 |
|
Machine Time (mini excavator) |
10.5 hours |
$787.50 |
|
Machine time (moving it around) |
1 lot |
$200.00 |
|
Subtotal |
|
$7,349.70 |
|
Tax (HST) |
|
$1,102.46 |
|
Total |
|
$8,452.16 |
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: Natalie Keegan
- Category: road
- Hits: 3459
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
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: 3428
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.