Kathymcmo posted this over at CT. Looks like a very large crane was trying to take down a tree by reaching over a garage. The tree overloaded the crane, and the boom cut through the house.
Like I said over on CT – I don’t know why they don’t just start the crane and lower the boom. Seems like that would get the main body of the crane back down on the ground.
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Replies
Hope they like an open concept house
Hey, Boss!
How many people you figure got fired? hehehe
And one spouse is telling the other, "You just had to have that damned tree removed! Didn't you!"
pb--- that's the wrong way to get in the news.
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Like I said over on CT - I don't know why they don't just start the crane and lower the boom. Seems like that would get the main body of the crane back down on the ground.
Well, when a crane tips over, the damage is already done. You don't want to compound it. The engines may be so out of level, that they are starved for lubrication. Also, if you start booming down, you could reach a point that the crane could rapidly fall back onto its outriggers. The boom could come up very fast, acting as a catapult, and the added load of the crane plunging to the ground could literally break a $500K crane in half
They have that big crane on the front - It would keep it from tipping back down rapidly.Even if it wasn't there, the moment arm of the crane is so high that it couldn't tip back up all THAT fast.
Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.
ya beat me to it (by 3 minutes!) pics here:
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=126696.1
That looks like a substantial crane truck. Must have been quite a tree....But after looking at the pictures it looks like the operator WAY over extended the boom without proper wieghts and stabilizers. Usually you see the truck at 90 degrees to the load.
Edited 11/17/2009 8:49 pm by Scott
You can see the remaining stump in one of the pics; it's a big'un. Oaks are about as heavy as they get around here.
HO says he is going to settle for no less than a brand new house.
Yeah, right. The damaged part is the single level area. Didn't touch the upper level.
Still can't figure out why they didn't cut it down & haul it out by hand.
I was thinking the same thing.
I've never seen a crane used to fall a tree. We always get climbers, or occasionally a bucket truck, and take it down in small sections. Grabbing something that big and then cutting it as the base seems like asking for trouble.
After Charlie I had a crane come in and take a tree off my screen cage.
It was a 40' mango tree and I am still not sure why the whole cage didn't come down but I certainly wasn't going up there to cut it up.After he got the tree off my screen cage we went around and pulled some trees off my neighbor's houses. The crane does make things a lot easier. They picked this stuff up with a claw truck and piled it in 40' semi trailers. Using the crane meant we only had to get it cut down to the size that the claw could handle, not small enough to drag.
Edited 11/17/2009 10:25 pm ET by gfretwell
True. I have had trees taken off roofs with cranes, but when they are not touching the structure we always use climbers. This summer we had a fir taken down that had been allowed to grow at about a 30 degree angle over a house. The climbers ran two ropes, one to the top and another to about a third of the way up, and tied them off to a tree behind. They then cut off rounds from the bottom until it was all down. If there hadn't have been a second tree they would have lowered rounds from the top. Plus it's amusing to watch. Tree climbers are nuts.
I have seen them use a crane a couple of times on TOH. I believe that there was similar accident about 2-3 years ago in Atlanta.Went right through the center of a 2 story house..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
It was 5 years ago.
http://www.wsbtv.com/houseandhome/3372709/detail.html
http://wsbradio.com/news/060204kennesawcrane3a.html
"To make matters worse, Wolfe says the tree-cutting service said it had completed two-thirds of the job and wants to be paid. "
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This one did a much "better" job of slicing the house..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
some sheets of plywood and some white paint, be good as new
<On Wednesday afternoon, workers used a 250,000 ton giant crane to remove the fallen crane.>
So - that's like 250,000 X 2000 = ummm lemme' see - carry the two - uh, yep, HALF A BILLION POUNDS.
Or maybe not
Forrest
Fantastic picture. It does show the resiliency of wood frame construction. Both sides look fine. Walls all still plumb.
Both sides look fine. Walls all still plumb.
