Switched to a luffing jib for a tight downtown job site and it saved my bacon

Honestly, I was dead set on using a standard tower crane for that 14-story build in Austin last month, but the project manager pushed for a luffing jib to fit between two existing buildings. Got it rigged up and the boom clearance was so tight I almost knocked a window out on the first swing. Has anyone else had to switch gear mid-project because the site layout was tighter than you planned?

2 comments

2 Comments

victorb1751m ago

Yeah that counterweight thing is real @zarar67, I've seen guys get scary close to smacking a sidewalk shed with the tail swing on a luffing jib. But here's something people don't think about: the wind loading. On a tight downtown site, you're getting all that weird wind bouncing off the surrounding buildings, and a luffing jib catches it way different than a flat top. I had a job in Dallas where the crane operator said the jib felt like a sail in the gusts, almost started oscillating on us. We had to rig up some extra dampening lines to steady it out and keep the picks safe. Nobody talks about that part, they just focus on the boom clearance. And the other hidden issue is the operator's sight lines - with the boom tucked down at a steep angle, your guy in the cab can't see the load half the time unless you've got a tagline person with perfect hand signals.

zarar671h ago

Luffing jibs are lifesavers in tight spots, no doubt. I had a job in Denver where we swapped out a standard flat top for a luffing jib halfway through because the neighbor's building was way closer than the plans suggested. We ended up tying off the boom at a 45 degree angle for most of the picks and it worked like a charm. Just make sure you double check your counterweight swing radius too, that caught me off guard once.