During Monday's meeting of Swift Current city council, they approved a replacement to one of their existing snow blowers, although at a slightly higher cost than was initially allocated.

The 2004 R7 Sicard Unit that was identified for replacement under this year's capital budget will soon be replaced with a 2021 RPM 217 model snowblower at a cost of $142,146.

$130,000 was already planned for an allocated into the city's 2021 Capital Budget, with the extra to be made up from the city's chargeable equipment reserve.

That extra cost, according to General Manager of Infrastructure and Operations Mitch Minken, comes with extra abilities as well, as replacing the single-stage R7 unit with the two-stage RPM model will allow the new unit to throw more snow per hour and get the job done faster as a result.

"That would be savings in contract trucking as well as savings in limited amounts of overtime.  But that would be pretty tough to estimate based on the way our snow estimate fluctuates each year."

The new unit will be able to throw 1,800 tonnes of snow per hour, while the ageing R7 was limited to 1,000.  That 80 percent increase in capacity, and the operational savings from it, should mitigate the additional cost of the new unit.

The R7 meanwhile was deemed to have no trade-in value and, according to Minken, will be placed in the city's regular annual auction for the sale of surplus equipment.

There were no Saskatchewan companies who responded to the bid, and so the purchase went to Industrial Machine Ltd. of Acheson, Alberta.

Once the order has been placed, the unit will be delivered within 30 days and come with a 1-year or 1,500-hour warranty and a 2-year or 3,000-hour warranty on the engine.