Heavy battery lifting

APS, of Andover, Hampshire, provides solutions for customers’ site issues, sales, and services for uninterruptable power supply (UPS) electronic devices for the power protection industry. The company is currently undertaking a contract to replace 42 tonnes of batteries and redesign two complete battery/UPS rooms for the London headquarters of a global banking organisation.

“As soon as I saw the job, I knew I would want one of Lift Safe’s specially made lifters,” says Colin Smith, DC Battery Specialist at APS, who co-designed the site-specific lifter with Lift Safe and the project works on site.

The challenge

The battery rooms at the London location contains 738 batteries, each weighing 54kg, stored on five levels on six open racks up to 2.6 metres high.

The job entails lifting out the old batteries one at a time, so that they can be put onto a trolley by two people at floor level. This will be done 500+ times over the next 17 weeks of this project. Once all 738 batteries have been lifted down, APS will install 720 of a different type of battery, each weighting 57kg. 

The risks of fatal consequences if a heavy battery were dropped from height are obvious. There are also threats to the health and safety of workers from ineffective and unsafe manual handling practices.

The solution

Lift Safe supplied APS with a bespoke battery-operated 90kg lifter with an extended mast so that the batteries could be easily reached for removal and reinstallation. The lifter also has a specially-designed reversible roller-edged lifting platform, enabling the battery to be easily loaded onto and off the platform. 

“Lift Safe’s equipment has provided many benefits,” says Colin. “It has improved safety; it takes away all the effort, and allows our engineers to work for longer without getting too tired and burning themselves out. It saves a lot of time and eliminates the ever-present risks associated with manual handling, such as musculoskeletal disorders and repetitive strain injuries. It also looks very professional on site, so people can see we are doing the job properly. The lift will pay for itself in the long run, as we will use it on other jobs when this one has finished.”

“Lift Safe is a lovely company to work with and very easy to deal with, coming to us to demonstrate the lifter and discuss the bespoke design. We simply told them what the lift needed to do and they customised it to meet our needs perfectly.”

Lift Safe’s technical manager David Winterbottom added: “APS needed a robust, stable lifter that was light and modular, so their engineers could easily disassemble and reassemble on site, and had a high lift capability. The lifter needed to do a minimum of 125 lifts over an eight-hour working day on one charge, so Lift Safe included a heavy duty battery pack and spare batteries back up.

“This lifter’s geared spindle drive lifting mast is much more robust that the usual chain and belt drive lifting masts and has the added advantage of an anti-slip clutch braking system, to prevent load slip in the case of overloading.”