Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND — With a lot of equipment but not a lot of storage to protect equipment from the Wyoming weather, the city of Worland is working to repair their current shops and expand to house more equipment inside.

One major project this year was replacing the roof on the older shop building at 101 Grace. The 40-foot x 80-foot building built in the 1940s had an aluminum roof. Burky said, “It’s a wonderful roof, but it leaked.” There were several options for the town but because the roof was already aluminum, they opted to go with a membrane over the roof, and added insulation to the building.

“It’s a real good product. The shop is noticeably warmer,” Burky said, adding that the membrane should last 20-25 years.

The old shop is used as the mechanics shop with two mechanics on duty to work on all the City of Worland’s fleet of vehicles and heavy equipment.

The other shop, which was built attached to the 1940s shop in 1981, is also in need of roof replacement. That project began this year but will be completed next year with the bid just recently awarded to Wyatt Molzahn Construction of Worland. He said that roof is steel has rust holes creating leaks so it will be a full replacement and include additional insulation.

Burky said on a “it’s a small world” type of story, Molzahn’s father helped build the building in 1981.

The building is heated and is used for storing equipment. It also has six offices.

Burky said Wyoming’s climate, with some extreme heat in the summer and extreme cold in the winter, is harsh on equipment. “We have a small fortune in equipment,” Burky said.

Currently the city does not have enough indoor, enclosed space to house all the equipment. On Thursday a skid steer sweeper and a steam roller were sitting outside as Burky motioned to both and noted how he hates for them to be out in the weather.

Inside the shop to be repaired were two dump trucks full of sand. Burky said when they are aware of an approaching storm, and early Thursday Worland was still under a winter storm watch, they bring the sand in to make sure it is warm so it will be easy to spread.

Another project for 2017, to help with the space issue, Burky said is to expand and enclose and open air shed, 20-foot x 96-foot. “That will be a winter project and we should let bids next month,” Burky said.

The expansion will give the city about 5,000 square feet of heated space. “That will get us real close to getting all the equipment inside,” Burky said. It should also help reduce some maintenance costs, Burky said, noting that in the summer they replaced several hydraulic hoses that cracked from the heat.

Burky said the garbage trucks must be inside during the winter. He said even if the engine is plugged into a block heater, the hydraulics take about an hour or more to warm up if the weather is 10 below or colder.

When looking to repair the shops, Burky said the city looked at about six properties but “we couldn’t find anything that met our needs.”

The city has two backhoes, three loaders, five dump trucks, a grader, two street sweepers, four garbage trucks, 12 pickups, a compactor and a crack seal trailer among their list of equipment.