Cones, signs, stands and bases — the small gear that holds up jobs
Nobody's project ever stalled for want of a VMS board — those get planned. Jobs stall for want of 40 cones and six sign stands. The digger's on site, the TMP's approved, the crew's on the clock, and someone discovers the yard is 30 cones short of the taper the plan actually shows. Small gear, big delay.
CiviEase hires cones, signs, stands, bases and ballast across Christchurch from our Sockburn depot — in the quantities real setups consume, not the quantities people optimistically guess.
Got a cone count from the TMP?
Send it through — we'll identify the next step, usually within one working day.
Cones: the compliant standard
NZTA's current M23 Appendix F describes 900 mm as the industry-standard cone height for TTM applications. The equipment selected for a job must still match the approved plan, the site-specific risk assessment and the road authority's requirements.
Smaller cones exist for non-road use — car parks, events, warehouse floors — but the moment the cone is doing traffic management on a road, it's the 900 mm compliant unit or nothing. A bucket of hardware-store cones is not a taper, and an auditor will say so.
Signs, stands and bases
Temporary signage is a system, and each piece has a compliance angle:
- Sign faces — temporary warning signs in fluorescent orange retro-reflective material (Class 1 sheeting), sized to the road environment: 750 mm signs for lower-speed work, 900 mm for higher-speed static setups, larger again for mobile operations. Regulatory signs like temporary speed limits must be authorised by the road controlling authority — you can't just decide on 30 km/h and print it.
- Stands — collapsible stands that fold to under 150 mm when knocked down, so a struck sign goes flat instead of becoming a spear. Fixed-leg stands from the back of the shed don't meet this.
- Bases and ballast — sandbag ballast kept low (within 300 mm of ground level), never concrete blocks or steel weights. The base is the difference between a sign that falls over and a sign that becomes a hazard.
- The supporting cast — Stop/Go paddles, barrier boards, beacons, pedestrian ramps and fencing. The stuff the TMP lists on page four that nobody remembers until the site audit.
If the sign schedule in your TMP reads like a foreign language, that's normal — it's written for the reviewer, not the crew. We can translate it into a pick list, because matching gear to plans is what we do on the TMP design side every week.
Hire or buy? The honest maths
Published NZ benchmarks give a real anchor: Auckland hirers list compliant 900 mm cones at around $4 per cone per day, falling to roughly $11 per cone for a seven-day hire, and sell the same cone outright for about $55.
So the crossover is simple arithmetic. Hiring a cone for a week costs about a fifth of buying it; own it and it's paid for in roughly five week-long hires — then it's yours, along with the storage, the transport, the faded ones that need replacing, and the 37 that walk off over a year. The honest rule of thumb:
- One-off or occasional jobs: hire. No storage, no shrinkage, no wondering whether your stock still meets the reflectivity standard.
- Weekly, ongoing work: buying starts to win — if you have somewhere to put the gear and someone to count it.
- The hybrid most contractors land on: own your everyday core stock, hire the peaks. A 200-cone closure doesn't justify owning 200 cones if your normal job needs 50.
Bundle it with the TMP and stop counting cones
The cleanest version of small-gear hire is the one where you never write the equipment list: we design the TMP, the sign schedule generates the pick list, and the gear arrives matching the plan — right number of cones, right sign sizes, right stands. No Sunday-night discovery that the approved layout needs equipment you don't have on the truck.
The same compliance rule applies here as everywhere else we hire: cones and signs on a road still need an approved TMP and a qualified STMS controlling the site at all times. Small gear, same obligations.
For the bigger kit, see temporary traffic light hire and TMA and arrow board trucks — or the full equipment hire range.
Frequently asked questions
How much does traffic cone hire cost in Christchurch?
Published NZ benchmarks sit around $4 per cone per day, dropping to roughly $11 per cone for a seven-day hire, with delivery charged separately by most hirers. Rates improve with volume and duration. Tell us the cone count, sign list and hire length from your TMP and we'll quote CiviEase rates for the full pick list in one go.
Can I collect cones and signs myself, or do you deliver?
Both. Smaller orders — cones, signs, stands, paddles — can be collected from our Sockburn depot. Larger orders we deliver to site and position to your TMP layout, then collect when the job wraps. Delivery fees depend on distance and timing, and we confirm them in the quote, not afterwards.
What cones do I need for road work in NZ?
NZTA's current M23 Appendix F describes 900 mm as the industry-standard cone height for TTM applications. The equipment and setup still need to match the approved plan, the site-specific risk assessment and the road authority's requirements.
Do I still need a TMP just to put out cones and signs?
If the cones and signs are managing traffic on a road or footpath — yes. All temporary traffic management must be installed under an approved TMP with a qualified STMS controlling the site. Coning off part of a road without one isn't a grey area; it's an illegal setup, whoever's cones they are. We can sort the TMP with the hire.
Paperwork to pavement.
Send us what you have — we'll take it from there.