Title/Name/Summary
Water Main Valve Exercising - Proposal
History
In order to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of the potable water system, a Request for Proposal for Water Main Valve Exercising was advertised on Bidnet Direct on Monday, November 9th, 2020. The proposals solicited respondents to perform water main valve exercising within the Village for a total of approximately four thousand two hundred (4,200) valves over a three (3) year period.
The Request for Proposal's scope of service requires that the technical service firm to follow a manufactured sequence of operations to operate each of the valves by hand to prevent valve damage as stem and gate are freed from their open position. Operation by mechanical means is not available during the normal or emergency course of work. The hands-on feel obtained by the manual operation are crucial to provide a better feedback regarding the condition of the valves and to identify inconsistencies in the operation of the valves.
Prior to bid opening, a courtesy email was sent to M.E. Simpson, Utility Service Co., Inc and Wachs Valve & Hydrant Services, LLS based upon previous bids on work. Eleven organizations opened the bid documents to review the scope of work. Only one bidder, M.E. Simpson Co., Inc. provided a bid and met the scope of service of exercising valves manually.
After the bid opening, Public Works completed a market evaluation to determine if the single proposal pricing was fair and reasonable.
Public Works contacted two vendors that specialize in this type of work and reviewed their method and pricing. Wachs Valve and Hydrant Services. After repeated calls with no responses, Public Works reviewed Wachs' previous bid in March 2015. While Wachs’ costs were lower than M.E. Simpson, their bid was rejected due to using mechanical equipment only to operate the valves rather than performing the work manually. Public Works believes that Wachs' did not submit a bid in November due to this requi...
Click here for full text