Stick with Smaller Self Erectors
Heavy-lifter class is dead on arrival. By Michael Harrison Jr.
"For some additional perspective on the issue, however, I emailed Giovanni Mitti with Mitti Gru in Italy. This company has specialized in the sales and service of self erectors and other tower cranes since the early 1960s. Mitti’s commentary provides valuable insight into the European market, as well as where the North America market is headed. Mitti concurred that the large self-erector class faces an uphill battle. He said:
“Those huge self-erectors are useless for me. If a company wants a big crane, then it is much cheaper to use city tower cranes. They have a much longer jib (up to 80-85 meters), higher max and tip load, and can go much higher (up to 100 meters freestanding and without limit if anchored to building). They also have a large cost advantage. A new city tower may cost half as much as a new large self erector.
“In Italy, the largest self erector we’ll use is one with a 40-meter jib. After that size, companies buy city class towers. City cranes are easier and faster to erect than self erectors in that size. We can erect a city crane with 52-meter jib and 40 meters high on a cross base in seven to eight hours.
“Another key difference—self erectors take up quite a bit of room getting into the job while in the horizontal position on the transport dollies (approximately 13 to 15 meters), while city class cranes only take the room for the cross base (3.8 m x 3.8 m or slightly more). “Those bigger self-erecting cranes are used more in countries where they don’t have a lot of mobile cranes available with 50 to 60 meters high reach, which is needed for erecting a 40 meter-high city crane.”"
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By Michael Harrison Jr.
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