Yeah, but the fridge suddenly became a side-by-side...:)
... and the sunken living room, well ...
My mother lived in Britain during the war. She has described to me seeing houses with one wall completely blown off and the rooms exposed like a doll house, with furniture still in place. They used to sneak in when no one was around. Everything you touched turned to ash and collapsed.
Yeah, it's surprising how narrow the damaged area looks, and how undisturbed the surrounding structure is. It's like a cartoon, with the hole in the wall in the shape of Roger Rabbit or whoever ..... ;-)
-- J.S.
Scott.
it was listed as a 165 ton crane.. that is 165 tons at 10 feet from the center of the crane.. It's capacity is decreased as it goes out.. On a reach that far likely it had a capacity of only a 1000 pounds or so..
oak stumb 1, crane 0. ; ^ )
Doesn't make sense to me. I'd have cut it up where it sat.
Will Rogers
Compounding the problem for the family, the reason that they were safely out of the house is that the wife of the couple had been injured earlier that day in an auto accident (fortunately, not fatally or anything like that) in the adjacent county, and she and her husband were away dealing with the aftermath.
Misteaks happen, but it does seem like that crane operator needs a refresher course.
i talked to an operator friend of mine. most likely a 80 to 100 ton crane. the problem was he didn't have any counter weights on. the tree section weren't that big. he overloaded the crane before he even made the pick.
PANIC CHAOS DISORDER.........my work is done here.
"upended 175-ton truck"!?!
This is more than two M1A1 Abrams tanks!
Nuke the reporter got it wrong.. it doesn't weight 175 tons, there is no highway in the world capable of handling that sort of weight..
175 ton crane has a max load capacity of 175 tons 10 feet from the cranes center.. . as the crane reaches out it's capacity decreases untill at full extension it might only have 1000 pound capcity.
Various factors such as a jib lower capacity even further.
Clearly the operator failed to use his LMI (load moment indicator) If he had he would have known tat even without knowing the cranes capacity at that sort of reach..
MI roads can hold 175 tons. They run them 11 axel rigs all over...tearing up everything. When I worked in the steel yard, the guy used to sneak in with the overloaded trucks in the middle of the night from the ship yards.
>>the guy used to sneak in with the overloaded trucks in the middle of the night from the ship yards
There's a quarry here with a huge Cat tractor. Word is that it came on a barge in the middle of the night and was driven over the road to the quarry. No one could prove anything, but it's too heavy to have gotten there in one piece.
I'm sorry Blue a 175 ton crane does not weigh 175 tons.. It has the lifting capacity of 175 tons within a 10 foot radius of the pin..
True those multiaxle cranes do run all over various states roads but technically some are in violation due to bridge laws..
Those axles are too widely spaced to get the rating required to meet bridge loads. It's a complex techicality but if you really study the law you will understand why they are outside of legality..
Please note.. That only applies to the German Cranes brought into this country by various manufactures and not to older American made cranes which do comply.. Looking at the crane in question I'm reasonably sure it's a Demag (German built) and thus technically not legal.
"I'm sorry Blue a 175 ton crane does not weigh 175 tons"Why are you sorry to me? Have you done harm to me? And why would you lecture me about what a crane weighs. I still own one LOL! I never said a crane weighs 175tons but I did say that I'm sure there have been 175ton loads running over MI roads....probably not legal but, nevertheless...they do it. The fines weren't so tough back in the 70's.
Blue: simply trying to be polite and not abusive in correcting you..
The hard thing about the internet is short answers seldom are complete and long answers are seldom completely read..
It's clear that you do understand the differance but you'd be amazed at the number who aren't aware of the differance.. Sorry If I was offencive.
I didn't find anything offensive and you have no need for apology. I was just correcting your correction and hopefully you weren't offended either. Certainly, no malice was intended. By the way, do you know how much an 11 axle rig in MI can carry?
Are they legal axles or crane axles?
The differance is significant. A tandem axle is rated more than twice what two single axles are but axle spacing is closer than the axles on European/Japanese cranes. Thus technically not tandems.
