Safety Guide for Loading Dollies and Hand Trucks
Improved efficiency and speed are worthless if the material-handling equipment doesn’t ensure the safety of the people and materials involved. Anywhere you are utilizing material handling equipment, whether you are delivering food and beverages or using one in a warehouse, factory or manufacturing area, safety needs to be the top priority.
Knowing what you will be moving when choosing your material-handling equipment can make it easier to ensure the safety of your product and employees when loading dollies and hand trucks.
Why You Shouldn’t Overload Dollies or Hand Trucks
Dollies and hand trucks have a maximum load capacity. This is something that should not be overlooked. Many businesses will go with the less expensive hand truck or dolly, but neglect to respect its load capacity. This could be a costly mistake. Overloading handling equipment can lead to early fatigue of the equipment and handler—and in the worst cases, catastrophic failure of the operation. During the transport of heavy loads is no time to have the bearings fail or the welds break because it’s stressed from the weight it’s towing.
The Importance of Organizing the Load (stack) for Transport
It is critical that you always put the largest, and heaviest items at the very bottom of the stack. The creates a stable base that then you can load lighter and smaller items as you create the stack. We created the Tilt Brake logo in part to demonstrate the proper way to create a safe stack for the load. You also should NOT have any part of the stack higher than the top of the frame of the truck.
There is variety of hand trucks and dollies for different jobs, and using the right one is important.
Using a hand truck that incorporates a curved frame is ideal if you are moving a barrel or drum because a flat-backed frame could cause the drum to roll when being moved. Conversely having a flat-backed hand truck for boxed loads gives the load more friction across the entire surface. This helps hold it all together when in motion.
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Standard (flat frame) |
Barrell (curved frame) |
Tall (flat frame) |
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Boxes (heavy on bottom, light on top of load) |
Drums (55 gallon max) |
Large, stackable crates like those used by bakeries |
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Heavy bags (like flour) on bottom of load |
Kegs (beer etc.) |
Large boxes that are loaded with light weight cargo |
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Small like bags (like chips) on top of load |
Cylinders (nitrogen etc.) |
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Small buckets (like pickles) on top of load |
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Small crates |
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Load Ratings
After over 2 years of R&D and field testing of Tilt Brake we offer the following safety information and guidelines on Tilt Brake.
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Recommended |
Load Rated |
Tested |
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500 pounds |
700 pounds |
1,000 pounds |
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For the purposes of safety, fatigue, and overall health of the operator, we DO NOT recommend you load more than 500 pounds on Tilt Brake. |
Tilt Brake is rated to carry 700 pounds of cargo. Do NOT load over 700 pounds on Tilt Brake. |
We have tested Tilt Brake moving over 1,000 pounds down a standard truck ramp. No detectable damage to the truck occurred. |