Currently stuck doing site work since their tower crane was pulled out. Fly and needle at 40° offset, but most of the lifting is done on the main (the fly is only needed to reach the other side of the building). There's a reason I prefer taxi crane work.... Slow days drag and are exhausting!
At last a bit of action. The tanking arrived for the stormwater, which all needed to be lifted to the other side of their excavation. Then a toy excavator to spread 600 ton of drainage metal. That's kept me occupied for an hour. And as you can see, I'm in the middle of a fishbowl.
That looks like fun. Nothing like skip box work with all of the jib out. Looks like they might have the concrete bucket sitting a little too close to you to get a hold of it, once you have your stick out.
I can get the rubbish skips that are right behind me, so the concrete bucket won't be an issue. It's not getting used, however.
How close can you get to yourself with all the boom out and that jib with offset? My 70 ton with 126' main and 60' jib I can't get within 40' of myself. If I have all the offset, I think its more like 70' away. Which is a pretty narrow range when you're only good to about 120' of radius. But it only booms up to 77 degrees, and doesn't have near the counterweight that the newer AT's do.
On the main boom, I can boom back to 82° and get to about 6m radius (20'). With the fly/needle at 40° radius like it is, my minimum radius is 18m (60') and maximum is 54m (just over 175'). Thats with a 170' main and 60ish' fly.
Thankfully a bit busier this week so far, as you can see, I'm rushed off my feet!
Starting the morning with some Tetris. I knew all those hours of playing would pay off some day.
Thankfully I'm now back to taxi crane work. Need the fly today to reach the top flashings, halfway down the side of the building. Main boom won't quite get me the height I need. This job should have been done a week ago, but high winds prevented it.
Nice work Kiwi! I am surprised they didn't use the concrete bucket to place stone between the storm water chambers. If I had a job that a crane was in the budget, that's how I would do it. Unfortunately we have to do it with a full grown excavator and CTL.
It was suggested, but the outlet in the bucket wasnt big enough for the drainage metal they were using, so it wouldn't really have worked. After they backfilled, it all needed to be dug out again as the specs called for the excavation to be "tanked" with polyethylene and joins welded. Unfortunately, those specs weren't given to the contractors actually doing the job, so they used filter cloth. Oops!
Interesting spec on the welded poly instead of filter fabric. Is the site soil contaminated and the engineers were afraid of off site migration through groundwater or just a dumb spec. Note to all budding PM's - check all the specs and get shop drawings approved by the engineer before installation.
From what I can gather, it's all reclaimed land, and they've already had issues with foundations settling, so they don't want any more water entering the ground than necessary.
Good reach out for the 60 today, placing bundles of traydeck for the midfloor of some new apartments. Slow going, however, as there was rebar in the way of nearly every lift.
So do you haul counterweight on your tandem axle set up on the rear of the crane? It doesn't look tall enough to be a actual boom dolly like we use in the states.
Yes, with this 60 ton crane I can haul my full counterweight and be fully self sufficient.
That's super handy. My 70 ton doesn't have removable counterweight, so its self contained too. I'd like to see a picture of it broke down and ready for travel sometime, if you have a chance. Its always interesting how other areas do things. Here in Missouri, anything that requires a extra travel permit (issued by our state- for state roads), must be a irreducible load. Most any crane over about 60,000lbs is going to require a permit. If it can come off (the weights), it comes off, and goes on a trailer. No axle can weigh more than 20,000lbs. And then you can't drag the weights behind you on a trailer.
We had a 70 ton Grove truck crane, but that was set up the same with removable counterweight and a trailer. It would outlift the 60 ton all terrain, but the 60 outreaches it. What I love about it is the small footprint, it's only got a 21ft let spread, but will reach to 120ft radius. And if course it's much more comfortable to ride in. Our axle limits depend on spacings, but our fleet of all terrains range from about 12 - 13 ton (too late in the day for me to do the maths, but 1t is about 2200 pounds). The gross combined mass of the 60 I operate is just under 50 ton with the trailer, 39 ton without. There's only a few cranes around with boom dollys, and that's mainly because of weak bridges in their area that they can't cross with the boom over the front. I'll get you a pic, thought I had one when it was nice and clean, but can't find it now.
Here's a photo from where I stopped for lunch one day, 4 hours away from home. And just for fun, another from a tight little panel job for a beachfront holiday home .
Some mancage work today on a 220kV transmission line. The lines closest to the crane are dead, but the far side is still live . The guys who climb these towers have some serious balls, its a nope from me.
