Winching At Work.

[madmatt]

Evening folks,

I am after some help to settle a disagreement with my employers, As some of you may know I work for a government department that owns a fleet of Land Rovers a lot of which and certainly the ones we use are fitted with Mechanical PTO Superwinch H14's. These winches are rated at 14000lbs which my maths works out at around 6.25ton or 6250kg approximately.

Now the problem I have is that we are supplied with strops for use with our winches but these are green and rated at 2000kg. Now as I understand it thats a 3rd of the SWL of the winch, In my oppinion it is not safe to continually exceed the SWL of a strop. I have tried to explain this to my employers the answer I get is that the strop is the weak link in the system of pull! er I would rather hope the weak link should be the clutch in the PTO drop box? I find it really hard to understand the strop is a weak link if this breaks we have 30meters of high tensile steel cable going AWOL!!

Does anybody have any thoughts on this I am sure you will but what I am really after is some cast iron proof what we are doing isn't particularly safe, IE can any one please point me to a link to a section of the LOLER regs or H&S @ Work act??? I need to show them evidence.

I seem to remember that lifting gear has a safety factor of 7:1 so a 2000kg sling shouldn't break till 14000kg, can anyone tell me what the safety factor for winch tackle should be? Because as I see it we are using a system with a safety factor of 2:1???

Have I explained this ok does it make any sense???????

Any thoughts gratefully recieved

Cheers

Matt

[LR90]

The H14 is big but I doubt it's rated for lifting 6.25ton (just pulling maybe)

[white90]

http://www.britgroup.ro/html/accessories/h14w.htm

specs show 6250kg pull as Matt refers to

and they are putting all their employees in danger using under rated strops.

[LR90]

Yes but that's a 'rated line pull' and not it's rated lifting capacity.

In fact its not rated for lifting but if it were the need for a higher safety factor would result in a rated capacity a fraction of the 6250kg which is what we should be comparing the strops against.

[white90]

Trev

Matt only mentions lifting to give a relation to safety factors

he then asks about winching safety factors.

I don't think he is asking about lifting in any way.

[madmatt]

Trev

Matt only mentions lifting to give a relation to safety factors

he then asks about winching safety factors.

I don't think he is asking about lifting in any way.

Tony is right, I don't give a monkeys about Lifting, I only mentioned it as I knew the safety factor for lifting, and wanted an example. I can't for the life of me remember the winch gear safety factor.

I too agree we are being put in danger but I need it in black and white from offical documentation if anyone can help.

Many Thanks for the replies

Matt

[LR90]

Yeh, ok Tony maybe your right and by his reconing the stop has a safety margin of 14000-6250=(almost)8000kg or 8tons over the winch whihc seems like a pretty good margin to me.

[western]

Matt

HSE PUWER & LOLER info

[madmatt]

Yeh, ok Tony maybe your right and by his reconing the stop has a safety margin of 14000-6250=(almost)8000kg or 8tons over the winch whihc seems like a pretty good margin to me.

Thanks For everyones help, Just been Pm'd a link to here, http://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/pdf/fctg0...ILE/fctg001.pdf which clearly states Winching gear should have a safety factor of 3-5 :1 on page 15. just need to print this off and go into battle on Monday!!

Once again thanks folks.

Matt

[wormhole]

Yeh, ok Tony maybe your right and by his reconing the stop has a safety margin of 14000-6250=(almost)8000kg or 8tons over the winch whihc seems like a pretty good margin to me.

I'm not sure how your winch's are set up but mine (ex Midlands Electric) is stamped as max SWL Pulling as 2 t, lifting as 1 t - I'm not sure if the PRV has been adjusted or if anything has been put into place to limit this.

I think that for pulling then a safety factor of 2:1 must be allowed, therefore depending on how the winch is set up this could require a strop with a breaking strain of 13 t - so I think that your 2t lifting strop is fine for use for pulling but not lifting.

[madmatt]

I'm not sure how your winch's are set up but mine (ex Midlands Electric) is stamped as max SWL Pulling as 2 t, lifting as 1 t - I'm not sure if the PRV has been adjusted or if anything has been put into place to limit this.

I think that for pulling then a safety factor of 2:1 must be allowed, therefore depending on how the winch is set up this could require a strop with a breaking strain of 13 t - so I think that your 2t lifting strop is fine for use for pulling but not lifting.

Our winches are set to pull as near to 14000lbs as possible. As I say I've now found the safety factor for winching gear.Whilst I appreciate everyone has an oppinion I needed industry best practice/ HSE publications to preent to my employer walking in the office with "so and so off the forum reckons.........!!" wouldn't cut the mustard!! . Yes you are right the electricity boards do down rate their winches mine own vehicle had a down rated winch when I bought it off the leccy board. Hydraulic winches are a piece of cake to down rate as you adjust the PRV to blow at a lower pressure.

