23 Jun Lower costs using EUROFLO® for stormwater drainage
Lower costs, faster timelines: New 200-lot residential development in Gisborne using EUROFLO® for stormwater drainage
Development of a 20Ha fully master-planned community is underway in Gisborne and EUROFLO® pipes have been selected for the project’s stormwater drainage.
Oakview is Gisborne’s largest development in over a decade and will deliver approximately 200 residential lots, just 5.7km northwest of the city.
Stormwater drainage for the subdivision was originally designed in concrete pipe but Oakview’s lead contractor Matt Mead, director of Earthwork Solutions, was keen to look at alternatives, in consultation with the civil engineers from Aspire and the local project management team from Civil Project Solutions.
“We like to be a leader where we can and to find ways to do things differently and to do them better,” says Matt, who was an early adopter of GPS equipment and drones in his business.
“EUROFLO® has been a great fit for Oakview and based on our experiences with it EUROFLO® is definitely one of the options on our list for other projects in the future.”
Civil Project Solutions (CPS) GM Lennon Wiltshire, who is project manager for the Oakview development, says that initial discussions about EUROFLO® were driven by wanting to explore alternatives to concrete pipe and compare direct material costs and installation rates.
“Ultimately, it was about chasing a fit for purpose product that was cheaper than the traditional method. For the Oakview project, because it’s a large scale project there was a real opportunity for savings to be made with an alternative product if it was right for the job.”
When Matt began to research the alternatives to concrete pipe, he expected the efficiencies to come from the installation phase of the project — but the savings started much sooner.
“Plastic pipe options like high density polyethylene (HDPE) have traditionally been more expensive upfront but you got the benefits and savings from an easier, faster install. Now the cost of concrete has gone up and freight costs have gone up, so the product cost of the plastic pipes is actually cheaper and then you get the other benefits.”
To date, during Stage 1 and 2 of the development, the Earthwork Solutions team has installed close to 3km of EUROFLO pipe, ranging in size from 250mm up to 1000mmm.
“[For the stormwater drainage] the whole development to date has been done with six or seven truckloads of pipe, as opposed to probably 20-30 truckloads of concrete.”
The lighter weight and easier handling of the pipes has provided significant benefit for the Earthwork Solutions team and the project timelines and budgets.
“A load of [EUROFLO] pipe can be unloaded with a forklift fairly quickly, so it saves a lot of time there, and it’s easy to get the pipe from the staging area to the pipelines with a bobcat and a set of forks. With concrete pipes there’s a lot of lifting and typically a lot of damage in those stages.”
“Overall installation has been a lot faster. We’re working in good soil and achieving a rate of progress 2-3 times higher than we could have achieved with concrete pipe. We’re also doing it with a smaller team because you can lay a line with just a couple of guys where you would need additional labour with concrete to be hooking it all up and helping joint the pipe.”
By using EUROFLO pipe, Matt estimates his team has saved a month or more in the first two stages of the project and been able to deliver the work with fewer people onsite.
Born and raised in the region, Matt has been operating Earthwork Solutions for 14 years and has a team of 25 working on a range of different projects at any one time.
“Since using EUROFLO for the Oakview project we’ve also done three other smaller projects with the pipes. We’re keen to move to the HDPE pipes wherever we can. We’re a big fan of it.”
As project manager for Oakview, Lennon says he’s been impressed by the speedy installation rate for the EUROFLO® pipe during the development’s first two phases.
“It’s obviously a much lighter product, it comes in larger lengths so it’s just easier to handle and for what we’re doing it’s been great.”
Lennon says the CPS team and project partners, including Earthwork Solutions, invested a significant amount of time in assessing and then get approvals for EUROFLO®, but the payoff has been worth it.
“To determine whether EUROFLO® pipe was fit for purpose, there was quite a lot of back and forth between our design engineers, EUROFLO® and [our contractors], and then once we’d determined it was going to fit the bill we went through a similar process to get it approved through the [Gisborne District] Council.”
“EUROFLO® has been a great fit for Oakview and based on our experiences with it EUROFLO® is definitely one of the options on our list for other projects in the future.”
WHAT: EUROFLO® pipe – 200mm – 1000mm
WHERE: Oakview subdivision, Gisborne
PROJECT: Stormwater drainage for master-planned community
WHEN: December 2021 – April 2022 (Stage 1 & 2)