I don't know how much money the power company has but they don't have enough to pay me to do that either.
It's state owned and taxpayer funded, so all then money in the world! I'm okay with heights, but climbing onto a 1 inch aluminium cable 100 getf in the air is another matter entirely. Give me the mancage work every time (or better yet, pulling the levers in a warm, dry cab) Also, an error on my part. These lines aren't 220kV, but a mere 110kV
I'd take the cab every time...........Unless it was attached to a Tower Crane! (No HV towers either)
Kiwi tell me about the concrete panel home. Pre-cast on site or off site and trucked in? There appears to be anchor bolts so is there structural steel involved as well? What's the floor, pre-cast concrete or metal deck pan and cast in place? Sorry for all the questions, that's an interesting concept for a house.
The precast was all made offsite. Casting on site is the exception here, rather than the norm. There's many precast businesses with heated beds that allow the panel to be pulled the day after pouring. Undercover so they can be cast in all weathers. Purpose-built panel trailers that allow them to be carted upright, or at least on edge for the tall ones. We can then pick them up with 2 hooks and rotate in midair. Placing panels is probably our biggest market. As to the rest of your questions, I can't answer specifics for that house as i just don't know, but almost certainly there will be structural steel in it. From memory I believe the midfloor was going to be a conventional timber joist floor. If it was going to be a concrete system, there would be reo steel starters cast into the top of the panel. Generally for a concrete midfloor of that size, unispan would be specced. Which is a pre-stressed flat slab, around 2-3in thick, in transportable sections (around 8' wide to fit on a trailer,) to make up the floor. Once placed, a reinforced slab is poured on top to compete the floor.
Thank you for the info. Here in the 'States we build disposable housing constructed of wood for the most part, just ask Digger. We have the pre-stressed pre-cast flat slab panels that are used a lot in apartments, schools and hotels. CMU walls with the panels for flooring. Interesting work - keep up the pics and commentary.
Most of our homes are timber framed. With Forestry being one of our main industries, timber is plentyful. However, every now and then someone with too much money decides to do something different. Commercial buildings, however, almost always incorporate concrete panels, at least along the boundary walls
Today's mission: lay down a stainless steel silo and load it onto a truck. The trailer is purpose built for carrying silos and can trombone out to carry the longer (taller?) ones. It also widens to accept large diameters, this one was 12ft. Usually they're built with lifting ears above, which can be fitted with a shackle. This one had little stubs, which we struggled to get our rigging around. In the end, a ring from my chains fit perfectly, but a small wire sling would have been nice. A colleague of mine tailed out the bottom with a large loader crane, and it was safely on its way halfway down the island to its new home.
Been a busy couple of weeks. Close to base is a new build of a old folks home. We've been in and out of there most weeks. I've been lifting in reinforcing steel and bundles of floor decking, while some of the larger cranes in the company have been placing the precast concrete panels. Part of it now has the top floor frames standing, so the trusses could be lifted for this section. while another section is still preparing for first floor concrete Once completed, the buildings you can see on the other side will be demolished, and another stage of construction will begin.
The company I work for has depots in 3 locations. I'm based in the central depot, and will sometimes be required to head to one of the others if they have no available cranes. This week I headed north in the afternoon, for an early start the next day. Halfway there, a truck sat on its side, blocking the main highway. It must have happened only minutes earlier, as there were no emergency services yet on scene. Since the crane was already there, I was enlisted to assist with the recovery. The hoist on the trailer had been fully extended in the crash, so we first grabbed hold of the axle group on the trailer and straightened it out while a wrecker pulled on the top of the bin to get the ram retracted again. The crane was then moved to the front of the truck, and rigged to the upright axles. 2 wreckers pulled the whole unit over to its tipping point, at which point the crane took over and let it gently back onto its wheels. By this time, the road had been closed for around 6 hours, and traffic, although it had been diverted around a small country road, was absolute mayhem. Thankfully, the driver walked away, and there were no other vehicles involved. An amazing outcome, considering the truck crossed into the opposite lane of what is normally very busy piece of road.
The job for the next couple of days is pretty simple. Lay out the roof purlins for a new build. The site isn't the greatest for setup though, I've had to pull out every block that I carry, plus scrounge on site for some fence posts. And since I'm sitting on a right of way for the neighbouring buildings, I've left half outriggers on the off side.
Good job Kiwi on uprighting the dump truck. Unfortunately with our ambulance chasing lawyers and our commercial insurance policies full of exclusions due to lawsuits, I can't help out like that anymore. Billboards line the highway with a slime ball in a suit and a 1-800 number to call if you've been hurt in an accident. It's a damn shame. Thanks for posting job site pics, I really enjoy seeing how others do it around the globe.
