The Mistakes That Actually Delay Crane Jobs

Mistakes About Weight and Measurement

Guessing the weight from the brochure. Manufacturer literature almost always quotes dry shipping weight. The thing sitting in your driveway may have water in it, fuel in it, oil in it, or a base full of sand. A spa full of water is a different object than a spa on a pallet. Do this instead: find the model number, look up the wet or operating weight, and add anything that went in after it left the factory. If you truly cannot find a number, say that on the phone rather than offering a guess with confidence.

Measuring the gap and not the diagonal. People measure a gate, a side yard or a doorway across the flat and call it good. A load does not always travel square through an opening, and the number that matters is the diagonal of the item against the diagonal of the opening, plus the header height. Do this instead: measure the item three ways with everything still attached to it, then measure the opening the same three ways.

Not looking up. This is the most common one and the least excusable, because it takes ten seconds. Service drops, cable lines, tree limbs, a patio cover, a second story eave. Do this instead: stand where you want the load to land, look straight up, then walk back to where the truck will park and look up again along the whole path between the two.

Mistakes About Access and Ground

Assuming a driveway that holds a car will hold outriggers. It is a reasonable assumption and it is wrong. A vehicle spreads its weight across four tires and a lot of contact area. A crane concentrates most of its weight through four small pads, and thin residential concrete over loose fill does not appreciate that. Do this instead: tell us the driveway's age and whether it has cracked or settled anywhere, and mention any pool, septic tank, leach field, cistern or utility trench under or near where the truck would sit. Pads and mats solve most of it, but only when we know beforehand.

Assuming the crane can drive where a pickup drove. A loaded boom truck is a different animal on a gravel drive, a soft shoulder or a wash crossing than the truck you drove out there in. Washboard gravel that a half ton handles fine can be a place a crane should not be. Do this instead: send a photo of the approach, including the turn off the paved road and any culvert crossing, and mention how long the unpaved section runs.

Mistakes About Timing and Decisions

Scheduling a lift for the afternoon in July or August. Steel gets too hot to hold, roof surfaces are unworkable, and the crew burns out faster than the job goes. Wind also tends to build later in the day during the storm season. Do this instead: take the early slot. Long lifts here belong at first light, and the trades that come after the crane should plan around that rather than the other way round.

Booking the crane before the pad has cured or the roof crew is ready. A crane that arrives to a job that is not ready has to leave and come back, and everybody's schedule takes the hit. Do this instead: book the crane last in the chain. Get the concrete date, the delivery date and the follow-on trade lined up, then call and slot the lift into the gap between them.

Nobody on site with authority to make a decision. Lifts throw up questions. Do we move that condenser. Does this go on the pad or six inches left of it. Can we take that gate leaf off. If the only person who can answer is unreachable, the crane sits. Do this instead: have the owner, the superintendent or someone they have empowered physically present, or reachable by phone and expecting the call.