Drum handling equipment lifts, moves, positions and lowers drums, casks and cylinders so operators don’t have to. A 205 litre drum of engine oil weighs around 200kg, carrying a significant risk of injury and slowing down operations.
Due to the awkward shape of drums and casks we’ve created a dedicated lifter, specifically for these applications.
A suitable drum lifter makes it possible to:
Motor factors, lubricant distributors, waste oil collectors and mobile engineers all deliver drums to sites with no handling equipment of their own, and our oil drum handling equipment is built around exactly that problem. The VanMate drum kits break down into three pieces, go back together in under 15 seconds, and travel with the driver rather than being bolted into one vehicle.
LKQ, formerly Euro Car Parts, used three separate pieces of equipment for this. After a three-month trial in live branches, VanMate is now used across the LKQ network in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and the switch let LKQ move oil deliveries out of large Boxer vans and into smaller Partner and Connect vans.
Casks, kegs and barrels are a smaller, denser load with a rounded profile, so they want supporting rather than gripping. A full 41 litre firkin weighs around 55kg, and a kilderkin roughly double that, which sounds manageable until you lift it out of a floor-level cellar drop half a dozen times a shift. The cylinder and bottle kit is specified for small barrels, using a flat shelf and a ratchet strap. For brewery, cellar or drayage work, we’d usually look at a bespoke cradle built around your cask sizes.
Gas cylinders and bottles have to stay upright and stay secured. The cylinder handling kit uses a slimline trolley with a flat shelf, so the load slides on and off rather than being lifted onto it, and a ratchet strapping attachment holds it against the mast for the lift and the move. A van on this kind of round rarely carries a single cylinder, so the trolley is built to load and unload several in succession with no other equipment on board.
Cylinder diameters, valve guards and site racking vary so much that this is often a bespoke job. Send us the cylinder specification and a photograph of where it’s stored, and we’ll tell you whether a standard attachment fits.
Our drum handling equipment varies by model and attachment, but operation is the same throughout the range:
The VanMate Slider and handle streamline the entire loading process by allowing heavy goods to be moved safely inside the van without climbing into the load space or manually pushing loads into position.
Using the lightweight handle, operators can guide drums or other items smoothly from the vehicle doors to the bulkhead and back again for unloading, reducing strain and improving safety. Compatible with most vans and suitable for both side and rear‑door access, the Slider provides a controlled, efficient way to position loads – especially 205L drums – making it a valuable addition to any drum‑handling setup.
Most MJ Products drum handling equipment started life as a customer problem that no catalogue product solved. If your drums are non-standard, your bund sits at an awkward height, your mixer needs feeding from a fixed position, or you need to lift beyond 250kg, our in-house engineering team can modify a standard lifter or design a new one.
“At Euro Car Parts, VanMate has proved to be the optimum solution for delivery of goods to our customers. Daily deliveries of oil drums, AdBlue bulk drums, reconditioned engines, and gearboxes are seamless using VanMate, replacing three separate pieces of equipment used previously. Further, where a larger Boxer van was previously used for oil deliveries, this equipment allows us to employ the smaller and more efficient Partner and Connect vans due to VanMate’s portability and light weight.”
Uses our patented DuoPump technology for fast lifting of the load with an intuitive single pedal operation for lifting and lowering.
Lifting ranges from 600mm to 2400mm
Our products are designed and manufactured in-house, using the latest manufacturing techniques, CE/UKCA Marked and rigorously tested to ensure compliance with all relevant standards.
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