I was a little frustrated with the emergency services to be honest. Where it happened is a main arterial route, with extra lanes currently under construction. There was already traffic management there for the construction, they acted quickly to set up a stop/go so the traffic could keep moving. Once the fire brigade showed up, they blocked the highway completely. The police showed up, spent an hour investigating, then since it involved a truck, we needed to wait another hour on CVIU to turn up (the commercial vehicle unit of the police, affectionately known to truckers as the god-squad, or less affectionately as mermaids) to do their own investigation. This led to the road being closed for 6 hours. Luckily, the roading guys were there to help out and provided an excavator and tractor mounted sweeper to clean up the debris that came out of the bin, otherwise that would have been another delay. Don't get me wrong, I understand these guys have a process to follow and I'm not about to blast then for doing their job, but I do think there's sinc streamlining that could be done when it's a minor injury accident and a state highway is blocked.
Cream job for a Friday today. A couple of masts to place on their boats today, with a couple of hours downtime in between to watch the tide coming in.
Looks like nice cool weather. We could use some of that here right now. Its been hot hot hot. I'm ready for some winter. Also 6hours to reopen a road doesn't happen here. Maybe if theres multiple fatalities, and a snow/ice event so they can't get it cleared. But certainly not for a no injuries truck roll over. They'd have one or two big wreckers out there and get it drug off the road one way or another.
Middle of winter here. The cool is nice, but I'm pretty sick of mud.
It's middle of the summer here, hot as hell and wet. It's been raining all week. We got an inch of rain dumped yesterday afternoon at the yard. The last tally I heard on the radio was 11.5" of rain so far here in July. Our job sites are a mess.
I don't envy you guys at this time of year trying to move dirt. There is a significant amount of roading happening around the country at the moment, and the sediment controls are works of art in some areas. We've been having some heavy rain events here too. Last weekend, many roads were closed due to flooding, the waters are still to subside in some places. It's a rare occurrence, but seemingly becoming more common in the last couple of years. Last year, a town was destroyed by flooding.
Un-heard-of here also. California Highway Patrol's #1 concern seems to be to get the road open. Back in the day if you were the fire department and scraping somebody off the pavement was taking too long you could bet the man would be standing there with his Stetson hat looking at his watch, tapping his foot and frowning. They are a little more lenient in cases of safety these days but even in cases of fatalities, total closure is rare and then only as long as absolutely necessary. I think they have struck a reasonable balance these days. One thing they have done that makes some sense in the larger cities, is to have government-paid tow trucks that drag any disabled vehicles off the freeway to the nearest off ramp as quickly as possible. It makes better financial sense to do that than to force thousands of people to wait, secondary accidents, etc.
Long day Friday. Travelled a couple hours north to put up a digital billboard. It consists of 2 40'x10' screens, set at about 90° to each other, sitting on top of a 20' riser. The first truck with the framework was there when I arrived at dawn. The second truck with the screens had a blowout the day before, which took out the wiring for the trailer lights. He was only about 2 hours late in the end. We got it assembled on the ground, then once the techs had the wiring completed, we lifted it on top of the riser. 10 ton altogether, only supported at the intersection point of the 2 screens. I bet it's gonna rock around a fair bit when it gets windy.
By the time I left that job, it was already dark. And then a 3 hour drive home. I quite like this picture that I got last night though.
Been a while since I posted. Been flat out, but nothing really interesting enough to get pics of. Here's a new petrol station site I went to this week. Some of the top brass of the gas company were there to watch, so I'm glad it went well. 3 plastic tanks were installed below ground level, with less than 2 inches clearance on each end to get past the whalers on the sheet piles. It was also pretty windy, just to make it that little bit more interesting.
Not to be outdone by crane operators multitude of awkward sites, I went out looking for one of my own. This site required backing down an alleyway not much wider than the crane, with only just enough room for the front to swing around with the boom raised. Just to make it a little more difficult, we set up in the evening, so it was dark by the time the crane was set up. At the end of the alleyway, it opens up just enough to set up. The 43m of full boom is just enough to reach without becoming boom bound on the scaffolding. There's a penetration in the shrink wrapping about 40' into the building, through which we're lifting structural steel. All on the blind, so thankfully they have a good radio man.
A couple more pics
Did you grease the sides of that crane to let it slide in there? Hope you don't get a hot spell while sitting there or the heat might expand the crane enough to make it to tight to get back out!
