Project Spotlight – Renihan Meadows
Paving crew at Renihan Meadows project L to R: Travis Hover, Ross Thurston, Dana Miller, Matt Braginetz, Tom Ballou, Craig Twitchell
If you heard a big sigh of relief coming from the Blaktop office on November 25 of last year is was because that was the date the paving at the Renihan Meadows project was completed. This project had been going on for nearly six weeks and everyone, especially Stuart, was worried that it might not get done before cold weather arrived – but it did. This was a very challenging project beginning with the figuring of the bid and continuing through all the work phases to the final clean-up.
Renihan Meadows is a large apartment complex off Pine Tree Cemetery Road in Lebanon. There are eight parking lots connected through two looping roadways, a main access road, sidewalks and curbing. All the existing pavement was to be reclaimed on site, the excess materials removed, all grades put back to original, new 3” paving throughout and all new curbs, sidewalks and striping. This all had to be done while keeping over three hundred residents with access to their apartments and parking for their vehicles.
Overall the project preparation included 15,500 square yards of parking and roadway pavement reclaiming, 400 SY of sidewalk demolition, 1560 linear feet of asphalt curb demolition and 1400 tons of material removed. Finishing the job called for installing 2600 total tons of pavement including sidewalks, curb and nine speed tables to slow the traffic. Also, striping and numbering over 320 parking spaces had to be done.
Critical to the success of the project was getting the reclaiming and demolition phases done as quickly as possible. To do this a “dream team” of grading and excavation expertise was assembled to work behind the reclaimer moving materials and getting everything put back in place as quickly as possible. The “Dream Team” consisted of Ken Hunt, Richard Stockwell and Allen Wight from Blaktop, Mike Romano from Romano excavating and Allen Rowell from Rowell’s grading.
Right behind the “Dream Team” came Steve Williams, Ross Thurston, Matt Braginetz, Dana Miller, Craig Twitchell, Travis Hover and Tom Ballou of the Blaktop paving crew assigned to the project. They were charged with paving two inches of NH type B (¾) base mix and one inch of NH type F (3/8) wearing course mix to the freshly graded parking areas. The crew laid up to 500 tons of mix per day getting the lots put back together. They also re-installed the asphalt curb and the raised sidewalks as well as the speed control tables. Jim Tessier’s crew helped with the speed table work as well. To finish the job, all the exposed pavement edges had to be backed up with top soil then seeded and mulched.
In total the project required 1400 man hours of labor and 680 equipment hours to complete. Best of all it was completed before mother nature closed in – but not by much. Kudos to all those who participated and made the job a success.