The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-02-12

could not make the water main tight
and after working with it three weeks
and after bringing great pressure tt
bear to have it accepted in it's imper.
feet condition, it was turned over tt
the charge of the city engineer upon
appeal from the contractor and it was
made tight in two days. This was q
clear case of incompetency of the
forces employed by the contractor.
I'm two other cases the water mains
were abandoned and the work turned
over to the bonding company to finish
1t. 1t is to be said to the credit of the
city commission that they have refus-
ed to give this contractor any more
work under any condition on the theory
wrong, all the inspection and watching
available would not prevent him from
doing so. .-..,
In 1915, a recommendation was
made to the city commission by the
city engineer that all brick used in
paving should be tested at the plant
before being shipped. Robert w. Hunt
& Co. of Chicago, testing engineers,
were hired to do this work for the city.
There were ia cars of brick tested,
after being loaded for shipment to our
city. OF these ia cars, 81 cars of
loaded brick, were rejected as not
complying with the standard paving
brick specifications. Robert w. Hunt
& Co. say in their report dated June
z. 1915: ..-. 4.
'Note-An rejected brick shown ON
this and other reports shipped to other
parties by. the burlington Brick Co.
THE first sixteen cars Of brick were
rejected, and these brick would have
| been used in the Broadway paving if
the city's interests had not been prop
erly protected. IL should be clear to
you that those cities which did not
have their brick inspected at the plant
and to whom these brick were shipped
sustained a great loss.
"A marked example of failure Of
material is shown in the creosoted
wood block paving in our city. During
| the promotion period for the large
contracts for the year 1912, it was
freely admitted by the wood block
people that the wood blocks were not
properly treated, although their ad-
4 vertisements in the Fargo papers de-
tended their quality. A number of ex-
cuses were made for the bullying of
the blocks, all of which have been
proved unfounded since that time.
Il should like to state to you what
it means, in dollars, to have a shortage
in materials in construction work. The
amount of money paid the contractor
for paving in 1916. was just short of
i $AAOSVVVs LAG Oh CGQlGuI SDSCl-
| fed for this work amounted to 44,O63
sacks, and this was worth to the city,
at the contract rate, so cents per sack,
or $22,031.50. There were 7,075 cubic
yards of concrete in the work. If one
sack of cement had been left out of
each cubic yard of concrete, the loss
| to the city would have been 1857. so.
The total cost of the inspection Of all
| kinds for the paving work done in 1916
was $1s507. This included inspection
of grading sand, gravel, concrete mix
/ ing and keeping track of the number
of sacks of cement used. Although the
actual time consumed in keeping track
OF cement was not noted, yet it did
not take all of one mans time during
the whole period of construction and
could not have cost more than $500.
The actual loss Of cement was kept
down to as low a figure as possible,
and in one case the value of 635 sacks
at so cents per sack was deducted
from the final estimate. The shortage
in cement was due to lack of cooper
alton, and in many cases actual resis-
| lance to our insistence that the speci-
fication should be fully complied with.
If the concrete base had been 4 ga
inches thick instead Of inches thick
I'M 1916 the loss to the city would
have been about SLABS or more than
1.3 per cent, and IL ~ inches thick
instead of 5 inches, the loss would
have been almost $4,000, or 81 per
cent. In the case Of the concrete base
1t required the whole time Of one man