Imagine that a chain hoist that could lift a tonne with ease. Imagine that it could also lift heavier loads with not much more effort – though admittedly slightly more slowly. Imagine further that hoist was portable, and so light that it could be attached to any convenient overhead mounting singlehanded. Imagine that you could take it with you anywhere.
It is rugged, so it can withstand harsh conditions of storm, wind, rain, up to and including flood. On top of that it doesn’t even cost very much. And, more extraordinary still, it does not need a power source.
All of that sounds pretty extraordinary, high-tech and futuristic. It isn’t. It has been around in various forms for a couple of thousand years or more – the manual chain hoist. It goes under other names as well: it is also known as a block-and-tackle hoist or a chain block. It, of course, predates electric chain hoists, pneumatic chain hoists and hydraulic chain hoists. There are a few of those, though they are not common. And the combination of advantages listed earlier are as true today as they ever were and are unique to them: no powered hoist can claim them all. Which means that the manual chain hoist is as useful today as it ever was. There are many applications where it remains far more useful, convenient and efficient than any electric or other hoist.
Of course, manual hoists do actually have a power source – the human operator. The average person can exert a downward pull of somewhere between 18kg and 35kg. The gearing inside the hoist gives a mechanical advantage. Gear ratios of 10:1 and 20:1 are typical on a mid-range capacity hoist; multiple chain-falls can increase the mechanical advantage further. The end result is that a single human being with a manual hoist can lift a load of many tonnes.
The weight of the chain – there is more of it to be lifted at the start of the operation than at the top of the lift – and frictional losses slightly complicate the maths. As a typical example, the Industrial TRC-0050 0.5 tonne lifting capacity hoist from Northumberland-based Tiger Lifting requires 21kg effort to lift the full half-tonne capacity load; the five tonne-capacity TRC-0500 model requires 37kg effort to lift its maximum weight.
Gaining the advantage
Nothing in life is for free, however. A small force lifting a large load must move a correspondingly greater distance: the operator has to pull more metres of chain through his hands. And that in turn takes a correspondingly longer time. Even so, some very high-capacity chain blocks are available. Harrington Hoist’s CB range, for example, which is their rugged, industrial-duty design, is available in capacities from 0.5t up to 100t – which is a remarkable load to be lifted by manpower alone. Other manufacturers can also supply that capacity, either off the shelf or by special order. A main application, say Chinese manufacturers Dawson Group, is in shipbuilding. Another potential application is on offshore oil rigs, where a cable for electric power might not be easily or safely available.
For most manual chain hoist loads, however, with rather saner capacities lifting speeds are perfectly adequate, and any slight disadvantage is more than outweighed by all the advantages of independence from an electric or pneumatic power source.
Their simplicity means that they can easily be made spark-resistant for use in hazardous atmospheres; and freedom from an outside power source is almost a necessity for one application: as a safety back-up system for when external power is down. A manual chain block can operate vital lifts in such emergencies.
A typical example of everyday use is vehicle repair shop work. A typical car engine might weigh 250kg. It is too heavy for one person to lift; as well as ungainly and awkwardly placed. It does lie happily in the ideal capacity range for small manual hoists though. For removing an engine from a chassis a manual hoist works just as efficiently and conveniently as an electric one – more so in fact, since there is no trailing cable to step over or watch out for or to uncoil before use and to coil up again afterwards.
There are now variants of the manual hoist – you could call them hybrid designs – that are powered by a cordless electric drill that can be made to grip the spindle; these also would seem to tick all of the above boxes. They are available from, among others, Tiger Lifting with their ETCB Power PRO Hoist, which comes in capacities up to 10t. Tiger suggests that a drill of maximum 2,500rpm be used to operate the unit. Dutch manufacturers Gebuwin have a similar product in the form of their Pulley Man PM300, but that uses wire rope rather than chain. An application they suggest is mounted on a davit on a light pick-up truck, to aid loading and unloading. If the idea seems labour-saving, remember that the drill’s battery still needs to be unplugged, taken to a socket and charger and recharged perhaps overnight – a small task, it is true, but still a tedious one at the end of a working day. And of course, a manual hoist has no running costs whatsoever.
