Overheard a foreman say something wild about load charts today

I was standing near the job trailer on a site in Newark and swear I heard this old foreman tell a new guy, 'just eyeball it, the chart's probably wrong anyway.' lol I almost choked on my coffee. Has anyone else run into old timers that just ignore the load chart like it's optional?

2 comments

2 Comments

terryallen1mo ago

You gotta understand, those load charts were made in an office somewhere, not on a muddy jobsite in Newark. Half the time the numbers don't account for the actual condition of the ground or the age of the machine. I've seen guys follow the chart to the letter and still tip over because the ground was soft or the boom had a little slop in it. A good foreman who's been doing this for thirty years knows what his equipment can handle better than some piece of paper that hasn't been updated since the 90s.

emery8791mo ago

Hold up, you're telling me the load charts haven't been updated since the 90s? That's insane. I figured they got revised every few years with new testing or something. No wonder guys get killed on these jobs. If the numbers are literally two decades old, they're basically useless. What good is a chart that doesn't even know what a modern machine can lift? That's like driving a 2024 truck with a map from 1995. I'm honestly shocked that's even legal to still use.