What You Receive After the Load Is Set

Pictures Taken Before the Outriggers Drop

The most useful photos of a crane job are the ones shot before the crane does anything. Concrete driveways here crack. Some of those cracks have been there since the slab cured, and a homeowner who has parked over them for six years genuinely does not know they exist until a boom truck leaves and they go looking.

So the first thing that happens on arrival is a walk with a phone. Driveway surface, the apron at the street, curb, gate posts, pavers, any landscape edging near the pads, and the roof or wall the load will pass. Timestamped, wide enough to place them, close enough to read.

This protects both sides and it settles arguments before they start. If a crack was there at eight in the morning, there is a picture of it at eight in the morning.

The Handover Package

When the load is set and the rigging is off, the second round of photos gets taken. The item in its final position from two or three angles, the connection points or pad it is sitting on, and a wider frame showing its relationship to the structure.

Alongside the pictures come notes. Anything found on site that the owner should know about goes in writing: a soft spot in the yard that needed cribbing, an irrigation line that ran closer to the pad than expected, a section of block wall with a loose cap, or roof tile that was already cracked before anyone stepped near it.

For a seasonal owner in another state, that package is the whole job. It arrives by text or email the same day, and it means the person paying for the work can see what happened without flying in.

• Pre-work condition photos of driveway, curb, walls and roof
• Final position photos from multiple angles
• Wide shot showing the load relative to the structure
• Written notes on anything found during the work
• Date and location on the file set

Paperwork a Contractor Needs

General contractors are running a project file, and a crane visit is one line in it. What they usually want back is simple: proof the pick happened on the scheduled date, photographs showing the item landed where the drawing said it would, and a note of anything that changed on the day.

If your project requires a written lift plan before the crane arrives, ask when you book rather than the night before. Producing one means confirming load weight, pick and set radius, boom configuration and setup position in advance, and that is a conversation, not a form.

HOA boards want less. Usually a dated set of photos showing the equipment was set properly, the common area was left clean, and nothing was staged where it was not permitted. A short photo set with a date on it has closed more HOA questions than any letter.