• 1. What is the necessary protection based on?
• 2. The right hydraulic oil
• 3. What on-site solutions are there?
  • 3.1 The oil-resistant paint
  • 3.2 The oil-resistant paint with additional oil separator
• 4. How do I proceed now?

When hydraulic scissor lifts are used outdoors , one question always comes up: How do I protect the environment against possible leaks? A legitimate question, if you consider that one drop of oil can contaminate up to 1,000 litres of water.

The objective of all these measures is to ensure the protection of groundwater or other water bodies. As the necessary measures vary greatly depending on the area of application of the scissor lift table, we can only provide a rough outline as well as some suitable measures at this point.

The protective measure to be selected depends on two variables:

1. The water hazard class of the pressure medium used
2. The volume of the pressure medium used

The water hazard class depends on the hydraulic oil used. The volume used is determined by the scissor lift table . As a rule, the volume used in our lift tables ranges from six to forty litres.

Conventional hydraulic oil is used in a commercially available lift table , for example HLP 32. Instead of this conventional hydraulic oil, our scissor lift tables can also use biodegradable or non-water-polluting, biodegradable hydraulic oil . These hydraulic oils are also used in mobile construction machines such as excavators and wheel loaders, for example.
The use of biodegradable hydraulic oil reduces the hazard to water, while the use of non-water-polluting hydraulic oil eliminates any hazard to water. This means that you can already save on many protective measures with the right selection of hydraulic oil.

However, we would like to mention at this point that the use of non-water-polluting, biodegradable hydraulic oil does not automatically ensure that no further protective measures need to be taken.
Although a water hazard can basically be excluded, some of our customers are required by the building permit to implement further protective measures. So we recommend that you act in close coordination with the building authorities.

This is a special paint that prevents the hydraulic oil from seeping into the ground . This paint must usually be applied by a specialist company. Depending on the federal state in Germany, however, there are exceptions from this obligation if only small quantities of the water-polluting substance are used.

This solution is disadvantageous in outdoor areas. Even if the risk of an oil leak exists only in the unlikely event of a leak in the system, rain and meltwater is guaranteed. A water drain is a requirement to protect the scissor lift against this.

There is a risk that hydraulic oil can escape into the environment through the water drain. For this reason, another technical device is required in the drain: the oil separator. This is a kind of intermediate tank in the actual drain. Due to the lower density of the hydraulic oil, it floats on the surface of the water and can be separated from rainwater and meltwater.

Unfortunately there is no universal solution for this problem, so we recommend the following procedure:

1. Please inform us or the lift manufacturer about the area of application of the scissor lift, especially of the fact that protective measures for water protection may be necessary.
2. In this case, we will advise you to use biodegradable or non-water-polluting hydraulic oil.
3. Coordinate the necessary structural protection measures with the building authorities. We would be happy to provide you with the data sheets of our hydraulic oil.