There are, naturally, places where power and automation do have the edge. A production line is repetitive; lifting tasks there can be easily and cheaply powered and, if required, automated. In contrast, for the small repair shop mentioned above, the lifts are infrequent, each one is different and the expense of automation, and even of a power hoist, would be money thrown away.
Tractel, makers of both powered and manual hoists, put it this way: “Even as automation and powered lifting systems continue to expand, manual hoists will retain their place in the industry. Their independence from power sources, low maintenance and straightforward operation ensure they remain essential for fieldwork and temporary operations.” And they have a rule of thumb: “If the operator’s labour cost outweighs the purchase and running cost of an electric hoist, go electric. Otherwise, manual often wins.”
Hence the wide market and demand for them. The global manual chain hoists market size was valued at $1.2bn in 2024 and is forecast to hit $1.85bn by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 4.9%.
Ratcheting it up a notch
There is a variant of the chain block called the lever hoist or ratchet hoist. It does what it says on the tin: instead of pulling on a chain, which is not very friendly to the hands and in confined spaces perhaps not convenient, you pull down on a lever. A pawl and ratchet system in the housing holds the load-chain in place while you raise the lever (without effort since it is not under load), and then pull it down again for the next increment in lift.
It is important – vital indeed – that the ratchet system does not fail or the pawl slip out of engagement. In that event the load would descend uncontrolled. For that reason, proper maintenance is essential: generally though both chain hoists and lever hoists types are low maintenance compared to powered versions. Tiger Lifting are particularly proud of their patented four-pawl system, which guards still further against the possibility of ratchet failure. Their SS19 lever hoist, unusually, is designed for sub-sea use, initially for the oil and gas industry, and can also be used offshore or in corrosive environments. It is available in capacities from 800kg up to 20t. Design features include one-piece-construction pinion gears and a rotational inertia driven torsion switch brake and freewheeling system. This replaces the rather more usual “push-pull” mechanisms or traditional style “Weston” type brake systems and is designed to protect against ingress of sand and the like, which are otherwise major safety hazards for maritime use.
Indeed, ratchet hoists are much used in ships, boats and other offshore applications large and small as witness the ratchet hoist from Harrington shown in our photograph being used by a Californian sport fisherman to haul oversized bluefin tuna catches into his boat.
Lever hoists have two advantages over chain block hoists. One is portability. We have said that chain hoists are portable. This is certainly true; a pick-up truck can easily carry them. But the length of hand-chain can be awkward to handle in confined spaces and its weight is a drawback. A lever hoist has less chain and a lighter build, so is more easily transportable to a jobsite. This is even more the case with mini hoists, which are specially designed to be lightweight and compact and yet still to pack useful capacity. They are available in both chain block and ratchet forms. Harrington Hoists have their aluminium-bodied LX mini lever hoist, and Tiger and Columbus McKinnon, for example, both have them, in 250kg and 500kg versions. Tiger’s models come with 1.5m lifts as standard but can be chained with longer lifts as required; Columbus Mckinnon’s 602 and 603 mini models have standard lifts of five and 10 feet (1.5m and 3m). The smaller of the CM machines weighs 96oz (2.7kg). Such hoists can be carried in a carry bag and shoulder strap, also available from the manufacturers; so an operative, say an overhead line worker or an underground mine engineer, can easily transport the tool to a distant jobsite even on foot.
The second advantage is directional: a chain block is designed for vertical lifts. The chain also needs to be to pulled down vertically. In some confined situations this may not be easy. There are exceptions – or an exception – to this: the Yale 360 has a unique 360° rotating hand chain guide that allows the operator to work from virtually any position, pulling from the side or even from above the load. Capacities up to 10t are available.
