Protecting Your Pallet Truck During The Winter
Pallet trucks are fantastic workhorses. They are used over and over, constantly moving, always working. And they can last for a long time if they are looked after properly. This is why it is important to keep your pallet trucks as protected as possible during the winter months; wet and cold conditions can really affect the performance of your truck.
Why Do It?
Pallet trucks – particularly manual ones – aren’t prohibitively expensive. If one stops working, then businesses can easily buy another. So why bother ensuring that the ones you have keep working? Well, no one wants to spend money unnecessarily, and that’s especially true in business. Plus, if your pallet truck is out of action, you will be losing precious time while you wait for it to either be repaired, or for another one to arrive.
What To Do
One of the best ways to ensure that your truck is in peak working condition is to check it every day. A quick daily maintenance routine that looks at the tyres, the lifting mechanism, and the steering column will show up any problems before they get any bigger, meaning that they are much easier, quicker, and cheaper to fix.
Check the general condition of the pallet truck – if it has lights and brakes they need to be checked too. Make a check sheet that every employee can use so that it is clear which trucks have been checked, when, and by whom.
Accidental damage is something that happens to pallet trucks more in the winter. Why? The first reason is the lighting level. If they are used outside then there is far less daylight in the winter than in the summer – and what there is has a much lower quality. So catching the truck on corners and curbs, knocking it into pallets and obstacles, and crashes in general can all affect the way a truck works. Having the right kind of lighting in your loading bay or yard can reduce these accidents and keep your truck in optimum condition.
Winter weather brings with it fallen leaves and mud. These can be tracked into the warehouse easily, and that can cause problems for the pallet truck. Mechanisms can get jammed, and the truck can skid more easily. Having mats down by entrances and exits and requiring all staff to wipe their feet and check their shoes will cut down on this problem.