Making Synapses · Bringing Knowledge to Mankind
ConstructionHooks with self-closing latches
When workers stand in the fall zone to hook, guide or connect the beam, the hook is the last thing between the load and their heads. You check every hook on the lift: the right kind of latch, a known safe working load, and nothing homemade.
Free to startScenarios
- Workers hook and guide the beam inside the fall zone.
- The crew is setting wooden trusses.
- A hook has no manufacturer recommendations for its working load.
The steps
- When workers hook, unhook or guide the load in the fall zone, use hooks with self-closing latches or their equivalent.
- Use "J" hooks only for setting wooden trusses, the one exception the rule allows.
- Find each hook's safe working load in the manufacturer's recommendations for that size and type.
- If a hook has no manufacturer recommendations, it must have been tested to twice its intended safe working load before its first use, with the dates and results on record.
- With an alloy steel chain, check the hooks and links are rated at least as much as the chain.
- Never use job or shop hooks, or makeshift fasteners formed from bolts or rods.
- Never load a hook past its safe working load.
Safety rules that stop the station
- In the fall zone, hooks have self-closing latches or their equivalent; "J" hooks only for wooden trusses.
- No job or shop hooks or makeshift fasteners.
To pass
- Every hook on the lift latched and within its safe working load.
- Hooks without manufacturer data used only after the test at twice their safe working load, on record.
- The load rigged by a qualified rigger so it cannot shift.
Official source
Federal · OSHA, 29 CFR 1926.1425 and 1926.251
29 CFR 1926 Subpart CC, Cranes and derricks in construction
GovInfo publishes 29 CFR 1926 Subpart CC free: 1926.1425(c)(2) requires hooks with self-closing latches when workers are in the fall zone, and 1926.251(f) sets the hooks' safe working loads.
Making Synapses is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by OSHA, any crane maker or any certification or training provider. Agency and rule names are named only to describe the content.