SIR MOIR LOCKHEAD SAFETY AWARD
out; find out why it is overheating.
Is it a mechanical defect? Has the
oil broken down? Is the lift being
used too much – outside of design
parameters? Find the fault; isolate
the fault; deal with the fault. It’s like
the boating adage: if you’re taking on
water, the first thing is to stop the
water coming in; the second thing is
deal with the water that has come in,
and the third thing is to plan how to
stop it from happening again.
“I had a fault on a hydraulic lift
recently where it kept tripping. We
couldn’t understand it initially. It
was a vehicle lift, and the vehicle
was stuck every time. It happened
on three or four occasions. We
eventually realised that it was the
same vehicle every time that tripped
the lift. When we dug deeper, it
transpired that the car was an
ex-police car, and was armoured. It
was so heavy it was tripping the lift.
Sometimes it would, sometimes it
wouldn’t, depending on what was
in it; it was that close to the cusp of
the weight limit. You have to think
outside of the box. What’s going on,
why is this lift doing this?
OLDER LIFTS
“Lift engineers need to be careful
on any lift, but particularly on
older ones. Lifts installed after
1997 are required to be kept up
to date with existing health and
safety requirements, but not those
installed before then. Maintenance
standard BS EN81-80 (Lift upgrades
for existing lifts) categorises more
than 70 potential deficiencies found
on older lifts, by priority. It also
recognised that many lifts still being
operated are over 40 years old, which
was before modern safety standards
came in. That doesn’t necessarily
make them unsafe, but they react
differently in an incident. It is similar
to the fact that a lot of people drive
around in heritage cars that don’t
have air bags.
“The thing with lifts is that you
“If you do something that’s a temporary
thing to overcome a problem, it’s just that;
it’s got to be xed; it can’t be left like that”
are working on top, or underneath,
or inside it even, but you are in a
vulnerable position. The safety rules
are very simple: When you work on a
lift, just in case something happens,
work out in advance where you are
going to go. If you’re in a pit, you’re
under the lift, so know where you can
get into a safe refuge. If you are on
top, know where you can lie down.
Always have a plan, even if there is
no clue that the lift will go wrong. It’s
like having a fire safety plan for home.
A lot of people don’t have one, but
I know how I get out of my house if
there is a fire.
“From the maintenance side, is
that we don’t have enough time to
do what is needed. The contractors
have cut each others’ throats, so
cannot invest enough time on site.
Everything seems to be a rush.
“We’re getting more and more lifts
and escalators, and more innovation.
In simple terms what we need is more
engineers. But we need them to have
been trained, and have experience.
Apprentices need not to be rushed,
but to be high-quality.
“A licensing scheme for lift and
escalator engineers along the lines
of the irtec scheme for vehicle
technicians might result from the
Building Safety Bill. Post-Grenfell,
not just the industry as a whole but
the whole construction world is
looking at competence, and the bill
has a specific section on that.
“Maintenance contractors seem
to have little respect for surveyors:
LOLER examiners, competent
persons, BES members. A lot of
that comes about because the role
of the competent person is to find
problems and report on them. I
suppose it’s a bit like a car owner and
a police officer; if you’re parked on a
double yellow, a PC is not what you
want to be seeing. Still, I would like
to see more respect between the
two groups; I would like to see them
be able to debate. When a surveyor
finds something, and asks, ‘Is this
safe?’ there could be a better forum
for debating the issue.”
Winter 2021 www.operationsengineer.org.uk 23
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