Large concrete pours for Firth’s biggest customer Conset Construction are not confined to the cities with a couple of Firth’s smaller plants recently being asked to deliver big projects.
“Conset won the contract to complete a Post Tension floor for Comac in Hawera,” explains Aaron Charteris, Head of Certified Lower North Island. “Our Hawera plant is not big so for Conset to request two 380m3 pours on two consecutive days was going to take a fair bit of planning.”
Aaron says the batching of that much concrete out of the small Firth plant wasn’t the only issue, it was getting the materials to the site. “Hawera doesn’t have a large storage area and these pours required 26 truck loads of aggregate and six of cement. We had a back-up plan in place and also called on Firth staff from Palmerston North, Whanganui and New Plymouth. Completing one pour of this size would be a big ask but successful back-to-back pours was a massive achievement - thanks to all the teams involved.”
“We know Firth can produce large volumes of concrete in one go from their larger centres, but it was another story when we asked them to produce some very large volume pours out of a couple of their smaller plants,” says Alan Ross, General Manager for Conset Construction. “Some of the smaller plants are not as high tech which made it a challenge for them, but they certainly rose to it.”
“From our perspective Firth really pulled out all the stops for us to deliver these jobs because the volume we asked them to produce in one day out of small towns is really unique for the regions,” says Alan. “In addition to having a backup plant ready, making sure all the materials required to produce the concrete were at their sites, ensuring there were enough trucks and drivers and then being able to maintain a high consistency of service and quality was quite outstanding.”
“We use Firth for 90% of the concrete we require and have a great relationship with their business being a nationwide supplier means we can rely on them in any location.”
However that was just the beginning for the Lower North Island teams with Conset requesting a repeat performance out of Whanganui. “In advance of the Whanganui pours we did make some adjustments to the P.E.R.T.H (Firth) plant which then went on to produce a 390m3 pour and then 426m3 for a large PT floor - again for Conset.
Here’s to more big things from Firth’s small regional plants.