Firth Northland support Oxcon on vital Northland conduit
An early evening shot of the Firth trucks in action at the Otaika bridge deck pour.
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi’s SH1 Loop Road to Smeaton’s Hill Safety Improvement Project in Northland started in 2020 with the aim of enhancing safety and efficiency on SH1 south of Whangārei, particularly at the Loop Road intersection - a critical junction for Northland's forestry sector and other freight traffic. The Firth Northland teams have been actively involved in supplying concrete to this project for Oxcon Ltd since the project began.
“Despite tricky conditions eight bridge piles for the Otaika Bridge were completed by August 2024, followed by the installation of the off-site fabricated Super-T beams,” says Conor Schaumkell, Site Engineer for Oxcon Ltd – the main contractor entrusted by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi to complete the improvements on this vital stretch of road. “Firth has been great and very flexible and accommodating whenever I have had to change a delivery or time. It makes my job easier.”
“We have been supplying stage two since about June last year,” explains Dave Clare, Certified Plant Manager (Whangarei/Marsden) for Firth. “Generally, most of the pours haven’t been that large and didn’t require the involvement of many of our trucks as our plant is only seven minutes from the main site. Most of the mixes have been high strength at 40 to 50mpa, with super plasticising agents used to target a high spread to fill the piles and slabs which have a lot of steel in them.”
Dave says the deck pour for the Otaiki bridge at the beginning of December was a different story. “This pour required eight of our trucks to supply concrete pumps on either end of the bridge. We were able to turn our trucks around quickly to make sure Oxcon had a steady supply. Everything went exceptionally well for all the deliveries - which is always our aim.”
“Our whole team performed exceptionally well on the night. From our drivers to the production team batching and we even had a couple of youngsters on site who got a feel for working on a large pour like this.”
“A massive thank you to everyone involved in our pour and finishing of the concrete deck on Monday night (2 December),” says Conor. “All teams were fantastic. We had a good supply of concrete coming through (no rejections and no additives) and a big effort from our lab techs on each side. We poured 160m3 in about four hours and made 24 blocks for compression testing. It took a lot of planning and quality execution from everyone for the night to run so smoothly.”
Principal: NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi
Main Contractor: Oxcon Limited
Location: SH1 Loop Road
Product: Firth Engineered Concrete
