MANUAL CHAIN HOIST
PEOPLE POWER
Chain hoists powered by electricity are ubiquitous, but hand-powered versions are very far from obsolete. Julian Champkin reports.
W
e live in an age of power assistance. We do not expect to do anything by hand. For tasks
that involve physical force or effort we expect there to be a machine to do it for us. This is true in the home – everyone who practices DIY has an electric drill and only a true aficionado has a hand-powered drill, though for most jobs they are just as efficient, just as easy and frequently quicker as well, since there is no need to arrange power cables and plug them in. If that’s true in the home, it is even more so
in a factory or work environment. No employer would expect their staff to lift loads repeatedly by hand as a powered hoist would be provided. For very many applications it would be an electric chain-hoist on an overhead track. Would the fully-occupied employee in a modern setting really be expected to use a manually-powered chain hoist, to pull on the chain or on the lever himself to raise a heavy load through their own muscle-power when electric power is almost universally available? Actually, yes. There are applications – even in heavy industry – where the manually- powered chain hoist has advantages. One is that they are reliable. The basic design has most likely been used since Roman times, which gives them more than simply nostalgic charm – it means that the design is clearly fit for purpose. Manual chain hoists are portable. They can be lightweight, in which case they can be taken anywhere and used anywhere, whether there is a power supply or not. Therefore, maintenance crews in the field – linesmen working up poles on telephone wires, for example – find them useful. Mine workers underground can carry a small hoist with them to the furthest reaches of newly excavated tunnels. Stage crews setting up sound stages, in dedicated venues or in green fields at festivals, need to lift lights and speakers. And a
20 | June 2025 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
manual hoist is often the quickest and simplest way to do all that. For the employer, they are simpler than electric hoists and considerably cheaper, by a factor of ten or more. They have far fewer moving parts, so they require much less maintenance – and they hardly ever go wrong and last for a very long time indeed. In an industrial setting, the manual hoist has another, perhaps surprising, advantage over the electric chain hoist – it is precise and accurate in positioning. A load can be set down in an almost-exact alignment, down to a few millimetres, to where it is wanted. The reason comes down to its simplicity – its operation is absolutely intuitive. If the operator wants to lower the load by a fraction, he lowers the hand holding the chain by a fraction and ingrained hand-to-eye coordination sorts out the rest. Compare that with an electric chain host, which is typically controlled by buttons on a pendant. To lower it by a small amount, the operator has to push the button, hold it for just the right time and then release it. There will inevitably be a time lag while the motors start up and stop, it is a dynamic – not a static – system, and to obtain the very finest degree of control takes practice and is sometimes impossible even then. Another situation in which hand-operated hoists may score – or even be a regulatory necessity – is in hazardous environments where electrical power poses unacceptable risks of fire or explosion. Examples are grain silos (where fine dust-particles are particularly flammable) and chemical plants. Having said that, of course many electrically-drive hoists are available in ATEX-compliant versions. So manual chain hoists are holding their own in the workplace, which is not to say that electric chain-hoists are redundant. For repetitive lifts, or where a permanent installation is required, it would be absurd not
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