Glamping pods run from Wrexham to Inverness, a public sculpture moved and re-sited at Southport, tanks from the Wirral to Birmingham, a welfare compound built out at Caernarfon, and a January week working underneath the M5 at Worcester.
32 documented jobs from 2019, each with the photograph it came from. Every job is one we actually did.
Each one is a job that happened, captioned with what it was.
August 2019. A hydro screw on the flatbed, taken at walking pace between terraced houses on the way up into the High Peak. Long, round and heavy in the middle, so the load is chocked and roped rather than simply strapped flat.
August 2019. A sound stage came down at Leeds Festival and the cylindrical speaker housings came back with us. Light for their size and very easy to mark, which is why they travel on blankets and soft strops.
The same load built up in layers on the deck. Nothing about it is heavy; all of it is awkward, and the whole job is in the stacking.
A carved figure lifted off its plinth, moved and set down on a new one across the same park at Southport. Sculpture work is slow by choice: the lift itself is minutes, the packing and the setting out are the day.
A full load of vehicle lifts collected in Rochdale and run down to Somerset. Long steel columns crated flat, which loads quickly and has to be roped properly because there is nothing to hold them square.
A cedar-clad classroom delivered on the drag and set into a space with very little room around it. The customer's words afterwards were “a rather tight space but we did it”, which is a fair description of most cabin work.
August 2019. Black process tanks lifted in among live plant, with storage vessels and pipework on three sides. Everything about the position is fixed before the boom goes anywhere near it.
Part of a run of cedar-clad camping pods taken from Wrexham up to Inverness. Two pods standing on prepared bases at a wooded site, with the empty trailer alongside them.
A pod slung on four strops and lifted clear of the trailer, above a base of stone and hardcore.
The crane bringing a pod down onto its base beside one already positioned, in a clearing among birch trees.
The first of a run of tanks taken from the Wirral to Birmingham. A large stainless vessel loaded lengthways in a wet yard, with more standing behind it waiting their turn.
A corrugated steel silo section held in chains at close quarters, the crane taking the weight.
The same kind of vessel down on the trailer bed and secured, a tank yard behind it.
A tall corrugated tank lowered onto the ground on its side in a muddy compound, still on the strops.
June 2019. A glazed garden room — a dog grooming pod — taken over a fence and into a back garden, with the banksman on the ground holding the line. There is no other way in to a garden like this one.
January 2019. Cabins positioned underneath the M5 viaduct, where the crane has a ceiling as well as a radius to work to and every movement is planned against the concrete above it.
Two of the cedar pods on their bases at the far end of the Wrexham to Inverness run. The pods travel finished, so the whole job is about not marking them - strops rather than chains, and a straight lift onto a base somebody else has already levelled.
A pod on the rigid and a second on the drag, loaded out for Scotland. Running the wagon and drag means the pair go north together instead of paying twice for the same road.
A pod on the strops and coming down onto its base. The lift itself is short; the setting up is what takes the time.
Two cedar pods loaded nose to tail on the drag and strapped down, running north on an ordinary A road. Pods are light for their size, so it is the width and the overhang that decide the route rather than the weight.
One of the longest single runs of the year - Wrexham to Inverness with the pods - photographed on the way north.
The pod clear of the bed and swinging over a garden fence in June 2019. There is no other way in - the only access is over the boundary, which is exactly the job a lorry-mounted crane is for.
The pod coming down the gap between two houses. The width of the gap, not the weight of the pod, is what the lift plan is about.
The rigid on its legs in the street with the boom over the roofline. Residential lifts are decided by where the legs can go down, and that is settled before anybody leaves the yard.
The sculpture roped down on the bed at Southport, ready to be moved and re-sited. Public artwork has no lifting points designed into it and no second chances, so it goes on padded and slow.
The tank coming down onto the hardstanding on the Wirral before the run south to Birmingham.
The silo down on the trailer and strapped, ready for the road. Tanks like this are all length and very little weight, which makes them an oversize problem rather than a lifting one.
August 2019, working inside a live tank farm. Everything within reach of the boom is somebody else's pressure vessel, so the swing is planned before the legs go down.
January 2019, working underneath the M5 at Worcester with a man on the roof of the unit. Headroom is the whole job - the boom cannot go up, so the lift is done low and long.
The same day, in between the piers. There is no sky to lift into, so everything happens within the height of the deck.
Started in the week before Christmas 2018 and finished in the January. A run of green and white welfare cabins placed, levelled and linked across an empty yard at Caernarfon, with the vehicle still working at the far end.
Back at the Etihad in 2019 for the club's official matchday store units. Stadium work is nearly always a window between fixtures rather than a weight problem.
Tell us what you need lifting or transporting and we will come back with a vehicle and a price.
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