All That You Need To Know About Tandem Lifts

Author: Sahil Sharma

What would have to be one of the most commonly used pieces of machinery at construction sites? You must be thinking of a crane. Have you ever come across a construction site which does not use a crane? The answer would be no. Now what could be better than a single crane? Why, two cranes put together. Now that is what you usually mean by tandem lifts. A tandem lift would consist of two such cranes or any other similar lifting equipment actually, working simultaneously to elevate or lower heavy goods. All That You Need To Know About Tandem Lifts

Now while a crane can only lift heavy goods and raw materials up to a certain weight, a tandem lift would be greatly widening your scope. As a matter of fact, even ships and other such items, which weigh at least a few thousand pounds, can be lifted with the help of tandem lifts since this would be combining the force of two cranes.

Imagine that! Now usually, there are two types of tandem lifts that are commonly utilized- equalized and unequalized. While the nomenclature should give you an idea about them let’s go into more details about them -

  • Equalized tandem lifts - An equalized tandem lift would consist of the load being supported with the help of a pin and a link right in the center of your equalizer beam. Also, both of your crane hooks will then be attached to the ends of the equalizer beam.
  • Unequalized tandem lift - In this particular case, the crane hooks are directly connected to your load. Here, there is no question of hooks.

Things To Keep In Mind While Using Tandem Lifts

Now if irrespective of whether you are a tandem lifts manufacturer or user, there are some things that.you need to keep in mind. They are -

  • Tandem lifts are a complicated and highly technical piece of machinery. It consists of a large number of parts and that makes it pretty intricate and even problematic at times. Naturally, only those people who have had sufficient training and are skilled enough should be using it.
  • The person who would be operating the tandem lift needs to have a sound knowledge of each aspect of the tandem lift; that would include crane positioning, rigging, load movement and load transfer, lift sequence, clearing obstructions, environmental considerations and so on.
  • When you are loading the tandem lift, make sure you get your angles right. To get accurate angles, you should use an LMI or load moment indicator.