A rough terrain forklift, built for a site rather than a warehouse floor. It gets pallets off the back of a wagon and across ground that a yard truck would sink into or slide about on.
The moment it becomes worth having is usually the moment a delivery arrives. Bricks, blocks, paving, plasterboard and bagged material all turn up on pallets, and a wagon driver has a tail lift and a pallet truck, not a solution to your muddy access.
Getting it to the job
It needs 1.5m of clear width, so it wants a driveway or a proper site access rather than a domestic gate. It is site plant, and it is sized like it.
More importantly it needs somewhere it can actually work: room to approach a pallet square, room to reverse, and firm enough ground to do both with a load in the air.
The numbers
Forklift specification
Capacity0kg
Width0mm
Hire typeDry hire
Against a side gate
1500mmSide gate 900mm
600mm wider than a standard side gate, so it needs double gates or a drive.
Measure the tightest point of the whole route in, not just the gate. The forklift is one of the machines it fits past.
The rest of the sheet
Getting it there
Collect or delivered
Ring the yard if a figure matters to your job and we will check it against the machine before you travel.
What comes with it
Serviced and tested between every hire
Fuelled and ready to work when you take it
Delivery to site, or collect it from the Etruria yard
Off hire from the day you ring, not the day it comes back
What you will need
An operator who knows what they are doing
Ground firm enough to carry it with a load up
A route wide enough, and somewhere to set the load down
Dry hireCollect or deliveredServiced between hiresSame day when we have it
What people hire it for
The jobs it actually gets used on
Six of the jobs the forklift goes out on most. Keep scrolling and they stack.
01/ 06
Unloading deliveries
Pallets off the wagon and onto site, rather than tipped at the kerb because there was no way of moving them.
02/ 06
Moving materials across site
Blocks, bricks and bagged material to where they are needed rather than where the wagon could reach.
03/ 06
Loading out
Getting waste, materials and equipment back onto a vehicle at the end.
04/ 06
Stacking and storing
Keeping a site tidy by stacking pallets clear of the working area and out of the wet.
05/ 06
Farm and yard handling
Feed, fertiliser, fencing and general yard work on ground that is nothing like a warehouse floor.
06/ 06
Lifting awkward loads
With the right attachment and a proper plan, anything a pallet does not suit.
How it works
Hiring the forklift start to finish
01
Ring, message or send the details
Tell us the job and the dates. We will say whether it is in, when it is back if it is out, and whether it is the right machine for what you are doing.
02
Collect it, or we run it out
Pick it up from the yard on Brick Kiln Lane in Etruria, or we will deliver it to site. If you ring early enough and it is free, it can often go out the same day.
03
Ring when you are done
We off hire it from the day you ring rather than the day it happens to come back, and collect it from site if we delivered it.
Before you book
What you need to know
Forklift, in the yard on Brick Kiln Lane, Etruria.
01
Somebody trained has to drive it
Forklift operation is a trained job and it is the part people underestimate. If nobody on site holds the right ticket, tell us when you ring rather than working it out on the day.
02
Load chart, not optimism
Capacity drops as the forks go up and as the load sits further out. Five tonnes at the bottom, on the heel of the forks, is not five tonnes at full height.
03
Travel with the load low
Forks just clear of the ground and tilted back. A raised load travelling is unstable and it is what tips machines over.
04
Ground before load
Rough terrain means it handles uneven and soft, not that it ignores it. Soft edges, trench lines and fresh backfill all want checking first.
05
Nobody walks under the forks
Or rides on them. Both happen on sites and both go badly.
06
Look before you reverse
Visibility with a load on is poor by definition. Reversing is where site vehicles hit people, so have a plan and a banksman if the area is busy.
From the Google profile
Used Elite for the first time after using other companies before, wow what a breath of fresh air, prompt replies to messages, Cameron dropped the micro digger off and what a credit to the company he is…
Neil Gerrard · Micro digger
Fantastic experience with Elite Plant Hire! I hired a mini digger and a tracked dumper, and both were top-quality, modern, and reliable machines…
The yard is on Brick Kiln Lane in Etruria, a couple of minutes off the A500, so most of Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme is a short run either way. Collect it yourself if you have something that can carry or tow it, or we will deliver it to site and collect it when you are finished.
You need proper training to operate one at work, and it is genuinely not a machine to learn on. Tell us when you ring who is going to be driving it and we will be straight with you.
Up to 5,000kg, but capacity falls as the forks rise and as the load sits further forward. Work to the load chart on the machine rather than the headline figure. Ring the yard for the lift height, which depends on the machine that is free.
It is built for rough terrain rather than a warehouse floor, so a great deal better than a yard truck. It is still a heavy machine though, and soft ground with a load up is where they get stuck.
It needs 1.5m of clear width, and room to manoeuvre once it is there. Tell us about the access when you ring, because getting it in is only useful if it can work when it arrives.
Get it booked
Tell us the job. We will tell you the machine.
Ring the yard and you get a straight answer on whether the forklift is available, when it is back if it is out on hire, and whether it is the right thing for what you are doing. If it is not, we will say so.
