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Posted By AJM
Just a short one, I wondered if anyone had had any experience of having work equipment in my case metal Stillages privately and specifically tested for a Safe working Load.
Where is the best place to get this type of work done
What are if any the pitfalls and other peoples experiences of doing this
One of the reasons is when I was recently dealing with a supplier of stillages I was of the understanding that any product sold should have the said safety information stamped on it including both weight and SWL of the product. Also that the 50% tolerance of the safe working load would already be worked into the equation so when supplied a 1 ton SWL Stillage can take 1 ton.
Regards
Alan
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Posted By Alan Woodage
Alan,
A bit of a tricky one when looking at stillages as people tend to treat them as pallets. They should be designed to take the required load plus a FOS this will be dependant on environment and risk etc. This should ideally be done and proved by a competent structural engineer.
With regard to inspection and testing, an inspection regime of visual inspections by a competent person, looking for weld or material cracks, deformation and or damage to structural parts and finally signs of corrosion.
Personally I use LGH lifting gear hire for inspections of lifting accessories etc and they will either do this at there branches or on site.
Yes they should be marked with SWL and a unique identifying mark to comply with LOLER and to be traceable from an inspection point of view.
Coming back to where I started are they used as no more than pallets with sides on and what / how do you deal with pallets??
sorry if this has muddied things more but it is down to your Risk assesment again.
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Posted By AJM
Well Alan, we are a company that uses the stillages mainly with the four corners for stacking buildings in then distributing them all over the country we have currently got 10000 in use so you can imagine the vast scale of the thing.
I am quite new here so in process of setting things up and having a better understanding of the associated problems.
One thing I was made aware of during one discussion with a professional was that the actual strapping down process on the lorries also has to be taken into account with the SWL of the metal stillages meaning you could have a 1 Ton capacity stillage apply and apply half of that weight from the strapping down process thus realistically only being allowed to put half of the 1 ton in the stillage as an actual load.
I don't know if you or anyone else has experienced issues like this but I found it a very interesting piece of information
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Posted By Alan Woodage
Alan,
A valid point with the strapping down as i guess the stillages at the top will tend to deform in sideways. Were they ever designed for the task or are they off the shelf items?? could some additional bracings be provided for tying down thestacked load to prevent the crushing by ratchet staps.
The other way to look at this is what accident or incidents have there been involving the stillages and risk assess the situation accordingly. no records of failures, incidents or accidents then possibly just some visual routine inspection for damaged articles. alternatively if this has come from accident and incident maybe the stilages may need to be re-designed or alterantive methods employed. I appreciate the latter would be V expensive and may be a struggle but if incidents are occuring then the current solution os no good.
I can see you have a quandry on your hands and wish you the best.
Alan
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Posted By AJM
Thanks for that Alan, One other thing I would like clarification on by anyone that knows is when you purchase things like stillages or any work equipment that has to hold the weight of something, that they should be tested and certificated by the manufacturer and every single item should be stamped with all relevant safety information ie SWL. That was always my understanding of these sort of transactions.
Where as I heard one a few months back say they only had to stamp it on if the purchaser asked for it but surely this is wrong no matter if it is a copy or a prototype.
It would be interesting to know if anyone else has experienced issues like this.
Alan
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Posted By Innes Gray
Mine Field here mate when you head downe the CE marking SWL line
By the Way LGH have a little bocket book on LOWER / PUER Regs give a good insite on Proof Testing and Load Testing.
My local depot is verry helpfull alwasy wort giving them a call
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Posted By Tony Power
We have had an incident recently with a waste skip, the company who supply them are very vague as to what the testing requirements are, does any one know of any testing requirements for the skips? some of them i have seen are full of holes! i would have thought that they would come under LOLER?
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Posted By Christopher Kelly
Hi Tony, waste skips do come under LOLER as they are physically attached to the truck with additional means than just using the forks.
We used to advise people that pallets, stillages etc were not LOLER items, they required risk assessment under PUWER. The PUWER RA might then determine that the best method of dealing with them was to have inspected by the lifting engineer, it depends on your planned maintenance arrangements.
Are the skips being lifted by FLT or are you talking about the type which is lifted by a skip loader ? If the latter then I would not consider to be a LOLER item, although any item with lifting points on it has to be considered high-risk PUWER and consequently a higher level of inspection / competence should be considered.
I had a similar problem as you at the last company I worked for - they had some very interesting methods of lifting pallets of unsecured sheet steel into a large skip. The area is very vague, not many operators seem to have thought about it. If your skips are full of holes then you do have a risk of items falling out, the skip is probably in danger of collapse and there will probably be a risk of people cutting themselves on it. If the body isn't cared for then the lifting lugs are likely to have had poor treatment. We had this out with our scrap dealer and they sorted it out. We had a system of checking the skips on delivery, however made it clear that we were only carrying out visual checks, the supplier was to carry out a more 'thorough' (non-LOLER) examination. I would think that the onus for inspection falls onto the firm who are actually lifting them.
As regards SWL / proof-load testing etc. There should be clear guidance from the original supplier. Most engineering departments of insurance companies (who provide most of the competent lifting personnel) are dubious about the value of follow-up load tests - it doesn't assist in the thorough exam process of certifying for the upcoming 6 or 12 months. Regular inspection based on the original design capabilities is sufficient. Whether under LOLER or not it is always a good idea to put information on the items. As I understand it the supplier only has a duty to put SWL on if it is a LOLER item, if not they should still supply paperwork making sure you are aware of the equipment's capabilities but you will still have to carry out a risk assessment considering what level of planned maintenance / inspection you need to implement.
Regards,
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Posted By Tony Power
Hi, Christopher
Thank you for your very comprehensive reply, it is very helpful.
what a fantastic tool this forum is!
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Posted By Christopher Kelly
No problem Tony, hopefully you will be able to help me out sometime.
From a purely selfish point of view - it is in my interest as I can now put down against my CPD points !
Cheers
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