Once I managed to get the front around square, it wasn't too bad. It was just getting lined up at the beginning that proved tricky. Rear wheel steering is certainly a necessity on sites like these!
Good job Kiwi! Reminds me of one of our storm installs a couple of years ago. 60" CMP detention system. The 3 phase power transformer was hot as well as the 4- 5" conduits going into the building underground. Our pipe passed over them with around 1' of cover. We had a little more room than you did Kiwi - gotta love those tight spots.
Just had a conversation with the client....I may have to swing the fly later this week, for a lift 36m (120ft) away, at capacity. That's gonna be a struggle
I have before dismounted a jib, and carried it to the crane with a telehandler forklift, or mounted it with another crane, when I didn't have room to swing the jib. It's not ideal, but sometimes there's no other way. To bad your crane is in such nice shape, you'd hate to scratch it on the way in. Can you hang all the weights and drive, or do you leave some on the deck?
Had considered mounting it with a truck loader crane, but I think I'll have just enough room to be able to swing it. I can drive on site with counterweights mounted, and boom in the cradle, or on the deck, with boom up over the front. In this case though, we loaded them on a seperate truck and brought them in, because to get into the site you need boom up, to get around buildings, and then boom down, to get under an overhead light. I certainly don't want any more scratches, it'll be a cause for a few beers if I get it out again unscathed!
Got a chance today to head up the building and grab a couple more pics. You can see in front of the carrier cab the alleyway I reversed down to access this carpark. If/when I come back to reach the far stuff, I'll need to wiggle around 90°, reverse hard up to the chain link fence you can see, and swing the fly. Gonna be tight!
Been a while between posts, but here I am back in the seat again. Installing round culverts for a stormwater retention system.
Running a little bigger rig than last time too. Still with the same company?
My stepson works on the construction of the Towers and stringing the conductor and has been for 15years. With the labour shortages he is earning 1mil in under 4 years in wages with a 15000 increase over 3 years. His favourite job was on a trolley out between the Towers fitting spacers between 2 parallel conductors. The fun has been taken away from them, they sit on choppers now in the wind.
Somehow I've ended up in the office, not quite sure how that happened. So these days I end up running counterweights more often than pulling levers, but it's nice to jump back in the seat every now and then.
Back in the crane today, installing tilt slab. This isn't something that's done much here any more, usually they're cast off-site in factories and trucked to site.
Interesting how things are done different around the globe. The last tilt up we were part of they poured the interior slab up to 5' off the strip footing, dug and poured the footings then cast the walls on the slab. Raised the walls on the footers and filled in the 5' strip. This was a 50K SF warehouse 100' wide and 500' long so no plumbing or electrical in the slab to be in the way of casting. Another smaller tilt job we were part of they poured thin casting slabs then flew into place. We had to demo and haul off the casting slabs. It seemed like a lot of work for what it was.
I agree, which is why we probably don't see much of it any more and why factory cast panels are most common. Heated steel beds means you can cast as many panels as you can fit, every day. Once the site is established, footings poured/whatever the methodology might be, panels are trucked to site, craned in, and onto the next stage. Much, much faster than casting on site
Most of the big distribution buildings- amazon, walmart, truck freight docks, etc. are tilt ups. The panels can be so much bigger when tilt up vs what they can haul. The only advantage to hauling is if they are pouring in a heated building in cold climates= year round work. The large tilt up buildings it isn't unusual to see 150-200,000lbs panels. Lots of snatch blocks and bars. And you hope the imbeds are good.
Here's one we did a year ago, which is a fairly typical type of build. The largest panels went around 15tonne plus rigging. They go up first, then a large toe footing is poured at the bottom of the panels, then structural steel. Props come down, floor grade is prepped as the roof is going on, then by the time they pour the slab the building is covered and you can pour in any weather. There can be some variations to this, but this is pretty typical for an industrial type building. Generally the only times you see tilt up now are on dairy factories for the drier towers, and some small jobs. The only reason it was done on the job I posted yesterday was that it was cheaper overall, but it's also taken significantly longer
The inventor of this building method was a engineer named David Lovel Smith, a delightful bloke who thought out side the square. His earlier invention was slip form concrete curbing. I had a little bit to do with him professionally in what seems a lifetime ago.
Million sq ft buildings are cheaper to cast on sight Around here small buildings are 150 thousand sq ft at the moment there is not enough precast capacity in the southwest to keep up with Phoenix alone precast is to busy doing parking garages going up everywhere