Lifting of manhole covers
It would seem a simple thing, to lift a manhole cover to inspect the contents of an interceptor (Oil/Water Separator). However, sometimes our site operatives can lift 20 to 30 manholes during a days’ work. So the lifting of the covers gives two issues.
Firstly, health and safety.
We have a number of customers in the transport and logistics sector. This means that the covers are heavy duty, normally D400 class. It also means that some covers will have been driven over by a tractor, trailer or a double decker bus many times a day over a long period of time. A one person lift is not advisable (or even two persons). To enable easy, safe lifting of these lids we invested in the Chinook Manhole Cover lifter from Mustang Tools, details of this bit of kit were posted some time back.
Secondly, actually breaking the seals on the lids.
We recently started working for a company to undertake the consent to discharge sampling and testing for all of their sites. Whilst the sites were being cleansed by a tankering company on a regular basis, some of the lids had not been moved in many years. The result being the seal on the lid to the surround was virtually unbreakable in a couple of cases. Another piece of kit we purchased from Mustang Tools comes in handy at that point.
But this does raise another point that we have made to some customers. If personnel from water authorities or the EA visit site, they would normally expect safe and easy access to inspect the treatment assets.
Inspection and maintenance of the manhole covers and frames on a regular basis is definitely advised.