HUMBOLDT — Humboldt’s new Zipper, as its name portends, zipped through several layers of old chip-and-seal on 12th Street Thursday. The street’s surface was ground to fine aggregate in preparation for an upgrade.
According to City Administrator Cole Herder, the plan is to reconstitute 12 blocks from Wulf Drive, which runs along the south side of Sweatt Park and its diamonds, to Bridge Street, the main east-west avenue through town. Herder said another 12 blocks would be done, “more if we have the money.”
After the Zipper does its chore, the tossed leavings are graded and rolled, “to about as hard as concrete,” Herder observed. Then, two applications of oil and small-diameter rock, from Allen County’s quarry, are applied.
“Two chip-and-seal layers will last longer,” and ensure, he thinks, the master strategy to do a fourth of the city’s street in quadrants, one every for years.
To aid the process portions of streets that have held up well will be skipped, which the Zipper, having a 30-inch head, can accommodate.
This isn’t the first time the machine, acquired earlier this year for $91,000 in a five-year lease-purchase agreement, has been used. The four-block-long entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery was redone and four blocks in particular need throughout the city also were rebuilt.
Lower-priced oil has been an advantage for Humboldt’s street improvements.
“We’re paying $13,000 a tanker (6,000 gallons) and it was $18,000 last year,” Herder said. Also, the city found oil cheaper by piggy-backing its purchases with the county, which often finds a favorable price by buying several tanker loads. The county also furnishes rock — and, in fact, did Humboldt’s chip-and-seal in previous years as it does for several other Allen County towns.
A part of the reason Humboldt purchased the Zipper was because of its versatility. With the 30-inch grinding head small sections of streets that need attention may be dealt with rather than having to tear up more than is required.
Humboldt will make its first of five $20,000 lease-purchase payments in March.
