Safety Tip of the Week: Dealing with Heavy Loads

Load handling injuries are one of the biggest risks faced by companies. Not only can dealing improperly with heavy loads cause dangerous accidents, damage to materials and goods can seriously eat into your bottom line. All lifting equipment and elevated work platforms (EWPs) have a specified safe load limit that should never be exceeded. However, safely dealing with heavy loads involves a lot more planning than simply checking that your chosen access equipment can handle the weight of the load.

Loading and Unloading

Due to the combination of machinery and man, most difficulties caused by heavy loads come when they are being loaded and unloaded. The key to handling this safely is careful planning and consideration of all risk factors, from passing pedestrians to electrical wires and cables. Whether you’re loading up scissor lifts, travel towers or telehandlers, the basic safety precautions are the same. You need a level machine—and ideally, a level ground—an even distribution of weight, and a plan in place to keep the load contained and secured once it is being moved.

For equipment such as truck-mounted travel towers and telescopic handlers that can be moved rapidly, a final safety consideration is ensuring vehicles do not set off before the loading or unloading operation is complete. On large sites, traffic light systems and vehicle restraints are a simple solution, but for smaller sites, the simple precaution of the loader keeping hold of the keys can eliminate any risk of the vehicle moving off unexpectedly.

Telescopic Handlers, or Telehandlers

Telehandlers are often the practical alternative when a scissor lift isn’t sturdy enough and a crane is insufficiently compact. Telehandler hire is the answer for lifting heavy loads with manoeuvrability across a site. Fast and easy to handle, telehandlers are great for making quick work of lifting. Force offers a selection of telehandlers with a load capacity of up to 10 tonnes and a reach of up to 17 metres.

Telehandler hire through Force offers a huge choice of sizes and engines that can tackle a range of different weights and sizes. Smart loading and levelling systems enable telehandlers to tackle large and awkward loads, and Force can also provide access equipment such as scissor lifts for the people you need to have at height.

Force Can Help

Time and again, Force is called upon by engineers and construction specialists to come up with a solution to their difficulty in lifting a large or heavy load, especially in complicated circumstances. Thorough knowledge of our product range, great relationships with manufacturers and a total commitment to safety as our top priority means Force has the expertise to help find the ideal solution for your situation.

Take a look at how arranging travel tower hire via Force helped Sunshine Coast University Hospital install crucial communications equipment in a restricted access area.This is a great example of safe and smart use of travel towers and cranes, minimising the cost, risk and time taken to complete a job through good planning and expert know-how.