When moving or transporting a heavy load, hook and cable lifting equipment will often be required. Your only experience of using this kind of equipment may be when you were a kid and playing with the trucks that had the hook and cable at the back. You may need to use hook and cable lifting equipment for your work or perhaps a home project. We have put together this article to give you the knowledge you need before you do so.
What is Hook and Cable Lifting Equipment?
In the workplace, this equipment is used to lift and move heavy loads using a hook attached to a cable. This can be when using a crane on a construction site or attached to the back of a truck. If your car has ever broken down and the tow truck arrives to take your car to the garage, it will most likely be a cable and hook method they used to pull your car onto their truck.
When is it used?
It’s not only tow trucks or construction sites that use this equipment, you will even find it is used on ships to load and unload heavy loads. Scaffolders regularly use cable lift trucks to transport their scaffolding equipment to their sites due to the sheer weight. These trucks range in sizes depending on the load and delivery area. If you need your equipment delivered to an area that’s hard to access, this method will be the perfect option.
- Construction sites operate both cable lift trucks and cranes to move large loads such as concrete. Materials delivered in cable lift trucks is efficient as the area that’s being worked on may be short on space and hard to access. Cranes can move loads to large heights when building high rise apartments for example.
- Waste-management companies regularly use cable lift trucks as they are cost efficient and can efficiently and quickly move large containers and bins.
- Shipbuilding and loading/ unloads loads on to ships.
Things to be Aware of
If you need to use this equipment it’s best to be aware of some things before you do.
- If you are using a truck work out what size you may need. You don’t want to buy or rent a truck that won’t be able to handle the weight of your load. Another thing to consider when using a truck is if it will be able to access where you need the load moved to or picked up from.
- Sourcing the equipment from a trusted supplier is imperative. They should have an online presence where you can find out more information like mhf.uk.com. You want to ensure the equipment is completely safe and secure and has undergone recent inspections. The truck should also be up to date and has been checked thoroughly.
- When using hook and cable equipment you may need to undergo some training before you can get to work. This is to ensure yours and everyone else’s safety.
Safety Issues
The last thing you want is yourself or someone getting badly injured or worse. This could also be a large financial setback for your business if something were to go wrong due to human error. That’s why it’s very important to make sure of a few things, including;
- All staff is well trained and competent before they use the equipment.
- Check the trucks and equipment have no faults and are inspected regularly.
- Be aware of the maximum load the equipment and truck can handle. Most trucks will have the maximum weight clearly marked and whoever you source the truck from should give you this information. This could be a very dangerous situation if it were to have too great of a weight.
