A GUIDE FOR HIRING HIGH-QUALITY ACCESS EQUIPMENT
Are you looking for the best types of equipment for your work at heights? Are you shaky of how am I going to do it? You don’t have to worry at all. Although working at heights is not an easy occupation to opt for and a small percentage of workers do face non-fatal accidents during their tenure of work. But with the new advanced access equipment now available, your safety and comfort are ensured while working at heights. It’s very important to be conscious and focused while hiring access equipment.
Whether it’s a crane hire or a boom lift, your knowledge of the term access equipment and factors that are important to buy them, must be sufficient so that you don’t face issues later.
Access types of equipment involve all those types of equipment that help you work at heights with full safety. It’s has a variety of pieces of equipment available but you must understand your requirements and range of work. With a vast variety of access equipment available, it is vital to opt for only what you need to perform your heightened tasks.
Scissor lifts, boom lifts, vertical lifts, bespoke platforms, push around lifts and cherry pickers, all of these can be your options according to the need of your work. Understanding their quality, possible risk factors of using these pieces of equipment and quality control factors is equally important. Here is an important guide for you to go through for hiring high-quality access equipment:
- Know The Heights
You need to know the maximum heights you or your workers are going to operate at. There are numerous options available for different heights of work. Stepladders and ladders can be a good option if you are working in low-risk areas, lesser heights and for a shorter time. For instance, if your work at height can be done within 30-35mins, then ladders and stepladders can be your first choice. If your work involves a longer duration, then you can think of picking up scaffoldings and mobile elevating work platforms.
- Know The Lifting Capacity
Another significant factor to look for while hiring quality access equipment is how much weight it needs to lift. Quality types of equipment that are in good condition can lift the weights they are designed for. Equipment which is in good quality often fails to perform the required lifting and result in accidents.
- Professional Installation
It is extremely crucial to get the access equipment installed or assembled by trained professionals, with complete consideration of the guidelines from the manufacturers. After being installed at the workplace, it’s important to get the inspection done by a skillful staff person, who knows the equipment well, safety and health factors, and can manage to point out any wear and tear suspected.
The inspection doesn’t end only while hiring the equipment. It continues after every use. Keeping in mind the environmental effects, accidental damages, equipment’ liability, and any sort of instability, must be reported right then and there because missing out on any of these in access equipment can be dangerous for the operators and the task being performed. Besides this, an inspection of the equipment not later than seven days of use is a must.
- Check Your Harness
Checking your harness should be the first on your checklist while hiring and starting your work with access equipment. Keep an eye on the period you have been using a harness for because the harness’s conditions get weakened with time and can result in breakage at any instance without an alarm and the consequences of this instance can be very dangerous. Also, check on the rusting of the rings, any sort of straining and nicks.
- Check Your Fall Arrest Blocks
Another important equipment to focus on while dealing with the quality of access equipment and lifting vocations is fall arrest blocks. If these blocks don’t work properly while lowering the operators or lifting the materials at heights, it can result in complicated conditions. Inspect any prior damages that are visible or are suspected.
- Check Your Locks
Besides all the other factors, there is one more important mechanism that can’t be neglected while hiring the best quality access equipment: it is the locking mechanism.
If this mechanism is working fine, it saves you or your operators from dangerous falls. To check on this, you must pull it and see if the lock is working or not. Also, look out on anchor points, harness connections and other connectors for any wear and tear. They must not be your choices because the results of the failure of these locks to perform can consequently cause fatal accidents.
Conclusion:
It is very important to be cautious while hiring the access equipment because they are used for working at heights. Thus, this equipment can result in fatal conditions if missed on the quality. The safety and maintenance of these types of equipment are crucial too. These guidelines can be beneficial for you. Also, do understand the health and safety pointers and train your operators on these guidelines to ensure the protection of your employees.
