COUNCIL AND ENGINEER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 483, 17 July 1912, Page 7

COUNCIL AND ENGINEER.

PIPE COMMITTEES' REPORT.

REPLY BY MR SPENCER.

At the last meeting of the Te Kuiti Borough Council the following report Dy Mr L. G. P. Spencer was received:

"I have not been furnished with a copy of the. committee's report on the above, and have only seen it in the press, which being up to this date, unchallenged, is I presume, substantially correct. I propose to take the allegations seriatim as set out in the report:

(a). "The pipes are not coated acI cording lo specifications." This point I admit, and my reason for departing from the specification in this respect was that on my visit to Wanganui prior to signing the contract, I found that the method of dipping now in vogue by the company is a better one and makes a better coating than the specified method, by which I found that the hessian only hung in loose folds.and could not be got to properly hug the pipe, and being only what I considered in the best interests of the Council, I allowed the contractors to coat the. pipes as they coat every pipe which leaves their factory —and I am not so blindly egotistical as to adopt a certain method of doing things, if it can be proved to me that another way is the better one, hence I exercised the right given me under the specifications to do only that which was for the good of my employers as is done in most contracts.

(b). "The steel used is for the most part of less thickness than required by the specifications."—This clause apparently implies that nearly the whole eight miles of pipes comprising the spirally rivetted pipes are of thinner guage than specified, and 1 would ask how many of these pipes were guaged, by whom and what guage was used, and to have discovered this it must have been necessary to have had someone constantly guaging the pipes from the time when the first deliveries commenced, yet before the matter waH ventilated the whole of the eight o'nch pipes had been buried and my final certificate was in the hands of the town clerk.

With regard to the guage of the pipes it ia advisable to mention that there are several different guagea, as this will have a very important bearing on the case:—There are the Birmingham wire guagfl No. 12, of .109 of an inch; new British, or Standard, of 104 of an inch; New Birmingham, of .099 of an inch; American, of .080 of an inch. Now, the specifications state that the pipes shall be manufactured of No. 12 G. mild steel—l have had a new British, or Standard, guage which I have been using throughout the job and in no case have i discovered a 14 guage pipe on the job,nor with such a guage could any of the committee—and the probabilities are that using a New Birmingham guage No. 13 guage pipes would be found certainly they would not if the American wire guage were used. Now, as to "arguments which one by one I was gradually compelled to drop," and the example quoted, viz., variation in guage owing to manufacture. Briefly, in reply to this I might state I have 'the testimony of two of the best known engineers in the Dominion, who have had very extensive experience in these pipes, viz., Messrs Wm. Ferguson and R. L. Mestayer, M. M. Inst., C.E., that such variations do occure in the rolling of the plates and the manufacture of the pipes and do no.t take exception to it. Mr Munro Wilson, of. Auckland, engineer for the Tauranga scheme, also "found the Tauranga pipes vary, but not to such an extent to be objectionabe." And when one comes to consider that the difference between No. 12 and 13 guage is fourteen thousandths of an inch it can well be imagined that the variation in rolling the plates or manufacture of the pipes required to be very slight to differentiate between the two guages, I have myself guaged a pipe 12 guage at one end and 13 guage at the other. With regard to the reports obtained by the committee as to the guage of the pipes, it should, I consider in justice to myself, have been stated who selected the pipes which were sent away, who the "experts" were and what all of them reported including two of them whose names were not I believe submitted to the Council, in conjunction with the rest. What, I submit, would have been an impartial way of dealing with the whole matter would have been to have submitted the question to an engineer mutually agreed on and accustomed to use this class of pipe to ascertain whether he would have been prepared to accept the pipes as made under the specifications, instead of selecting certain pipes and submitting them to the opinions of commercial firms who are in direct competition to the company who manufactures the pipes in question, and even then, I understand, that one of the firms reported the pipe to be a 12 G. pipe and the other from 10 to 13 guage—this evidence, however, was not embodied in the committee's report. In the matter of taking Mr Hamilton's certificate of the work as done in accordance with the specification I only acted as every engineer and municipality is doing and has done for years past, yet I have not heard of them expressing "surprise or dismay," and say emphatically in all sincerity that my only thought of so doing was an endeavour to effect a saving to the Council, as I never for one moment contemplated having to pay a cleric of works at Wanganui, had. I done so I should have been the first engineer in New Zealand to pay a clerk of works personally for such work, being on all fours with the payment of an inspector to look after work at Home or elsewhere outside New Zealand, an expense which is invariably borne by the local body. When the agreement was signed it was never contemplated that a Clerk of Works should be appointed except for the supervision of works in Te Kuiti in the event of my non-residence therein. I still had the safeguard of refusing to take delivery of the pipes at Te

Kuiti if they were not of the specified guage and I guagod a number of them and satisfied myself that they fulfilled the requirement of the specifications and a proof that I did bo guage the pipes is in tho fact that in the early days of their delivery I procured a guage for that purpose, the account for which can, I presume still be seen in the town clerk's office. With regard to my alleged reply of "No" to Mr Hine'a query "Do you still consider the Spiral Pipe Co., are entitled to a certificate?" this query was put by Cr Forsyth, and I replied "Not if the borough solicitor considers they should not." On my subsequently carefully guaging. in company with a competent man, the 40 chains of 6 inch pipes which are still unburied, I found that out of 165 pipes 3 of them could by using the Imperial Standard guage be classed as 13 guage but in view of the various guages as before enumerated the differences in thickness due to rolling and manufacture of the pipes which Messrs Mestayer Ferguson, Climie and Munro W'lson allege take place, and the fact that I had in a good many instances previously satisfied myself that the guage was as specified in the pipes now buried I felt I was no longer justified in with holding the certificate. With regard to the alleged heavy losses which the burgesses are said to have incurred and the wild statement that it amounts to £IOOO, I might state that had the whole pipe line been 13 guage. the gain to ths company would be about 15 tons of steel which costs them I beileve about £ll per ton.—L. G. P. SPENCER. After the report had been read by the clerk, Cr Forsyth said it should in fairness be published. He woud like to state that there was at least one in accuracy. The reference made to the effect that the query as to whether the Spiral Pipe Company was entited to a certificate was put by Cr Forsyth was incurrect. The query was put by Mr Hine and the reply was "No." The report was received without further discussion.