Sealing on all the Southern Moreton Bay Islands comprises three components,
- Works to construct open grassed drainage paths beside the road to remove stormwater,
- Installation of 100 to 150mm of gravel pavement over the existing gravel road,
- Installation of a two coat 170 grade bitumen seal.
The gravel used as the pavement for the roads on the Southern Moreton Bay Islands is recycled from the mainland roads, it has been often used on highly loaded roads and is no longer suitable for this application, however it is excellent on the Islands. The “green” name comes from the reuse of the gravel.
The 170-grade bitumen seal is a standard two coat bitumen spray seal surface as used across most of Australia’s rural areas. With the very light traffic loadings on the islands the 170-grade bitumen seal has performed extremely well achieving over 30 years life, typically we would have expected about 18 years life.
We don’t use the asphalt type surfacing on the islands as used on the mainland as the material needs to be transported in trucks from Lytton and laid within 2hr of being produced even less in winter, which is not possible of the Southern Moreton Bay Islands.
The “green seal” has worked very well and allowed council to construct and surface many more roads then expected at a reasonable price while still achieving a great lifespan.
Have a question, please email me [email protected] or pop in an see me at one of my monthly pop-up offices on the islands or mainland.