This document specifies safety requirements and measures for their verification for the design and construction of portable, hand-held, pole-mounted powered pruners (hereafter named “machine”), including extendable and telescopic machines, having an integral combustion engine as their power source. These machines use a power transmission shaft to transmit power to a cutting attachment consisting of a saw-chain and guide bar, a reciprocating saw blade or a single-piece circular saw blade with a 205 mm maximum outside diameter. Methods for the elimination or reduction of hazards arising from the use of these machines and the type of information on safe working practices to be provided by the manufacturer are specified.
This document deals with all significant hazards, hazardous situations or hazardous events with the exception of electric shock from contact with overhead electric lines (apart from warnings and advice for inclusion in the instructions), relevant to these machines when they are used as intended and under conditions of misuse which are reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer (see Annex A).
This document is applicable to portable, hand-held, pole-mounted powered pruners manufactured after its date of publication.
Brush cutters with a circular saw blade are not included in the scope of this document.
NOTE Brush cutter requirements are outlined in ISO 11806-1:2021.