Where to Anchor Tool Lanyards

When working at height, you should take steps to avoid dropping your tools. Our tool lanyards are ideal for this – by attaching your tools to your person or to a sturdy anchor point, you significantly reduce your risk of dropping them and causing damage and injury below.

What is a tool lanyard?

As its name suggests, a tool lanyard is a tether that connects tools to an anchor point. This ensures that, even if you drop a tool, it won’t fall to the ground beneath you.

Tool lanyards can be elasticated, so when choosing your lanyard, make sure you know the weight of the tool you’re tethering. You should choose a lanyard with a load rating that’s equal to or higher than that weight; this will keep the lanyard from breaking if the tool is dropped.

When choosing a lanyard, you should also consider its length. It should be long enough that you can move around comfortably while using the tool, but not so long that it creates a trip hazard.

Where should I anchor my tool lanyards?

Once you’ve chosen your lanyard, you’ll need to determine the best place to anchor it. This is an important consideration: if it’s anchored to an unstable anchor point, the tool could still fall and cause harm below.

Consider the weight of your tool when choosing the lanyard’s anchor point:

• If you’re only using a small tool that weighs less than 1kg (like a pair of pliers) then you can anchor it to your wrist.
  
  
• Larger tools (up to 3kg) should be attached to a stronger connection point on your body. Consider anchoring the lanyard to your belt.
  
  
• Anything heavier than 3kg should be attached to a strong, permanent anchor point like a guardrail. Don’t attach these items to yourself, as a dropped tool may take you down with it if heavy enough.

Tool lanyard safety tips

Be very careful when anchoring tools to your body. You mustn’t attach a tool to yourself if you are working near machinery or moving parts – tool lanyards are unlikely to break if entangled, so if your lanyard got caught in moving machine parts, you could suffer a serious injury.

You must also not connect lanyards together. If you need a greater load rating, find a single lanyard of that load rating. Lanyards are not designed to be connected to each other, and may fail if used this way.

Before using a tool lanyard, you should inspect it for faults like broken stitching or dodgy connectors. If your lanyard shows any kind of fault, don’t use it.

If you have any queries about what tool lanyard you need, or about any of our other products, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and we’ll help you to find the right safety equipment for your needs.

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