Tight Site for STL 200, Lifting 3.5tn Digger Out and Down an Embankment

Casting back to a job where a house that perched on top of a steep embankment required some improvements to the existing reinforcing and retaining to ensure it stayed up in place.

The contractor tasked with the job (Civil IQ Ltd) needed a way to get a 3.5tn digger and material for the job down the back of the property, with no way of getting the digger around the house and down the steep embankment. the only way was to lift it into place with a crane.

One of the first challenges at this site was where to place a crane, a traditional mobile crane would need to set up on the road requiring traffic management and potential road closure. our operators went and did a site check and came up with a plan to use the PK200002. This avoided the need for traffic management as the truck was able to reverse into a side gate parking area beside the house getting it off the street, saving on traffic management cost.

With this area to set up there was limited space for the trucks stabilizers however, the PK200002 was kept stable and secure even with one leg not able to be extended all the way out on the lifting side thanks to it’s High Performance Stability Control (HPSC). For this lift we went without the fly-jib and utilized the double winch pulley block to give us the control to lift the 3.5tn digger up and out the 23-24m needed and then lowered down behind the house and embankment.

On the day the operator and dog man was essential to a smooth job allowing the operator and dog man to work as a team, with the operator up by the truck, rigging the loads and the dog man communicating via a radio directing the digger and material to its landing area. an added bonus of having the the additional hand of a dog man is it allows the task of setting up and packing down move efficiently as well as bringing two set of eyes to look out for hazards.

Credit to Civil IQ for pulling off a tricky and technical job and doing the prep work to have the site organized and clear so that on the day we were able be productive and get the job done.