Drove past a job site in Portland and noticed something smart about their crane setup

I was heading to a supply run last Tuesday and saw a crew setting up a Liebherr on a tight downtown street. They had the outriggers on these thick steel plates with plywood underneath instead of just the usual pads. The operator told me they picked up the idea after a close call on soft asphalt near a sewer line. Has anyone else used extra cribbing in sketchy ground conditions and seen a difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

abby_fisher19d ago

That plywood trick is something I've seen fail if they don't use the right thickness. Did the operator mention if they went with 3/4 inch or a full inch of that plywood?

anna71719d ago

Funny how a close call makes you see all the short cuts people take everywhere.

kimr9118d ago

Can't agree more. Right after a scare it's like a filter comes on and you spot all the lazy stuff people do. The one that gets me is when operators skip the blocking and cribbing steps. They figure they can just wing it with some random scraps from the job site. In my experience that's exactly how things go wrong. Three years back I watched a guy try to save twenty minutes and almost lost a finger because he used a cracked 2x4 instead of proper dunnage.