The nuts and bolts of keeping our equipment running

By Tina Werner

Winter weather has arrived in the Pacific Northwest and you’ve likely already seen images of our snow plows and other equipment out keeping roads clear and safe. But what you haven’t seen much of is the work of our maintenance mechanics, the MVPs behind the scenes tirelessly working to keep that equipment running. And especially this time of year, that is no easy task. With more than 500 snowplows and many other pieces of equipment, it’s a never-ending challenge to keep everything ready to go for winter.

Earlier this fall our Wenatchee maintenance shop was hard at work preparing snow blowers
and dump trucks for winter operations.

By the numbers

While our named tow plows – Plowie McPlow Plow, The Big Leplowski, Sir Plows-A-Lot and Betty Whiteout – get a lot of attention, they are just four of 565 snowplows/dump trucks we maintain statewide. We also have 36 motor graders and 29 snowblowers, and it’s a lot of work to make sure they run smoothly each year. In 2023 alone, we spent 846 hours of labor on our snowplows, which ran for 18,000 hours. Combined that is approximately 815,000 miles traveled to clear and treat roads of snow and ice across the state – and doesn’t count labor or miles traveled for our graders or blowers, which you can imagine is a lot.

In preparation for this winter, we purchased just about 1,000 new plow bits – disposable parts that ride on the ground, shave snow and ice from the road and need to be replaced to keep equipment operational – to the cost of $976,380. Plow bits can be replaced monthly if they’re used in moderate snow and as often as every week in heavy snow, while maintenance shops that see little snow may only have to replace them every year.

And you thought maintaining your vehicle was expensive!

Getting and keeping our vehicles ready for winter is no small task, and includes installing and
replacing plow bits (left) and putting tire chains on some pretty big tires.

Our plows cover more than 20,000 lane miles and travel at slower speeds to clear snow properly, right around 25 to 35 miles per hour. Our snow removal equipment needs constant maintenance, and sourcing to find the right part in the event it wears out or is damaged in a collision is vital. Occasionally, our mechanics are able to piece various parts together and create one-of-a-kind repairs because some of our trucks are so old they don’t make parts for them anymore.  

Switching to winter

There is a lot that goes into a well-oiled maintenance shop and we aren’t just talking greasy hands and classic rock music. Our mechanics service dozens of vehicles every week and during storms they work both day and night to turn equipment around as quickly and as safely as possible to get snowplows back on the roads.

“It takes on average up to six hours to transition our dump trucks to operable snowplows during the winter,” said Bryan Dean, one of our equipment technician supervisors.

One of our Wenatchee mechanics works under a dump truck to prepare it for winter. It takes on
average about six hours to switch a dump truck into a snowplow.

Our mechanics remove the dump body from the truck (which is used to haul dirt and other debris during the spring and summer) and add the salt body container to the back (which holds salt for treating the roads). Then we add the actual plow to the front of the dump truck and do a full commercial vehicle inspection before we give them the green light. Our mechanics are checking things like the brakes, windshield wipers, hydraulic hoses and air lines. Additional time may be needed if other repairs are discovered.

We recently honored one of our hard-working maintenance mechanics, Perry Chappelle, with our agency’s Fleet Administrator of Excellence Award in Leavenworth, where he works. Perry has transformed the Leavenworth parts room into a well-functioning program while creating a positive team environment for his other technicians servicing equipment. He has made the procurement of hard-to-source parts easier for his team, which in turn puts big trucks and plows back onto the road faster. Without folks like Perry sourcing equipment parts and making critical repairs to our plows, it would take longer to clear the roads and longer for drivers to get where they need to go. We’re so grateful to Perry and all our mechanics for their fantastic work.

Perry Chappelle (left) is presented with our Fleet Administrator of Excellence award for his service
keeping our equipment running by Fleet Administrator Ernie Sims

We wouldn’t be who we are without the dedication of our employees – and especially this time of year - our mechanics.

Join our team + we will train you to succeed!

We are always looking for great people to join our team and that includes mechanics. We also provide ongoing training to our current staff so they can learn the ins and outs of equipment sourcing, repairs and to maintain their commercial drivers license to operate a snowplow. If you are interested in working on some mighty machines where your work helps keep travelers all over the state safe, check out our employment page and search “equipment technician, mechanic or highway maintenance worker” in the field bar.