[wormhole]

Thanks For everyones help, Just been Pm'd a link to here, http://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/pdf/fctg0...ILE/fctg001.pdf which clearly states Winching gear should have a safety factor of 3-5 :1 on page 15. just need to print this off and go into battle on Monday!!

Once again thanks folks.

Matt

I would only quote this if you do work for the forestry comission as this is guidance not law, you really need to be quoting the HSE or LOLER / PUWER / HSWA regulations

[Daan]

Evening folks,

I am after some help to settle a disagreement with my employers, As some of you may know I work for a government department that owns a fleet of Land Rovers a lot of which and certainly the ones we use are fitted with Mechanical PTO Superwinch H14's. These winches are rated at 14000lbs which my maths works out at around 6.25ton or 6250kg approximately.

Now the problem I have is that we are supplied with strops for use with our winches but these are green and rated at 2000kg. Now as I understand it thats a 3rd of the SWL of the winch, In my oppinion it is not safe to continually exceed the SWL of a strop. I have tried to explain this to my employers the answer I get is that the strop is the weak link in the system of pull! er I would rather hope the weak link should be the clutch in the PTO drop box? I find it really hard to understand the strop is a weak link if this breaks we have 30meters of high tensile steel cable going AWOL!!

Does anybody have any thoughts on this I am sure you will but what I am really after is some cast iron proof what we are doing isn't particularly safe, IE can any one please point me to a link to a section of the LOLER regs or H&S @ Work act??? I need to show them evidence.

I seem to remember that lifting gear has a safety factor of 7:1 so a 2000kg sling shouldn't break till 14000kg, can anyone tell me what the safety factor for winch tackle should be? Because as I see it we are using a system with a safety factor of 2:1???

Have I explained this ok does it make any sense???????

Any thoughts gratefully recieved

Cheers

Matt

I uderstand the point, but what are you actually doing with the winch to need that pulling power? 6 tons of pulling, that is lifting 3 landrovers in the air. I think that is a lot of pullingpower for one winch. As you say, the clutch should (and will) slip before anything breaks. My clutch did slip with little torque applied, even after max adjustment. I ended up locking it solid to prevent this problem.

Daan

[madmatt]

I uderstand the point, but what are you actually doing with the winch to need that pulling power? 6 tons of pulling, that is lifting 3 landrovers in the air. I think that is a lot of pullingpower for one winch. As you say, the clutch should (and will) slip before anything breaks. My clutch did slip with little torque applied, even after max adjustment. I ended up locking it solid to prevent this problem.

Daan

Daan,

I'd rather not tell you what we do on an open forum as it will give out who my employers are and I don't want that, email @ matt coley@ntlworld.com if you want to know more. 2 tons is a light Land Rover ours tip the bridges at well over 3 fully kitted and its easy to stop them sliding with a big set of wheel chocks.

[western]

LOLER regs don't apply to winching [only if the load leaves the ground]

[honitonhobbit]

Ralph

Certain parts of LOLER do apply hence there reference in the only HSE approved winching course - but it's only very small exerts

Matt if your employers have failed to put you on an approved training course then they are at fault but you need to rasie this with them and with HSE. An approved course would have covered your question.

[white90]

they'll probably fire you for asking though

[BoatBuoy]

If you are thinking of the Government Organisation that makes you wear green t-shirts and drive white landies then you need to grasp this... there are some battles you can win (those from local management) but those that are decreed by national process are just not worth the fight.

[western]

Ralph

Certain parts of LOLER do apply hence there reference in the only HSE approved winching course - but it's only very small exerts

Matt if your employers have failed to put you on an approved training course then they are at fault but you need to rasie this with them and with HSE. An approved course would have covered your question.

OK, I didn't know about the HSE course.

[jules]

Are you CPCS Slinger trained

if your not your braking the law anyway by using it.

Your not trained in the use of work equipment ie the tackel,strops, chains and shackles.

Also you would be able to do the calcs to work out which strops and tackle you need.

I'm a CPCS Lifting Supervisor the regs are changing all the time.

The Construction industry kills at least one worker so the H&S on site is far more advanced than any other industry, Period

As Cranes have been falling over and a member of the public killed this time the press has jumped on the band wagon and the safety that is associated with lifting equipment and training is increasing all the time.

PUWER is the one if your not trained in the use of the winch accessories you can't use them at work at all don't even bother arguing because your wrong the Lantra Training Will not cover the checking procedures and the strength need calcs for the lifting tackle.

All this only covers while AT WORK you con do what you like in your own time.

Although the winch is not doing lifting operations you are use lifting equipment.

The 3t strop is not taking into account the suction loading of the truck stuck in mud for one example

[David_LLAMA4x4]

It has been a long time now ( 15 years )since we sold our family business and got out of mobile crane hire but even back then the Health and Safety rules were getting harder and harder to abide by if you wanted to complete a job!

Having said that a lot ( most ? ) of their rules are in place for a good reason 1 death or injury in a workplace is too many.

