What You Need to Consider Before Booking Forklift Hire

When you’re hiring a forklift, there are important factors you need to consider to ensure you’re selecting the right piece of equipment for your needs, including the difference between a forklift and telehandler. 

Here, we outline four important points to take into account before booking a hire and why you should consider renting a forklift. 

How Long Should You Hire For

The level of usage you require is always important to consider when hiring a forklift. Make sure you know how long the job will take, and that you rent a forklift for enough time to cover any unexpected issues or delays. 

It’s generally recommended you hire a forklift for a week over a project’s anticipated end date, to ensure your work is covered in instances of poor weather or delays.

Casual and short-term hires can cater for jobs that arise at a moment’s notice, helping your business maintain its productivity and efficiency, keep costs down, and ensure you keep delivering outstanding customer service to your customers. 

If you need a hire for a longer period, a long-term hire of a well-maintained new or used forklift proves a fantastic solution. Our team will help you consider your needs and determine the equipment that’s right for you.

Weight Limits

Before you hire a forklift, you must consider your anticipated lifting capacity and load requirements, and take accurate measurements. 

If the loads you’ll be lifting are irregularly-shaped or unusual sizes, this will also have an impact on the lifting capacity you’ll need for your job and may require you to hire a forklift attachment or another implement.

Forklifts come with manufacturer’s ratings indicating the maximum load weight they can safely lift. If a forklift lifts a heavier load than stipulated by its manufacturer, you could be left with operator or employee injury, loss of or damage to products, or damage to the forklift requiring technical assistance. 

Reach more about the different types of forklifts you can hire. 

Terrain

When hiring a forklift, you’ll need to make sure you select equipment with the right tyres to cope with the site terrain. Some forklifts are better suited to the smooth flooring of a warehouse, while others work better on rougher terrain.

It’s important you consider the ground surface of your worksite, along with the tyre radius. Forklifts operating inside a warehouse or within a tight space will need to have a sharper turning radius to carry out work more effectively than those required for work on an open, outdoor site. 

Our team will work with you to select the perfect forklift for your site, making sure you have the best equipment needed to carry out your work reliably and safely.

Height Limits

Along with weight limits, you’ll need to take into account the lift height of a forklift. Accuracy is key here. Lift height will affect a forklift’s maximum lift capacity, due to load stability and distribution of weight. 

If a forklift lifts a heavy load higher than recommended, injuries, accidents or damage will be the likely result. It’s therefore important you never push your forklift beyond its limits, and our experts can help you choose a reliable piece of equipment that lifts all your loads with ease.

Get in Touch

If you need equipment hire in Cairns or Townsville, choose Global Hire and Services. 

We provide outstanding equipment hire to local construction, building, mining and manufacturing businesses, with the help of our highly-trained technicians and operators. 

Customer service is our priority, and we offer a wide range of equipment to ensure all our valued clients are completely satisfied. We also offer outstanding maintenance services throughout regional Queensland whenever needed.