The long reach of the crane into the skyline is a familiar sight.
With booms reaching almost 200 ft, Encore’s boom trucks have become part of this landscape. Growing up, working, and living in this environment has allowed us to carefully select specific brands and models of cranes; and further adapt them to work in the Alberta Industrial market.
We always focus on the control part of the equipment, and how smooth it can move, lift, and swing. There are definitely better, higher quality machines and we source the best we can.
Maintenance is a large part of this.
We need cranes that are reliable, have reputable and capable dealer assistance, that store and keep parts available. This principle filters down from the control system thru the swing gears, the lift cylinders, the outrigger package, the housing, the type of fittings required, pump selection, and the electronics; god helps you if the computer module and the electronic package aren’t designed for the Canadian market.
There are more cranes out there we will NOT buy than ones we will.
The work dictates how large or long a crane you need and half our work is offloading cargo to the ground; possibly installing on-site. Usually, we have hauled it there. Steel, rebar, piping, poles, and construction materials of all types. These are household duties, and necessary chores, and we have developed tractor boom trucks specifically to haul heavy trailer loads and still have the capability of offloading heavier products. It’s a compromise. We want to save our clients money by bringing the load and crane together, and we improve the package by trading a little cargo capacity for a larger crane. We can lift 10,000 lbs and still haul 40,000 if loaded properly. But this load and weight balancing is part of our operator’s skill package; we can help here.
Our main workhorse is the 18-ton, and these medium size cranes still have 82 ft of reach in a surprisingly short boom. (It’s a Todano luxury, they keep the booms short by running a 5 extension sequence and controlling it all with a single hydraulic cylinder activating cables for the other 4 extensions.)
But the crane world is mostly about reach and we step up quickly to our 30-ton deck trucks, with over 100 ft of a boom. With their pintle hitch trailers, this type of unit works a ton for the building and roofing contractors.
We step up again to the 40-ton and 124 ft of the boom. This platform, single front axle and tridem rear, is a very nimble long reach unit. It was able to maneuver around the new art gallery and do a lot of work on the roof.
There are smaller units that offer the same reach; but our dealer, flat out refused to sell us his own product because anything less than the 40 ton was too weak a boom. 124 ft is a long way up there. We have seen marginal booms start to twist under load, and longer horizontal reaches, turn into uneasy adventures. Encore leans on the conservative side of the lifting world. We always choose a larger model crane for longer, higher work.
It’s your work, your people; and we intend to keep everyone safe and confident in our work and selection of lifting machines.
We have a 45-ton, tractor mount with 100 ft of reach, but it is our heavy road package.
Then we jump to our longest reach units, the 50-155 ft booms. With a jib, these units are peaking over 180 ft. and we are working 14 stories high. For multi-stories and long-reach work, these big booms are extremely effective and capable. They are the reason the larger crane companies are not buying 50-ton machines anymore; they cannot compete with our units. We set up faster, relocate easier, travel cheaper, and most times we operate without a rigger.
All these qualities make Encore’s straight boom cranes an area worth investigating. We installed the exterior wall panels on Champion Feeds, the sign on the Roxy, the Xmas tree base in Churchill Square, the dirt,(yea dirt), up to the 5th-floor outdoor patio at the Mariotte, AC, and heating units on the roof of the new Amazon building, rebar cages into the new Engineering building U of A, a new cooling plant in Fox Lake hockey arena, did a ton of 5G basket work on the tower cell systems and transported, then lifted, valves piping, spools, and shacks, in and out of gas plants, batteries, and pump houses for pipeline and oil field service companies all over Alberta.