“You’ve heard of building a ship in a bottle? Well this was building a crane in a cement box!” – Kristian Electric project coordinator.
When it comes to installing a customer’s crane, we at Kristian Electric are the best at what we do. Although every crane order is unique, the steps to manufacture and install each piece are often routine. However, occasionally our Kristian team is tasked to orchestrate a crane install that would make even MacGyver proud.
Here are the facts of the case. A construction company approached us to install a Gorbel workstation crane within a city pump station. Trained operators for the city will use the crane to assist in maintenance and repairs on the pumps, motors, and valves in the lower level of the water lift station. Open and close install case, right? Wrong!
Kristian Electric needed to install the crane in a room that was no more than a few feet larger than the workstation crane itself – and with dimensions of 20 feet, five-inch headers and 43-feet and six-inch-long runways – this left little room for anything else. Another obstacle to consider was building access as the largest entrance to the building was a double man door.
So not only did Kristian technicians need to ensure safety for themselves working within a restrictive and confined environment, but safety for the crane components as the install was completed. Above all, the Kristian install team needed to navigate these safety challenges brought on by the small space while ensuring the job was completed in a timely matter for the customer.
“We had a number of obstacles to overcome before we even started. It required a lot of forethought and measuring,” said the Kristian project coordinator on the job.
After putting many heads together, the Kristian install team formulated a plan. The first step was ensuring the general contractor for the pump station removed all of the old equipment and piping to create the largest working area possible. The second step was using an electric chain hoist installed on the existing monorail, Kristian engineered and fabricated a special spreader beam to lift and lower a spyder crane, with only two inches of clearance, through the double man door and into the room.
Meanwhile, a picker truck was situated outside the building and the Kristian install team used the picker, in conjunction with the spyder crane, to feed one of the headers through a window from outside so it could be installed above the monorail beam.
Once the larger components were moved in, the Kristian install team went to work constructing the workstation crane within the little tin can room. They continued using the monorail electric chain hoist to lower components into the room and the spyder crane to hoist them into place. Once the workstation install was completed and commissioned, the spyder crane was disassembled and hoisted out of the room using the monorail. Finally, the electric chain hoist was removed and voila! The city pump station had a new Gorbel workstation crane to assist them with maintenance and repairs going forward.
All said and done, the job took a little over a week. Everything went as expected and our customer was very pleased.
So, just like MacGyver always said, “Any problem can be solved, with a little ingenuity”… and a little Kristian Electric!
