Atkins is the network service provider for Somerset County Council with responsibility for emptying the county’s 132,000 gullies. Its fleet of six specialist tanker vehicles cleans and empties gullies on a regular basis. Each vehicle and its two-man crew needs to inspect and clear around 26,000 gullies a year, a daily average of 85. At each gully the cover, which can weight 100kg, has to be lifted off to provide access for cleaning and then replaced.
Penny Hydraulics devised a design based on two hydraulic rams, one mounted horizontally to extend and retract the lifter and one mounted vertically to lift and lower the gully lid. The unit is mounted laterally on the tanker’s chassis and can pivot through a small arc which allows the cover to be moved aside for easy access and cleaning of the gully. One of the main challenges was to work out how the new device would pick up the gully cover. The solution was to design a small frame which locks into place on the end of the vertical arm and then attaches to the gully cover by simple twist clips that can accommodate castings with different profiles.
