Crawler spider booms have proved their worth like never before in 2021 and that trend is likely to accelerate in 2022.
Hinowa crawler spider booms, also called compact spider lifts, have enjoyed strong sales in 2021 as more access rental companies and end-users see their distinct advantages.
Access Platform Sales, the UK and Ireland distributor for Hinowa spider platforms, is confident their popularity will be sustained in 2022 thanks to the solutions they provide for major working at height challenges.
Highly compact
Hinowa crawler spider booms are designed to be lightweight and highly compact when stowed for transportation.
This means they are easy to transport to worksites. For example, the Hinowa Lightlift 20.10 Performance IIIS delivers 20.5m of working height but can be towed on a compact 3.5t trailer by a van or 4x4 car.
Once at worksites, spider cherry pickers can be moved on their rubber tracks through narrow and relatively low gaps. They also easily handle uneven and muddy ground.
Equally, the compact spider lifts are ideal for moving across low load bearing surfaces like external paved areas and paths, and internal tiled surfaces.
Self-levelling
Once they have arrived at the worksite, stabilising outriggers can quickly be deployed to create a firm and safe platform.
In the case of Hinowa crawler spider booms, this set up and levelling process is achieved automatically with one touch of a button, making the process of getting ready to work at height faster and safer.
Crawler spider booms are, therefore, essential for working in many locations away from roads or hard surfaces, in confined spaces or across low load-bearing ground.
Here are six other reasons APS believes Hinowa spider boom lifts are going to be in big demand in 2022.
Building inspections
There has been a growing need for inspections and surveys of high rise properties in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
This trend is likely to accelerate, not least because building fire regulations were tightened in August 2021.
Property owners need to be sure of the structural and fire safety standards of their properties. The fastest way to do this is to carry out an external inspection from an access platform.
In many cases, using Hinowa crawler spider boom will be the easiest and most cost-effective way to do this due to access challenges around some high-rise buildings.
Hinowa spider platforms have working heights ranging right up to the 32.5m provided by the Hinowa Lightlift 33.17 so can be used to survey buildings up to 10 storeys in height.
Sustainable working
Crawler spider booms are often the most sustainable working at height solution in complicated environments – a capability that will be in increasing demand in 2022.
They allow operatives to work at height with least effort, least disruption and in greatest safety. This defines the essence of sustainability in its broadest sense.
Hinowa Lightlift Performance platforms are articulating boom lifts. This makes them ideal for working above and around obstacles, for example low buildings in external environments and structures like staircases inside buildings.
APS can also supply Hinowa crawler spider lifts with all-electric lithium battery power or hybrid platforms with both lithium batteries and low-emission diesel engines.
This creates options to work at height in zero-fumes and low-noise environments, for example around schools, hospitals and care homes, using a platform that has a small as possible carbon footprint.
Tree management
Hinowa crawler boom lifts are the platform of choice for many tree surgeons because of their exceptional working height and reach, combined with excellent rough terrain capabilities.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has made it clear it wants arboricultural professionals to carry out more of their work from platforms rather than using rope climbing because of the clear safety benefits.
This trend, combined with the growing impact of Ash dieback, a disease causing devastating damaging to woodlands across the UK, and which makes trees unsafe for rope access, means demand for crawler spider booms to support tree maintenance is likely to grow in 2022.
Complex construction
Construction is one industrial sector least affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, not least because the Government is keen to ensure its investment power keeps people in work.
A trend in construction, especially in inner-city urban areas is the increased density of development sites, as planning authorities allow more intensive use of scarce land.
The upshot if this is that building sites are becoming more congested with access an increasingly critical issue.
The compactness of Hinowa crawler spider booms help solve this problem. They can be moved across congested construction sites quickly and safely to support work like cladding, glass installation and electrical and mechanical fit-out work.
Once in place, their phenomenal reach means Hinowa spider cherry pickers have a very large working envelope, reducing the need for the platform to be relocated.
Smart functionality
Hinowa crawler spider booms also have a range of performance functions that make them easy, safe and highly productive to use. Gone are the days when operatives worried that spider platforms were complicated.
Hinowa spider lifts have smooth and highly responsible proportional controls that allow the basket to be positioned with complete precision.
Clever features like the one button set-up, already mentioned, and one button touch basket lowering and stow, improve safety and productivity.
A twin-speed tracking system gets the platform to worksites more quickly and compressed air and water supply to the basket supports a wide range of tasks when working at height.
New working at height options
As well as the articulating crawler spider booms in the Lightlift range, APS can also now supply two models from Hinowa’s new TeleCrawler telescopic spider lift range.
The Hinowa TeleCrawler13 provides 13m of working height, while the TeleCrawler22, the latest model, reaches up to a maximum 22m of working height.
The telescopic crawler boom lifts are designed to have a particularly small operating footprint and are packed with features designed to make working at height safer, easier and more productive.
For example, when working in constrained space, the TeleCrawler22’s outriggers can be ‘narrow jacked’ on one side.
This creates a footprint the same size as a Hinowa Lightlift 17.75 Performance IIIS articulating boom with no loss of performance when working to the front or the wide-jacked side.
Both the TeleCrawler13 and TeleCrawler22 Lithium have all-electric drive motors. Eliminating hydraulic drive greatly reduces the risk of oil spills, a pollution concern for both indoor and outdoor operation.
They also have a new one-touch ‘go back’ function, available across the TeleCrawler range, that automatically takes the platform back to the previous working position.
The Hinowa TeleCrawler compact spider boom range represents a new concept for the UK spider lift market, more used, as it is, to articulating crawler boom lifts.
However, rental companies and end users who have seen the platforms are impressed by their capabilities, and the advantages the telescopic spider lift design provides, so 2022 could be a big year for the TeleCrawler.
Explore Hinowa in 2022
If you want to find out more about how Hinowa crawler spider booms can help you, or your clients, work at height in 2022, call APS today.
Our expert team will be pleased to share further details about their amazing capabilities and arrange a demonstration. Call 01480 891251.
