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5 articles
Working height is the easy number to pick. The awkward part is everything between the yard and the ceiling — slab capacity, point loads, lift dimensions and doorways that were sized for a trolley, not a scissor lift. Here's how facilities managers and trades can survey a building before booking anything.
Most MEWP exclusion zones are drawn once, taped down and quietly ignored by lunchtime. This is a practical look at barrier placement, spotters, pedestrian routes and the toolbox-talk wording that makes a drop zone hold up when another trade wants to walk underneath 'just for a minute'.
Everyone checks the machine. Almost nobody checks what's holding it up. A look at point loading, outrigger pad pressure, spreader mats, London clay, made ground and old service ducts — and the checks worth doing before a boom lift goes up.
Some sites simply will not swallow a standard boom lift, and forcing the issue is how frontages get damaged and neighbours get annoyed. Here's how spider lifts, narrow-chassis machines, towers and podium steps stack up against real UK constraints, plus a framework for choosing before you ring the hire desk.
Podium steps, mobile towers and scissor lifts all get you to a ceiling tile under four metres, but they are not interchangeable. A practical comparison for facilities teams who want the choice to follow the task rather than the habit.