5
Finally changed my mind about extendable boom trucks after a job at a tight site in Charleston
Watched a guy spend 45 minutes re-leveling a crawler crane on a slope while his extendable boom counterpart was already lifting, and that 45 minutes of wasted billable time convinced me I need to stop being a purist about lattice boom cranes.
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
michael8033d ago
I mean, all that speed doesn't mean much when the extendable boom's hydraulics start leaking on a Friday afternoon and you're down for three days waiting on parts. Lattice boom cranes are dead simple machines, you can fix damn near anything on them with a welder and a wrench. Plus that crawler crane on the slope? Might have taken 45 minutes to level, but it lifted double the weight once it was set, and it didn't have to worry about the boom flexing or sagging with a heavy load hanging off it. Extendable booms are great for speed, but they trade that for raw lifting power and reliability. I've seen too many guys get burned by fancy hydraulics on a job site where the only thing you can count on is mud and grit.
6
troyc173d ago
Buddy had a extendable boom save a whole weekend job when his crawler sank overnight in the rain.
5
white.keith3d ago
Buddy of mine runs a small outfit down in Savannah, spent a whole afternoon fighting a crawler that kept sinking into soft ground near the riverfront. He finally rented an extendable boom for the next job at a brewery expansion, and the operator had the thing set up and lifting barrels in under 20 minutes. Now he's got two extendable booms and swears he'll never go back. The time difference is just too big to ignore when you're billing by the hour.
-1