There’s a new grader sitting in the City of North Battleford garage being readied for service at the end of April with a smaller blade that the City says is perfect for maintaining the city’s back alleys and parking lots.
“Back alleys are a bit of a tight squeeze for our usual graders with the 14-foot blades. This grader’s blade is only 10 feet long and those extra four feet of space will allow us greater maneuverability,” says Director of Operations Stewart Schafer. “It will allow us to get into tighter areas, including back alleys and parking lots.”
At 17,000 pounds, this grader is also less than half the weight of the bigger machines and will allow crews to work in areas with lower weight restrictions. These include parking lots and open fields as well as back alleys. The lighter grader will also allow city work crews to start work earlier in the season for those areas, according to a city press release.
Bought for $220,000 through Redhead, this LB Performance Compact Grader G-700 is almost new with only 185 hours of operation on it and is expected to last a minimum of 10 years. It has a ripper, which is a tool equipped with heavy-duty steel tongs, to scratch the surface of dirt roads prior to planing them. And the front of the G-700 has an eight-foot dozer blade to clear snow from back alleys when there is more than a foot of accumulation.
