Steep lift for Bigge

Heavy lift and transport service provider Bigge Crane and Rigging used a 300 tonne capacity Liebherr crawler crane to lift a 15 US ton (13.6 tonne) generator onto a building on a sloping street in San Francisco, USA.

The generator was lifted in one piece to a height of 91 metres, before being placed into position. The area of Hawthorne and Harrison in San Francisco, where the lift was carried out, is a densely populated area with narrow streets. In addition, the building is more than 75 years old and no detailed plans of it were available to assist in planning the lift.

After assessments were made, Bigge decided on a Liebherr LR 1300 lattice boom crawler crane to carry out the lift. Two assist cranes were used to erect it. An 80 ton (72 tonne) capacity rough terrain was used to put the track frames and counterweight on the LR 1300, while a 50 ton (45 tonne) capacity rough terrain was used to assemble the boom and jib. Once the crawler was assembled the street was levelled off using crane mats. It was then moved to the building where it could carry out the lift safely.

Joe Nelms, Bigge vice president of sales and marketing, said, “At Bigge we have a saying - 'the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.' Here, we were able to take on a job our competitors couldn’t, and complete it in 36 hours. I’m extremely proud of all of our guys.”