Agenda Packets - 2007/05/14 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Public Works has been operating for several years without a hydraulic frost breaker. The City has been calling upon the City of New Brighton for frost breaking services, or scraping through the frost with a frost bucket attachment. The last five cases whereby maintenance crews scraped through the frost took about 8 hours longer than what it would have if the City had a hydraulic frost breaker. The last time the City requested frost breaking service from the City of New Brighton, City maintenance crews waited around an hour for the frost breaker to show up and start working. Reviewing these last 6 cases whereby frost had to be removed before a water main could be repaired revealed that approximately 36 man hours were expended needlessly. Financially this translates into approximately $1,795.00 that could have been saved. As a note, all of the digs this year that a frost breaker would have been used on ran into an overtime situation. Discussion Calling on New Brighton or scraping through the frost are not efficient uses of City staff or resources. With the purchase a of hydraulic frost breaker attachment for the front of the Bobcat skid loader, down time waiting for either New Brighton to arrive on the job site, or waiting for our backhoe to scrape through the frost, will be eliminated. Public Works staff will be able to use both the back hoe and skid loader simultaneously, thus increasing productivity and decreasing labor costs. It will also assist in the speed of keeping the hole safe for staff to work, by being able to break away the frost overhangs that occur while excavating water main / sewer main breaks in the winter. These overhangs are very hard to break with just the back hoe while still avoiding other utilities in the excavation hole. This piece of equipment will also be able to be used in the summer for faster breaking of blacktop and concrete on a variety of road related projects, compared to the current use of a man operated jackhammer. Projects such as raising or lowering valve boxes, removing broken or sunken curb, raising or lowering manhole covers, and other small street related repairs will be performed faster. It would also be used to break apart large footings from various poles before they could be used again, or hauled away for scrap. It is not always guaranteed that the City of New Brighton can break frost for the City. City of New Brighton had 25 plus breaks of their own this past year. It is also not guaranteed that even if they don’t have a water main break that they will be willing or able to break frost for the City, due to events such as snow, other projects, and or staffing shortages. It is also possible that their frost breaker, which is attached to a back hoe, might be broken, or the backhoe might be broken down and not useable. There is also the potential for the equipment to be broken while in use for the City of Mounds View. This would raise the question of who would pay for the repair.