Blocking and Cribbing
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Blocking and Cribbing

Learn blocking and cribbing safety principles for heavy equipment and understand how those principles are applied.

UL PureSafety
Updated Sep 11, 2018

Servicing heavy equipment can be challenging. Heavy equipment is often large, uniquely shaped and impractical to move from the field for service work. Much service work requires the use of lifting tools such as hydraulic jacks, cranes and truck hoists. Because these lifting tools are used so frequently and are usually reliable, you may be lulled into forgetting that any lifting tool can potentially fail. But if you happened to be under a load during such a failure, chances are you would be injured or killed. That is why raised heavy equipment must be properly blocked or cribbed. This lesson is designed to teach general blocking and cribbing safety principles and demonstrate how those principles are applied in various common blocking and cribbing procedures.