Lifting, moving and placing loads / earthmoving and excavation operations
This domain covers planned lifting and productive excavation: knowing the weight, the geometry, the ground and the exclusion zone, and knowing when the lift should not happen.
Core rules
- LOLER 1998 reg. 8 - every lifting operation must be planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely. A lift plan is a document, not a conversation.
- Establish the load: weight from the manufacturer's plate or documentation, plus rigging (slings, shackles, quick hitch) and the centre of gravity. Never estimate a heavy fabricated item by eye.
- Compare actual radius to the chart at the point of lift, including boom height and slew position. Derate for soft ground, slopes and outrigger spread; use mats where bearing pressure demands it.
- Excavators lift only with a certified lifting point and a machine lifting chart; hose-burst check valves are required for lifting duty.
- Exclusion zone: nobody under a suspended load, tag lines to control rotation, one nominated signaller, load landed on level, verified ground, with a landing plan.
- Excavation: spoil set back at least 1 m, ladders for access and egress (typically no more than 25 m apart), competent-person inspection of the excavation at the start of each shift and after any event, stop blocks for vehicles reversing to an edge.
Worked example
A chamber ring weighs 2.9 t; the sling set is 80 kg and the quick hitch 150 kg, so the hook load is 3.13 t. At 4.5 m radius on level ground the chart shows 3.2 t, but the machine is on a 1:10 slope over recently backfilled ground. You do not lift: you reposition onto firm level ground closer to the chamber. Reasoning: capacity margin is under 3 per cent at best, and slope and ground conditions remove it entirely.
Traps that cost marks
- Forgetting rigging and quick-hitch weight in the load calculation.
- Lifting over a trench edge or live service because the load path is shorter.
- Using an excavator as a crane without a certified lifting point and chart.