bloody crane

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

never trusted tower cranes

[Andrew]

best not to use them on windy day then

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Yes we had one collapse in Kingston last year. Luckily nobody was on site at the time, made a heck of a mess of the building being built apparently. What I could never get was why they were not guyed up, as the windage on the cab area is huge. Brian

[Andrew]

During strong windy weather, tower cranes are usally allowed to rotate around freely do that the jib always points into or away from the wind.

Something else made that one in East London collapse, either the ground wasn't suitable or the procedures were not followed.

Andrew

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Take a look on the hire label. If it's Costain they don't stay up long.

AB From the well pummelled keyboard of Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp Esq

[T i m]

I think that permanent guying would cause more issues than they solved (considering how few fall over etc) and putting guys up when they weren't in use, probably not practical / cost effective?

Cheers, T i m

[williamwright]

They keep saying it's 65ft. That must mean to the top of the tower, rather than the length of the boom.

Bill

[newshound]

Or 20 metres. Couldn't see at first how that tied in with the position of the boom through the roof of the house, but then spotted the triangular brace bits half way along. It looks to me as though the boom was originally pointing away from the house, then the column toppled towards the terraced houses and the boom subsequently flipped over the top.

[T i m]

As an apprentice to a site electrician I was given the dubious task of wiring up the pendant control on a second hand tower crane they had bought from France and re-assembled on-site.

The excuse they used for pushing me up there is that I had most recently done French at school and so was in a better position than them for reading the French wiring diagram colours. ;-(

So, whilst it wasn't that high (I think it was one of these modular jobs where it can lift itself up, you put in a new section, drop it onto it and bolt it up and it lifts itself up again ...) it felt bloody high when I was climbing up inside ... with no PPE / harness of course. ;-(

Attaching the wiring for the pendant control (raise / lower / slew / traverse etc) was quite straightforward (whilst translating the diagram and clinging on with one arm) but the real frightening bit was adjusting the overload lockout switch. Basically they (while I was hanging inside the top) took a 2 tonne concrete weight out on the jib to about half way then 'bounced it slightly and I had to adjust said switch till the warning then mimicked the bounce in the load. ;-(

So, once properly adjusted, I think the theory was if you tried to lift more than 1 tonne near the end of the jib the overload horn / switch cut in and you could only lower the load or bring it inwards.

Interesting but terrifying day!

A better but equally tiring few days was to take all the fluorescent light diffusers and tubes down in the large open plan office, clean and dry them, clean the fittings and put them back up again, all 100+ of them!

The place did look a lot brighter and most of that was down to the yellow gunge on them from the smokers. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[tony sayer]

In article , T i m scribeth thus

Indeed, i had to climb one in London many years ago to put a radio in one to talk to the banks men on the ground, was up around 200 odd feet and just getting to the cab and the bloody ladder slipped a few feet thought this was it!, but it stopped and after composing myself and offering tanks to a deity for my existence! got to the cab to be met by the driver who did apologise about the duff bit of ladder said he'd run out of big Tywraps to hold it in place as he know about it and as no one else came up there etc!!!

Still offered a cup of tea was warned not to have too much as he didn't want to have to share his pee bottle! apparently it blows all over the place before hitting anyone on the ground when emptied! Quite spacious in there and great view.

But sometimes they've have to odd collision when working close to each other which i believe they rarefy do these days.

Amazing bit of engineering all the same and the one thats collapsed an investigation is ongoing as it was being put up at the time...

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I had numerous run ins over the years.

They have a H&S policy that puts things right back to the old construction days of do it my way or you are out.

One particular example was when trying to get onsite to do a job. My paperwork didn't suit.

They gave me their rubbish to sign, which I didn't as it was for the wrong job. It had their gobledegook and stupid pictures in it though so it was acceptable!

Numerous times I tried to warn them before I did the job and afterwards tried to raise a H&S incident.

All the noise and contact emails dried up as if by magic.

I then looked into the companies activities, they had just been find half a million for a crane topple in London, the basic reason was that the management didn't listen to the crane drivers concerns.

Like a lot of construction sites, they are spot on with Hi viz policing, just don't let 'em loose with anything dangerous!

AB

From the well pummelled keyboard of Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp Esq

[T i m]

Feck, I bet that got the heart going!

Ooops.

I was thinking that as you said it ...

Ewww.

Especially of the helecopters. ;-(

Again, I've often wondered that, seeing how close they can be, especially those on the corners of buildings.

Yeah, terrible but amazing that only one person died (I believe it was an elderly woman) ... survive the war and Covid19 then ... ;-(

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Does this bring back any memories? ;-)

[T i m]

I believe a few people had died on this site. One was an explosion, another where someone dug up a high voltage cable with a JCB and another with an overloaded crane and the load landing on someone. ;-(

None were 'direct' personal accidents as such, but of a consequence of something going wrong because of bad practice / poor maintenance.

Cheers, T i m

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Accidents never have the single obvious cause that the hi vis spotters delight in picking up. There is almost always a chain of events leading to the incident.

Not listening is really common, a lot of sites I attended didn't listen, or want to listen.

Opening statement on the method statement I brought to site with me:

This method statement will be read along with the risk assessment before work commences.

I don't think I ever fully discussed one set of RAMS ever.

No one was interested, they would never listen past the first few pages.

The only thing I would say, is that generally the UK has a bit of an edge on health & safety. Certainly better than Ireland.

As to whether it will last........?

Of course "nanny state" merchants will be glad to have blood splashing down the streets, and all those black & white TV adverts informing people how not to croak at work back onthe box!

AB

From the well pummelled keyboard of Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp Esq