CORK SHIPMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1932, Page 6

CORK SHIPMENT

FOR INSULATION PURPOSES. IN LARGE LARGE COOL STORE. AUCKLAND, Sep. 10. A shipment of 170,000 square feet ocork reached Auckland by the Norwegian motor-ship Triton from Lisbon. The cork comes from Spain, and is consigned to the Auckland Faimeis Freezing Company for the insulation of its new cool store in course of construction on the waterfront (states tin “Herald”). -

The cork is a composition of waste chips treated by heat and subjected to a, pressure of 100 tons to the square ■foot until it is squeezed into a solid block, bound together by its natural gum It has arrived in the form of cork slabs, 3ft by Ift 3in, packed m cardboard cartons, each of which contains eight slabs. Cork is the most satisfactory insulating material for commercial purposes. The cork oak tree is cultivated principally in Spain, Portugal and on the North African coast. It is now the recognised ingredient in the insulation of cool stores, replacing pumice, which is largely used in New Zealand, and the diamataeeous earth which is found in the vicinity of Whangarei, and which is employed in one or two Auckland boilers. Its advantage over pumice, it is . claimed, is that it does not absorb moisture and there is thus no risk of rotting wall timbers and floor joists. The cork slabs will be laid in two thicknesses over the walls, floor and ceiling of-the-budding, so that 6in. of insulation will thus he applied, the slabs being, affixed with, bitumen to the concrete walls. There will be no necessity for a double wall as is required in the case of a pumice lining. Moreover, the new building will be somewhat unique in that it will be practically one self-cohtained chamber, the insulation covering only the outside shell and one large dividing wall down the centre Tims it will be nossible to keep one temperature in all the rooms on one ; side of! the wall and a different temperature in the rooms on the other side ;so that fruit, for example, can be | chilled on one side while butter is being frozen on the other.