There was a time when excavating buried valve boxes and exercising main and water hydrant valves in the city of Anamosa, Iowa, was a laborious, time-consuming chore.
But that all ended about six years ago when the city’s Water Department invested roughly $50,000 in a trailer-mounted Vac 250 hydroexcavating unit with an attached Spin Doctor 800 valve exerciser, manufactured by Hurco Technologies.
The unit enables the department’s three employees to exercise all 672 valves in the city’s water system every year. That includes 263 fire hydrants, says Jim Henson, superintendent of the department.
Before the city bought the Hurco unit, employees could exercise