Also it depends on if there is a license on the crane or not.. Surpisingly it is legal to drive a crane on public roads without a license (or even a drivers license) Techically it's a piece of construction equipment and thus exempt. (so techically it's exempt from weight restrictions as well) However, some companies do license their cranes for insurance purposes. That makes things really complex should an accident occur.. The law is very ambigious in that regard.. Usually it's so complex that a decent Lawyer will argue that it's construction equipment and thus exempt from DOT requirements. (leaving the responsiblity on the shoulders of the operator and not the company.).
I'll doubt one in a thousand DOT officals is aware of the techical issue so usually they simply count the axles and do the calculation..
As for how much they can legally carry it depends on what the road is rated at.. If you look shortly after you start down a highway they will have posted the capacity. They also post it on every freeway entrance etc..
My road past my house is only rated for 4 tons and yet the country road is rated at 15 tons.. (per axle)
I never licensed my crane. We drove it over the road as construction equipment. One time, a cop called us about a complaint about us parking it in a subdivision. He mentioned that we would have to get a license to move it. We informed him of the law and he didn't believe us. We had to bring him some written documentation that explained the law. We had that paper from another crane operator. I don't think my rig would be called a crane. It's really just a small 12 ton National boom truck on a ford chassis. We still never licensed it though. I've tried to sell it for the last few years but no one is building much so no one needs it. I think it's scrap value is more than it's worth now.
OH, truck mounted cranes are an exception. Since they essentiually are an attachment on a regular truck chassis they really aren't a crane. Simply a crane attachment.. (I know it's a small differance but a significant one.. Truck mounted cranes as you are well aware wear out and depreciate. Whereas a truck crane (nice technicality huh?) retain their value so much longer.. I've sold 25 year old truck cranes for 80% of their original cost if in great shape and have a long enough boom..
The point is you should have had a license for that truck mounted crane but so few people understand the differances that it's easy to pull the wool over the eyes of the police..
The differance is more than slight.. for example a truck mounted crane has it's max capacity at 5 feet from pin centerline while a true crane will have it's capacity rated at 10 feet from pin center..
Thus a 30 ton truck mounted crane might only rate out at 7 tons at the 10 foot mark.. (capacity dimenishes greatly as radius from pin increases) In addition to that the truck mounted crane has a far weaker boom than the true cranes's boom and thus wears out much much faster.. 150,000 miles or 10 years is considered full economic life of a truck mounted crane. Whereas a truck crane life is measured in decades.
New Cranes are no longer the slow pokes they used to be.. Older Truck cranes would often max out at a top speed of 45 MPH. Since the mid 90's the speed has steadily gone up untill todays cranes are capable of 70+ MPH. In addition the boom lengths have streched out so 130 feet is no longer exceptional on little 30 ton truck cranes and 165 feet is readily available with some models..
30 tons is about the max affordable Crane you'll likely find building homes. (about $300,000.00 new)
The really large truck cranes have all been taken over by the DEMAG company out of Germany. Tadano (Japan) even makes a rough terrain crane (2 axles) that is capable of 45+ mph while being fully street legal.. Surprisingly the vast majority of tower cranes now days come out of France..
max load per axle= 32,000 Have enough axles and you are legal
steering axle=17,000 anything over load must be moved or permit load
"it doesn't weight 175 tons, there is no highway in the world capable of handling that sort of weight.."hmmm - - my little road in front of my house will handle 175 tons - it just has to be spread out over enough area - driving to a weds afternoon market earlier this fall, we caught up with a load of three pre-stressed concrete beams (three truck tractors pulling one beam each) - for a bridge, I suppose - I never did figure out where they might have been using them - they were hugh - they were the largest load I've ever seen on a road - at least 80 feet long and over 10' high - the trailing end rested on a 16 wheeled dolly - police surrounded the parade, pretty exciting to watch them cross a fair sized river bridge (one at a time) - even freakier to finally pass them when allowed - I can't imagine those units weighing less than 175 tons - but I suppose I could be wrong - - "there's enough for everyone"
load limits have a remarkable flexibility on them.. That is roads with only a 4 inch surface and a 6 inch base which would normally be rated at 7 tons per axle can be driven under permit with loads far exceeding that capacity. My own road which has a 4 ton rating (per axle) is regularly serviced by garbage trucks and recycle trucks with 15 ton axle ratings..