What, I am sure, has added to these accidents is that cranes today are made to a spec and no more - the older cranes were made with a much bigger 'overlifting' factor engineered in and so did leave themselves open to abuse but ccould also stand a bit of misuse occasionally.

In my day lifting was rated at a 5:1 ration ( IIRC ) and things used for lifting had to be rated for lifting ie. you couldn't put a line pull vertically and call it a lift, you had to start with a lifting device.

There was some talk aswell of making any 'pull' up a more than 20 degree slope becoming a lift with all of its implications!! Making an offroad recovery legally a lift!

Whilst this is an AT WORK thing you need to remember some recreational offroaders are actually at work!! The organiser of a fun day is at work. so is a person charging for instruction, and so ( slightly grey ) is a volunteer marshall who has undertaken a responsibility and a duty of care commitment.

To be honest most of what we do could come under HSE juristiction if they wanted it to so the best thing we can do is keep them out of the sport by making sure we do things properl ourselves 'cos if they get involved the losing of green lanes and available sites will be irrelaveny compared to how quick they stop the fun!

David

[jules]

It has been a long time now ( 15 years )since we sold our family business and got out of mobile crane hire but even back then the Health and Safety rules were getting harder and harder to abide by if you wanted to complete a job!

Having said that a lot ( most ? ) of their rules are in place for a good reason 1 death or injury in a workplace is too many.

What, I am sure, has added to these accidents is that cranes today are made to a spec and no more - the older cranes were made with a much bigger 'overlifting' factor engineered in and so did leave themselves open to abuse but ccould also stand a bit of misuse occasionally.

In my day lifting was rated at a 5:1 ration ( IIRC ) and things used for lifting had to be rated for lifting ie. you couldn't put a line pull vertically and call it a lift, you had to start with a lifting device.

There was some talk aswell of making any 'pull' up a more than 20 degree slope becoming a lift with all of its implications!! Making an offroad recovery legally a lift!

Whilst this is an AT WORK thing you need to remember some recreational offroaders are actually at work!! The organiser of a fun day is at work. so is a person charging for instruction, and so ( slightly grey ) is a volunteer marshall who has undertaken a responsibility and a duty of care commitment.

To be honest most of what we do could come under HSE juristiction if they wanted it to so the best thing we can do is keep them out of the sport by making sure we do things properl ourselves 'cos if they get involved the losing of green lanes and available sites will be irrelaveny compared to how quick they stop the fun!

David

Spot on Dave

the main thing if we can keep it safe and easy to stay safe,

and draw as little attention to the safety side as possible then the HSE will leave the sport well alone.

basically try not to kill and or injure each other we will be left alone and the play days and challenge events will still happen if not the HSE and insurers will bring everything to a grinding halt.

[GBMUD]

they'll probably fire you for asking though

It would be illegal to fire anyone for drawing attention to unsafe practice - or even for refusing to continue doing it.

Chris

[madmatt]

Are you CPCS Slinger trained

if your not your braking the law anyway by using it.

Your not trained in the use of work equipment ie the tackel,strops, chains and shackles.

Also you would be able to do the calcs to work out which strops and tackle you need.

I'm a CPCS Lifting Supervisor the regs are changing all the time.

The Construction industry kills at least one worker so the H&S on site is far more advanced than any other industry, Period

As Cranes have been falling over and a member of the public killed this time the press has jumped on the band wagon and the safety that is associated with lifting equipment and training is increasing all the time.

PUWER is the one if your not trained in the use of the winch accessories you can't use them at work at all don't even bother arguing because your wrong the Lantra Training Will not cover the checking procedures and the strength need calcs for the lifting tackle.

All this only covers while AT WORK you con do what you like in your own time.

Although the winch is not doing lifting operations you are use lifting equipment.

The 3t strop is not taking into account the suction loading of the truck stuck in mud for one example

Jules,

Are you saying that too use winching equipment at work we have to be CPCS slinger signaller qualified?? We all have attended Lantra's Vehicle Mounted winching Course that covered safe use of etc. No way did it go into the detail of the 4 day slinger signaller course. also do you mind me asking iuf this is your interpretation of the regulations or can you point me to a piece of Litretiture that states all employees using winching equipment must be Slinger Signaller to CPCS standards??

We DO NOT use the winches for any lifting operations full stop. strictly pulling and all our kit is marked as winching, and non of work is in the Construction Industry.

I won't get fired for asking questions, and its regional not national level I'll be asking at.

With referance to doing things properly away from work, I am not worried about this as with my Hydraulic winch I have strops and chains with a SWL well in excess of the maximum rated line pull of my winch.

Matt

[honitonhobbit]

Matt

Jules is right if you are working on a building construction site - however that's the only place CPCS has any place/credence AND it's still not compulsory for all trades thanks to a failure by the CPCS guys to get off thier arses! CPCS is just another way to flog money out of the 'Trades', just like CITB etc etc

Your Lantra course should have been 'Health and Safety & Risk Management in Vehicle Mounted Winching' - who ran it and where?