A fleeting moment
One application of directional lifting is in fleeting – that is, lifting a load at an angle to the vertical. It is possible with some chain blocks, and indeed is a common maritime application on board ships where, for instance, a component needs to be transported across a lowceilinged engine room: two or more hoists are used and the load is basically swung across the room being transferred to and supported by each of them in turn in the manner of Tarzan swinging through the jungle. This is, however, not a prime function of a chain block, and most need to be deregulated (such as limited to reduced loads) for such applications.
The ratchet hoist, on the other hand, is designed to handle lifts that are angled, or even to pull horizontally – in which application they might be more properly described as working as a winch rather than a hoist; but the difference is perhaps in semantics. Indeed, a study by Columbus Mckinnon in conjunction with the Institute for Product Innovation at the University of Wuppertal, Germany, that included more than 200 voice-of-customer interviews across 10 countries found that in real-life applications lever hoists are more often used for pulling and securing than they are for lifting.
For such applications, therefore, the ratchet hoist is more suitable. Again, though, confined spaces may present problems. There may be no room for the operator to stand (or sit, or, in a very-low-headroom situation, even lie) in a position that is ergonomically sound for pulling on the lever without undue muscle contortions and stress.
CM, under their brand Yale, have remedied that by designing a rachet lever hoist called the Yale Ergo 360. The lever has a patent pending on it; it has a hinged piece at the end that folds out to become a crank handle. The lever thus transforms into a crank, so instead of repeated up-and-down arm movements the operator can simply wind continuously; it is ergonomic as well as safe, and Columbus McKinnon say that it lets the operator work up to 12 times faster and with as much as 30% less pull force than with conventional ratchet lever tools. The Ergo 360 is available in capacities from 750kg to 9,000kg.
That last capacity, of 9t, is not exactly small. Even so, lever hoists, unlike chain hoists, are not designed for extremely heavy loads. Their strength is in precision and versatility rather than sheer brute lifting power. Tractel make both species: their manual ones, called Tralift, come in capacities from 0.25t to 20t; their Bravo lever hoists from 0.25t to 9t. “It is worth pointing out,” they say, “that chain hoists are workhorses but not exactly travel-friendly. They’re built for strength, not for portability, and are better suited to fixed or semi-permanent lifting stations – so for portability, go for lever hoist.”
“Manual hoists don’t stay relevant because they are glamorous,” says Tractel. “They stay relevant because they are cheap, they are portable – and they don’t need an electric plug.”
CHAIN HOIST SLUICE
For a recent utilities project for Thames Water, Bramley Engineering used a William Hackett manual chain block as part of a fixed gantry lifting solution.
The gantry is to support penstock (sluice) operation and recovery at a sewage treatment works. The aim was to ensure the penstock could still be lifted safely in the event of an actuator failure; a permanent, on-site solution was required.
Bramley chose a William Hackett WH SS C4 QP Corrosion Protected Combined Chain Hoist and Trolley to form the manual lifting element of the system. Supplied as a complete assembled unit, the top hook is replaced by a bespoke hanging plate that allows the bars on the trolley to suspend the hoist, so reducing headroom. The hoist provides a dependable and straightforward method of lifting that can be used immediately if the hydraulic actuator goes out of service. Hoist and trolley are corrosion protected to provide longer life performance in exposed and corrosive applications, with a marine paint surface coating in accordance with ISO 12944; the trolley wheels, bars, spacers and nuts are standardised to ISO 17668:2016.
Because Willliam Hackett were involved early in the process, they were able to support equipment selection and suitability, ensuring the chain hoist specification matched the operational requirement and integrated cleanly with the gantry design. The end result is a dependable method to lift the penstock during actuator failure, reduced reliance on mobile crane call-outs and temporary lifting arrangements and a practical, compliant lifting arrangement that site teams can rely on when it matters.
