Drum Carriers & Dumpers Are Vital for Many Businesses

Many businesses utilize 55- and 30-gallon steel, plastic, or fiber drums that do an excellent job of safely storing various types of liquid or solid food products as well as a wide variety of chemicals. The efficient lifting, positioning, and transporting of these drums is vital for several important reasons. Please read the following article to learn these reasons and to become better informed about available high-quality equipment that can enable the drum handling part of your business to function with peak cost-effectiveness.

Drums serve as excellent containers for a wide variety of both liquid and solid products. Due partly to their significant capacities – 30 gallons and, much more often used, 55 gallons – it is vital that they be maneuvered with the highest care possible and with the most efficient equipment available.

Mishaps involving drums are, unfortunately, not infrequent, and the spillage that can result often proves costly. While spillage of any drum contents results in the dollars-cost loss of the product spilled, the spillage of corrosive chemicals can result in more costly damage to the area where the spill occurred, and in some cases, to nearby equipment that the spilled chemicals came into contact with. A drum spill involving a chemical that can quickly release air-borne toxins, clearly, can potentially become a far greater problem.

Fortunately, there are a wide variety of available drum dumpers, positioners, and carriers that are well made, highly efficient, and extremely durable. All have been designed with the avoidance of spillage and damage to drums keenly in mind. Some have been designed for businesses in which drum maneuvering is relatively minimal, while many others have been designed for business in which the positioning and transporting of drums is more constant and often on a large scale.

For businesses with material handling needs for which drum maneuvering occurs regularly but on a small scale, quality, simple devices such as portable drum jacks and low-profile drum caddies allow one worker to safely and efficiently transport a single drum at a time. If your businesses drum maneuvering takes place on a somewhat more often scale, obtaining an economical mechanical drum transporter may well be the more cost-effective choice.

For the many businesses that operate large factories or distribution centers involving the transportation and dispensing of drums on regular, larger-scale timetables, more highly mechanized drums carriers and dumpers are usually the optimum choices.

Mechanized drum dumpers raise, rotate, tilt, and transport fully loaded drums. To aid the avoidance of spillage, the vast majority of these carriers are designed to transport drums in the upright position. As a general rule of thumb, drums are not placed for any length of time in the horizontal position until plans call for their contents to either be partially drained or fully dispensed.

Well-designed drum dumpers and rotators can operate by different means, all with high efficiency. Some are designed for use with a fork truck; others operate independently of other machinery. Drum carriers, in addition to efficiently transporting drums, easily move the drums from the vertical to the horizontal position and vice versa. Drum rotators and hydraulic drum stackers can rotate drums up to a full 360 degrees for maximum maneuverability of the drums.

Drum dumpers are available in both stationary and portable models, depending on your needs. Very often, the dumpers of choice are those designed to work with both 55- and 30-gallon drums and with drums made of steel, plastic, or fiber. Another frequently important drum dumper feature is the capability to dispense drums at various heights. Well-designed dumpers can easily be operated and have controls that are simple to use.   

Whatever your businesses drum transporting, positioning, and dispensing requirements may be there are many excellent choices of high-quality equipment available to suit your needs.

Beacon Industries is a world-class provider of Material Handling Equipment. Since 1949, the Beacon Brand has been serving dealers, architects, specifiers, designers, builders and buyers for commercial, industrial and government material handling equipment projects.Beacon’s Drum Dumpers come in a wide array of configurations, and are perfect for any application.