Crane Outrigger Pads – Do You Need Them?

 And so it goes, another crane “incident” that could have been prevented.  This crane was unloading not only too close to the embankment, but did not use outrigger pads.  Too much pressure on the crane outrigger leg “shoe” ended up punching a hole through the pavement and the ground beneath it was far too soft to continue to support the crane, extended boom and weight at the end of the boom, resulting in substantial damage to crane truck and surrounding area.  TOTALLY PREVENTABLE.  We provide a full range of outrigger pads to choose from.  Why wood outrigger pads?  Here is why: Far less expensive and renewable (yes good for the environment) 18″ x 18″ is the smallest we recommend (yes

Electricity and Cranes – Guess Who Wins?

This is an older post, but needless to say, the same thing continues to happen needlessly.  The system asks “why” or “how” but as usual, until someone dies, no one wants to talk about “how do we prevent this?” A 7.5 Kv powerline (service line) was contacted, it was a tight lift to begin with regardless but it may be an alternative piece of equipment may have been selected instead of this crane.  The Effer crane had a jib on it, and looking at how it had to navigate those lines, as an operator, my choice (yes it’s also easy to say afterwards), that I would not have made this lift, but again, those choices are often ignored for the

Where’s The Line – Does This Really Work?

We’ve been HUGE advocates of line safety, we are a dealer for the SigAlarm High Voltage proximity alert systems not simply because we wanted a product line, but simply because more people need to stay away from over head power lines.  I know that is the obvious statement, however it’s not that obvious. We see the messages, the advertisements of “where’s the line”, the meaning is good, the delivery…not so much so it seems. One recent training we did, one of the students brought up a very valid point, “we are bombarded with safety stuff all day, we become desensitised to the posters”  even tho they have a very strong safety culture. Far too many people’s lives are forever altered

HIAB Crane Training & Certification in Alberta

We understand and recognize that HIAB cranes are one of the more popular brand of ‘pickers’ in the market for good reason.  Our training does not recognize one brand over another, it recognizes that ALL brands of knuckle boom cranes are good, it becomes the operator who starts to take chances running the crane improperly, whether it’s in the Alberta Oil patch, Saskatchewan’s Potash Mines or any other area where knuckle pickers have proven themselves to be the right product for the application. In the past, companies relied on the crane dealer to do a ‘hand-over’ to the end user, showing them the basics on the knuckle boom crane.  It was mainly by sheer luck on the part of the

Is It That Important to Know How Much You Are Lifting?

Does it really matter how much weight you are picking with your crane, so long as the safety systems are working and with knuckle pickers, they will stop when the crane becomes ‘overloaded’ anyway right? Well, usually they do, it’s built into the mechanics of the crane on HIAB, Palfinger, Fassi, etc, they all have a form of ‘overload’ protection built into them for your safety. In spite of how protected you feel you may be, independent testing has found out that many small picker units will exceed the stability of the truck before you reach maximum reach/capacity. Meaning simply that your operator really doesn’t get full use of the crane or capacity before it begins to tip over, and

Power Line Strikes ~ Is it possible to avoid on the job site?

As much as this seems fairly straight forward, it’s not always possible.  On many lease, construction and commercial sites involving large equipment, many times we see the identifying line to show “danger, overhead power lines” marked well in advance (usually when equipment crosses underneath it’s at a minimum of 3m away), for clearance purposes. When I train with companies, I always ask, what is the travel height of the vehicle you are driving (doesn’t have to be the crane truck), and most drivers have no idea.  Why not take the time to put it on the dash? Sadly, in this photo to the left, the operator did not survive, and yes I get that people say “He/She should have never