Booms raised on bucket trucks when not used ?

It may be an insurance industry requirement too. Kid falls out and sues, insurance may say sorry not covered.

 

20 years as an arborist-a few reasons we left the booms up. Like said, good place to store stuff to keep from getting stolen, usually had my saw or my stick saw in the bucket. Drift testing. Or sheer laziness, the locking system on a lot of bucket trucks consists of raising the boom, then the box, and sliding pins through the doors, dropping the box back down would make the pins inaccessible. Leaving the boom up meant you didn’t have to raise it again the next morning when unpinning.

 

I drove by one of those lift rental places that had probably 100 of those things sticking up in the air while the weather guy on the radio was talking about how bad the storm was going to get, hail, extreme wind, tornadoes, etc.

I would have liked to have a camera set up to see what ended up happening.

Imagine the dude getting called in to work to bring all 100 of those things down for a storm.

 

I texted a freind that's a retired lineman
He texted back it prevents moisture build up in the boom.

 

That sounds like the least believable reason out of all of the responses. I am completely ignorant of the operation of anything hydraulic so I am not an authority on the subject whatsoever. But...... aren't hydraulic systems a closed system? How would being raised or lowered affect moisture intrusion? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Checking for leak down issues, the only place I have noticed this is rental yards or equipment. I have seen manlifts left raised in store lots, seems kind of dangerous to me. Safe storage is always down properly stowed no pressure in the system.

 

the hydraulics are inside the boom sections with a cable system to magnify the extension of the cylinder, the boom sections enclosing it all are not water tight.

 

Thank you. Although I am "old", I'll never be too old to learn!

 

Boom lifts are a different animal. They take up a lot of real estate (especially the 100' plus ones). Putting the platform in the air frees up a lot of extra room to get around the yard.