Pecontools!

[Arborist]

I think once the HSE and who ever else looked at the case, i was told that the welds had failed due to vibration fatigue but what you say marc is very true you just dont know whats been done with the machine.

[Dean Lofthouse]

Hey up Kev, nice to see your still about.

 

The machine is a Basket RQG18, I wouldn't describe them as cheap italian rubbish though .

 

The RQG18 is around 40K and is a cracking peice of kit, one of the most versatile MEWPs available. I bought it new and it still now has only 400 hrs on the clock and most of them are, while the machine is being used, clocking up the hours even if your stationary in the basket, painting for example.

 

I have had that machine in the most awkward places you can imagine, where no other mewp would dare to venture.

 

The good thing about this machine is the legs can be pulled if you can't quite fit it in somewhere.

 

The day after the accident the Mewp was due to be sat ontop of a 60ft cliff to be used to section down and bring in a 40ft Oak leaning out from the cliff edge at 45 degrees with a £500,000 bungalow right underneath.

 

Doesn't bear thinking about!

 

I would however, have put an anchor point in the tree not on the basket, so the mewp would have gone down without me.

 

Any work I do know I never anchor to the basket always to the tree or if the tree is unfit to a neighbouring tree and use a lockjack with a pulley on the anchor so it feeds through dead easy.

 

The legs on the platform, fully extended, are more or less bomb proof, you could bounce up and down in the basket at full outreach and feel safe. It's when you bring the legs in to tthe second position, the sensors come into play and don't allow you full outreach. That's when you change from relying on mechanical safety to electrical sensor safety and there are far to many electrical components to go wrong, literally thousands.

 

An harness, rope, carabina, and branch. Far less things to go wrong there me thinks.

 

Mewps do have their place, but it is becoming the standard where the HSE would require you to use one wherever possible, that choice should be yours not theirs.

[skyhuck]

I'm fairly sure that in a year or two when enough people have been killed or injured in these contraptions the HSE will start to backtrack and realise the skilled people with rope and harness is one of the safest systems there is IMO

[Marc]

I'm fairly sure that in a year or two when enough people have been killed or injured in these contraptions the HSE will start to backtrack and realise the skilled people with rope and harness is one of the safest systems there is IMO

 

I read a report in a TCIA mags to injuries and deaths in the industry, something like 45+ % struck by falling objects, 30% mewp related, 5% other and only around 10% from rope and harness.

These were stats for tree work in the U.S

 

Most dangerous place to be is on the ground, not that climbing is without potential for having a very bad day.

[zzr1200]

The machine developed an hydraulic fault and tipped from 45ft.

 

Just out of interest what was the hydraulic fault?

[Dean Lofthouse]

We set the machine up and chained it to the ground, then did exactly the same manouver. The machine tipped again.

 

The two rear legs were off the floor and there was still 30bar reading on the digital readout on the leg hydraulic cylinders.

 

The only way this can happen on a double acting ram without the piston slamming out or in, is for there to be an equal pressure on the other side of the piston.

 

The only way that pressure can leak into the front part of two rams at the same time is for the spool block to have a crossover leak somewhere.

 

On this machine, it trips whenever one foot switch trips or two cylinders go below 30bar, it will only then allow you to come back in until the leg pressures go up again.

 

So in effect, the machine thought the legs were still on the floor and not going light, it did trip when the foot switch operated but by then the machine was on its way.

 

The fault is still there and I can set the machine up and get it to do it by sending it out to its full extent on the middle leg settings, then loading the basket, just off the floor with 180kg and the legs go light whilst still measuring 30+ bar whilst the loaded legs pressure goes to ove 120 Bar.

 

The "people" involved tried to blame it on, and I quote "operator error" and then when that didn't work "residual pressure in the cylinders" luckily I know a bit about hydraulics and wasn't fobbed off with that one.