What Do I Need To Know About Buying Second-Hand Equipment?

You should know that any second-hand equipment bought for use at work might not be safe. Beware of the intended use of the equipment and get the operator’s handbook, especially for complex machines such as potato harvesters, telescopic handlers, and tractors.

Here is a checklist of what to look for when buying industrial parts. With this checklist, you should be able to identify any of the common defects on agricultural machines.

•           Are there any defective or missing guards for the dangerous parts such as chopping mechanisms, cutters, pulleys, belts, rotating shafts or sprockets?

•           Are there defective or missing stand-off guards for tines, pick-ups or blades?

•           Are the guard fastenings unsuitable or poorly maintained especially those covering power transmission parts such as PTO shafts?

•           Are the safety devices such as emergency stops damaged or working poorly?

•           Are the controls and their functions poorly labelled?

•           Is there lack of proper access to the operator’s position?

•           Are the instructions, decals and warning signs hard to read or poorly translated in foreign languages?

Some of the health and safety concerns on agricultural machinery include the following.

•           Tractors with damaged/missing cabs or those lacking rollover protective structures

•           Potato harvesters with poorly guarded haulm and cleaning rollers

•           Power harrows with damaged, inadequate or missing stand-off guards

•           Sprayers lacking chemical induction systems, protective clothing lockers or emergency clean water containers

Harper Harrison

Harper Harrison is a reporter for The Hear UP. Harper got an internship at the NPR and worked as a reporter and producer. harper has also worked as a reporter for the Medium. Harper covers health and science for The Hear UP.