Had a joist cable snap on a 90 ton Grove last Tuesday

I was lifting a 12,000 lb HVAC unit near the train yard off Delaware Avenue when I heard that nasty twang. Turned out a worn cable caught on a beam edge, and I had to set the load down quick before it dropped. My boss wants me to run new cables every 30 days now, but that seems like overkill for our jobs. Anyone else ever had a cable shred mid lift and had to argue about maintenance schedules?

3 comments

3 Comments

fisher.thomas12d agoMost Upvoted

Got that same feeling when a strap let go on a smaller lift last spring, and it's wild how fast the "just get it done" turns into "let's spend money on everything." It's like the whole world runs on that pattern now, you know? One bad thing happens and suddenly everybody's knee-jerk reacting instead of thinking about what actually went wrong.

robinp8912d ago

Oh great, so now we're solving physics with a thicker checkbook.

josephbailey12d ago

Oh man, don't get me started. So now we're gonna bolt everything to the ground with ten thousand dollar anchors because one strap popped? Yeah, that makes total sense. Pretty soon we'll be wrapping every lift tower in bubble wrap and naming it a safety upgrade. But hey, blame the strap not the fact that nobody bothered to check it for the last decade. Gotta love the "throw money at the symptom" school of problem solving.