You do realize what a 175 ton axle rating means don't you? That means a typical 5 axle semi truck would be rated at 875 tons total.. Considering the max interstate freeway system is 80,000 on 5 axles that is only 8 tons per axle. Interstate roads differ slightly but typically are a 8 to 12 inch deck with a 24 to 36 inch base.
MI has thousands of 11 axle gravel trains running all over the state, including on the interstate. They can't leave the state though because the loads are significantly lighter.
Is this what they call a split-level home?
>why they don't just start the crane and lower the boom<
I'm far form a crane expert but the computers (assuming this crane had a computer)that do all the calcs for them (take input from boom length, boom angle, outriggers and weight on the hook(s)) which usually let you reduce any load when sensing and overload probably locked up when it got so far from level and won't let them do anything with the boom.
Actually John, from what little I know about cranes or boom trucks, there is an overide to the computor. At least that is what our operators tell us.
Seems like letting any tree that would have fallen on the house would have been less risky, caused less damage and cost less than what happened here!
What a mess.
I can't imagine having being the guy behind the wheel. Lucky he didn't go sideways.
might've been good they didn't tell us about the override in my past career. ;^)
My guess is that he was hooked onto the load before it was cut loose. When it was cut loose, it pulled the crane over.
Yeah, when the trunk or whatever it was was cut loose, the sudden addition of that load got it going over.
...or else the other trees in the neighborhood had something to do with it? ;)
John I believe you are thinking of the LMI (load moment indicator)
Assuming this crane was equiped with them which is not a sure thing, since they only came out in the 1990's and truck cranes like this have been around for many decades.
Still a LMI wil not prevent you from decreasing the load only from increasing the load.
In all likelyhood the reason they didn't use the cranes own power to lower itself is if you notice the engine in the crane was effectively standing on end..
While that wouldn't prevent the engine from running because they have injectors, it would prevent the engine from proper oiling. In a few minutes the engine would have siezed.
Didn't know you sold cranes also.
Yes I'm actually a licensed operator. (which you have to be to demonstrate them)
How many states are you licensed in?
Minnesota, Iowa.. are the only 2 states I sold cranes in.. I never sold one in Wisconsin although I had a deal pending when I left. (never came to fruition because my replacement wasn't competant).
Have you ever considered appling for a job running those things?
The pay isn't bad.
Last I checked there were hundreds of operating engineers out of work.. many cranes are sitting idle because construction is down so much.. I'd take a crane sales position in a heart beat but they are laying those off as well.
Like frammer52 said, there's an override.
If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.
So you say you want some skylights? No problem....
With a name like Reliable Crane & Rigging, what could go wrong?
"Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi
No, I didn't vote for him; but he IS my president. I pray for the his safety, and the safety of his family every day. And I pray that he makes wise decisions.
Ummm
I did that.. well not as unsuccessfully but I reached over my house with a crane I drove home one day to haul the basswood tree that the wind had blown down out from the front yard.. the arletantive would have been a week of back breaking effort to saw it into managable sized pieces and carry them by hand into the street side.
There is an electronic scale that tells the operator when the crane is overloaded and will shut the crane down if it's exceeded. It's called the LMI (load moment indicator) which had the operator been using it would have warned when the capacity of the crane was exceeded..
It forced me to lift out pieces rather than the whole tree but at least I didn't drop the crane on my house..
Boss
Thanks for the link
That was some pic of the boom sliced thru the house.
Wow
Rich