It is important to understand the limitations of your forklift truck to ensure that you are operating within its capacity and you are not over stretching its abilities. Regardless of whether you are leasing the forklift on a short or long term basis or you in fact own the forklift, knowing how much it can lift safely is essential to ensure you avoid any serious accidents and inflict costly damage to the piece of equipment.
We have highlighted below some key pieces of information that will help you understand your forklift’s capacity:
With each and every piece of materials handling equipment, there will always be a load capacity plate that will inform you as to what the maximum capacity your forklift can carry safely . For example, 2500kg. The value on this data plate, under no circumstances, should be exceeded otherwise you could be in danger of seriously damaging the forklift but more importantly the forklift operative. Although this is a key piece of information, there are parameters that need to be taken into account that can impact this maximum lift capacity figure.
The load centre of any forklift is another factor that needs to be taken into consideration as it too will effect how much your forklift can carry. This information can also be found of the data plate and it details the maximum size of your loads centre of gravity. If these figures are not adhered too, then the forklift truck can quickly become unstable and you could quickly find yourself in a potentially dangerous situation.
On occasion, there is the requirement to add attachments/extensions/tines to your forks in order to lift a larger load. By using attachments, this is likely to alter both the load capacity and load centre so you need to ensure that prior to usage, you have accurately calculated the new load limits. If you cannot find this information, please get in touch with one of our team and we’d be happy to make sure that you are operating the forklift within its limitations and in a safe and controlled manner.
As I’m sure you can appreciate, due to the law of physics, the higher a forklift can lift, the less weight it will be able to manage at its maximum height. Forklifts that have the ability to lift loads to a high level will carry information on their data plate detailing the load capacities. Low-level loads will generally have higher maximum weight limits, whereas higher-level loads will have lighter weight limits.
Please get in touch with our in-house expert engineers if you want any advice regarding your forklift and its capabilities.
Enquiries: 01482 218 151
Email: info@barek.co.uk
