CASE STUDY

Ian Howe Concrete Pumps Ltd

Concrete pumps have revolutionised the traditional concrete pour. Ian Howe, the owner of Ian Howe Concrete Pumps Ltd, has been working with concrete for four decades, with much of the last six years spent working on City Rail Link. Ian pumped concrete into the Chief Post Office building when the first works at Contract 1 were happening.

Ian Howe Concrete Pumps now has up to 26 staff working across three sites at City Rail Link: Maungawhau Station, Te Waihorotiu Station and Waitematā Station (Britomart). Prerequisites for joining the team include a driver’s license, a good attitude and flexibility. Pumping concrete is not a standard 9-to-5 job. Workers often need to be onsite by 6am and once concrete pouring starts stay until the job is done.

“What concrete pumps give to the industry is the ability to move huge amounts of concrete really fast to designated areas you can't access with a truck. It makes it easier to place concrete because we can get it level as we move the boom around and we can pour the concrete exactly where they want it,” says Ian.

Workers experience all facets of concrete pumping, starting off as hose hands before progressing to line pumps, trailer pumps and then smaller domestic trucks. Skill development is important and staff need to be experienced before transitioning to the boom pumps, which are used on City Rail Link.

Ian and wife Harriet are a part of a working group that are looking at setting up a New Zealand concrete pumping qualification.

“At the moment any Joe Bloggs can go out and buy a concrete pump and start operating. No training, no ticket, puts everyone at risk,” explains Ian, who is a member of the American Concrete Pumping Association (ACPA). ACPA have training modules that Ian’s team has or are completing, providing workers with an international qualification.

City Rail Link sites are constantly evolving and changing and this is also true of the people working on site. Building a good working relationship with each site foreman is critical, especially as the project is now moving into a very technical stage where distances have increased and access is diminished: “Getting from point A to point B is not a straight forward manoeuvre; this is a challenge and also an awesome learning opportunity” says Ian.

To meet the technical demands of working underground, within tunnels and at the scale required for the project, five innovative new machines have been purchased that have never before been used in Aotearoa. The technical and practical knowledge gained on this project will flow on to provide benefits to other contracts.