Market Report - Access Products Spills and thrills
There is a growing need for access equipment that prevents fluid leaks or eliminates them entirely. However, can hirers still hit the heights without hydraulics? Dan Jenkins finds out.
F
rom fit-out contractors working above expensive flooring to clean room
applications like data centres, there is an increasing requirement for leak-free access platforms.
It is one of the factors driving demand for manually powered access such as the Navigator series from Metal & Modular. Michael Brown, design director at Metal & Modular says: “We have got machines in nuclear power stations where they cannot have batteries on site, but for other applications the attraction is how quiet our machines are.”
Most manually powered machines are in the low-level access category, which Pop Up Products knows well as it created the first low-level access platform over 15 years ago. The company is now entering the manually powered market with its IQ Lift Pro 7 Active.
“We have seen a move towards lightweight machines which won’t leak on finished flooring,” says Paul Rogers, product and technical director. “Any hydraulic machine has got the potential to leak so you are going to get some seepage somewhere along the way and that is no good for certain applications. Data centres are springing up everywhere and are a key market for this type of product.
Metal & Modular’s ‘Navigator’.
“In data centres they locate a machine every five or ten
Power Towers got into non-powered access good and early. The company is now part of JLG.
metres so that engineers have immediate access and there is no time lost in fetching and positioning a machine. Weight loadings are key as well as to why they choose them over powered machines.”
Non-powered machines are also preferred in locations requiring ‘clean room’ manufacturing. “The stipulations in those environments are very strict, such as no rubber on the machines as that could degrade and special paint jobs,” added Rogers. “Hydraulics does influence buying decisions as there is the possibility of oil particles in the air as well as leaks on the floor. At one site it can take up to a couple of weeks to deep clean a machine before it goes into the clean room and once they are in there, they never leave.”
The pioneer of manually powered access platforms was Power Towers, which is now part of JLG. “We make a range of oil free products that are also self-powered – so
they are fluid free,” said Managing Director Jonathan Dawson. “In the non-powered range, we use stored energy to assist in lifting. This not only allows for the product to be oil free but also negates the need for
20 Executive Hire News - May 2023
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