DARTMOUTH – Snow plows and other heavy equipment used for clearing snow have been working to capacity the past three or four weeks in Nova Scotia, and it is beginning to take its toll on the equipment.
Another snow plow entered the Municipal Garage in Dartmouth for maintenance Tuesday – a common occurrence in the past month.
“What we’re starting to see is minor issues with cutting edges, salt chains need adjustment,” says Larry Hilton, the Manager of Corporate Fleet for Halifax.
“Heavy, heavy snow and ice is causing some difficulty with plowing and pushing back operations, particularly on the wings and on the plows.”
The backing plate and carbide plate on all the plows have to be replaced, but that’s better than replacing the plow’s entire blade. They only last about 4 storms and many trucks have already had them replaced once or twice this year.
Hilton has been with the municipality for 27 years, and although winter got a late start, he says it’s been hard on plows.
“This is one of the worst one’s I’ve ever seen for the amount of ice that’s out there this year,” he said.
“The more wear and tear on the gear, the gears out longer, more fuel, more expense. We have a couple trucks that are in for transmission work. ”
Provincial plows are having similar problems. They’re seeing lots of damage to wing blades because of ice.
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There is even one on a truck that is completely bent. But they have a straightener to fix that says Dan Leopold, the Director of Fleet Management for the Provincial Highways.
“We can put them in and do a repair, that 30 years ago would take a day, we could do it in less than an hour,” he said.
Frigid temperatures are also causing problems for the equipment.
“With these extreme cold temperatures – metal fatigues – and we do find cracks in certain pieces and it’s been brought into the shop to be repaired,” said Leopold.
Welders are kept busy in both garages. Both shops do as much as they can in house, to get the equipment back on the road faster.
“Everything you can see here has been machined, welded and rebuilt by our technicians at Miller Lake,” said Leopold.
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