A vehicle lift must now meet tougher standards to earn a gold certification label from the Automotive Lift Institute.
The aim is improved lift operator safety, says a news release from the institute.
Its new safety standard ANSI/ALI ALCTV: 2017 went into effect July 24, 2018. It replaced a 2011 standard. The standard covers vehicle lift design, construction, testing and validation.
In addition to maintaining the major design and construction requirements, the new standard includes “significant updates” to strengthen testing, the news release noted. That testing must be performed at a nationally recognized testing laboratory.
Other changes include increasing the number of test cycles, and expanding testing requirements for load-holding devices, namely latches and hooks.
“ALI and our members take our lift safety mission very seriously,” Dale Soos, ALI senior project engineer, said in the release. “Since introducing the ALI Lift Certification Program in 1993, the committee responsible for the standard has continuously improved it to promote technician safety on the job and wherever a vehicle lift is used.”
Facilities with lifts that were certified to the prior edition of the standard do not need to take any action as a result of the update, the release said. However, the institute cautions that when shopping for a new lift, do not assume that a previously certified model is certified to the current standard. Any lift model that was certified to the 2011 edition of the standard had to be tested to verify that it met all the new requirements in order to be recertified, the release said.
International Building Code and certain state, provincial and local regulations mandate that only lifts certified to meet ANSI/ALI ALCTV can be installed, the institute says. These certified lifts wear the ALI Gold Label and are listed in ALI’s online directory of certified lifts. The directory can be found on the institute’s website, www.autolift.org.