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Final grade on a Cambridge commercial site

Location: Cambridge, WaikatoRhodes was fortunate to be part of this Cambridge commercial project all the way through, and by this stage the job was wrapping up with final grade and asphalt preparation. The last five per cent of an earthworks scope is where reputations are made: the levels that decide how water sheds, how the asphalt crew's day goes, and how the finished site looks for the next twenty years. With GPS machine control on the trim, the surface went down to design and the site moved ...

The long weekend callout: slip repair in Raglan

Location: Raglan Long weekend, no break. When an emergency call came in for slip repair work in Raglan, Rhodes mobilised while most of the region was still deciding what to barbecue. With long-reach equipment brought in for the job through ETL Hire, the crew got to work stabilising the slip, reaching down the face to pull material and reshape the ground safely from above. Emergency work rewards contractors who can move fast without cutting corners, and this one was wrapped with the long weekend ...

Precision beside live power at Fonterra

Location: WaikatoExcavating foundations for new power transformers at a Fonterra site is not a job for a loose approach. The dig ran hard against live services, where a misjudged bucket has consequences well beyond the programme, so the crew worked to meticulous service plans with safety controls at every step. Careful excavation, boxing and foundation preparation went in around the live infrastructure without incident. It's the sort of work that shows what the Rhodes ethos looks like in practic...

Night shift on the rails

Location: AucklandRail doesn't stop for long, so when Rhodes joined a KiwiRail track maintenance programme in Auckland, the work ran at night under lights, inside tight possession windows. Our team worked rights on a block of line upgrade as part of the wider civil scope, machinery and crew slotting into a programme where every hour of track time is accounted for. It's disciplined, safety-heavy work alongside strong project partners, and exactly the kind of infrastructure environment where prepa...

Two GPS machines, one Taupo site

Location: TaupoSunny days in Taupo with both GPS machines working the same site: our Hitachi ZX210 and ZX135 running 3D machine control side by side through bulk cut, trimming and final grade. With the design surface loaded into both cabs, the two machines worked to the same model without a surveyor between them, and the finished levels were proven on screen as the work went down. Clean cuts, straight lines and no over-dig, which on volume-priced earthworks is money the client keeps.Outcome: Bul...

Making way in Morrinsville: a 1920s villa comes down carefully

Location: Morrinsville, WaikatoThis 1920s home had reached the end of its road, with a new development planned for the site. The crew deconstructed the villa carefully, recovering materials for reuse and recycling and keeping as much as possible out of landfill. Working with our waste partners, the job produced detailed reporting on recycling and landfill diversion, the kind of paper trail that developers and councils increasingly expect. The site was left clean and tidy, ready for its next chap...

Ground improvements for a refrigerated logistics hub

Location: WaikatoClient: iLine ConstructionA new refrigerated warehouse for a transport and logistics operator, delivered under head contractor iLine. Rhodes' scope covered the full earthworks, civil and drainage package: ground improvements first, then back for the car park and apron preparation as the build progressed. Warehouse floors of this scale live on their ground improvements, so accuracy on levels and compaction was everything, and GPS machine control gave the engineers proof at every ...

Eighteen pads, one crew: the Tennyson Road subdivision

Location: Tennyson Road, HamiltonClient: Signature Homes, for a Kainga Ora development An eighteen-unit Kainga Ora subdivision is a lot of civil work in a tight footprint, and on this one Rhodes carried the full scope under Signature Homes: complete earthworks, full drainage, and handover at finished pads. Running earthworks and drainage as one contract meant one programme across the whole site, with cuts, trenching and reinstatement sequenced by the same crew rather than negotiated between cont...