Tanks and pressure vessels
Cylindrical loads with awkward centres of gravity, lifted on frames and chains and set down on prepared bearers.
Operated · Mainland UK
Truck-mounted crane hire
Hiab crane hire and lorry-mounted crane hire with the driver / operator included, anywhere in mainland Britain. Tell us what needs lifting and roughly where it has to end up, and we will work out which crane it takes.
One machine, a dozen names
Truck-mounted crane hire, hiab crane hire and lorry-mounted crane hire are the same thing
A truck-mounted crane is a hydraulic arm mounted on a lorry chassis, so the vehicle both carries the load and lifts it. Hiab crane hire, lorry-mounted crane hire, crane truck hire, truck crane hire and lorry loader hire all describe that same vehicle. None of them is a different service, a different fleet or a different price list — so if you have been quoted for one and asked about another, you are comparing like with like.
- Truck-mounted crane
- The plain description. Common in tender documents and specifications.
- Lorry-mounted crane
- The same machine again. A lorry mounted crane and a truck mounted crane are one and the same; which word people use tends to follow whether they say lorry or truck.
- Crane truck, crane lorry, hiab lorry crane
- Everyday spoken forms. All of them mean a lorry carrying its own lifting gear.
- Lorry loader
- The industry term. ALLMI, the trade association, uses it — its full name is the Association of Lorry Loader Manufacturers and Importers.
- Loader crane
- The manufacturers’ term, used in the standards and in the operator training.
- Hiab
- A manufacturer’s brand that became the everyday word for the machine, in the way people say hoover for a vacuum cleaner.
What they lift
Crane work, week in week out
Drums, coils and reels
Cable drums, steel coil and reels handled with the right lifting gear rather than slung and hoped for.
Plant into finished buildings
Brewing tanks, chillers and process plant lifted in through openings and over frontages on live premises.
Cabins on a spreader beam
Modular units lifted level on a spreader beam so the frame is not pulled out of square.
Crane and plant components
Tower crane jib sections, counterweights and machine parts delivered to site and handed straight to the erection team.
Steel and frame deliveries
Portal frames, roof purlins and structural sections placed along the building line for the steel erectors.
Choosing one
You do not need to know which vehicle you need
People ring us apologising for not knowing what something weighs. Nobody should have to. Working that out is the job.
What we actually ask you
Two things, neither of them technical. What is the thing? A shipping container, a garden room, a steel beam, a machine, a tank — a plain description is fine. Where is it going? Roughly where it starts and roughly where it ends up.
That is genuinely enough for us to come back with a vehicle and a price. Anything else we need, we will ask you for once you have been in touch. Working out the weight, the reach and the access is our job, not something you should have to do before you can get a quote.
What decides it, when we work it out
Rarely the weight on its own. Far more often it is how far out the load has to be placed, because lifting capacity falls steeply the further the boom extends. A load that is easy at four metres from the vehicle can be impossible at fourteen. Which is why the question we come back with is usually about where the lorry can stand rather than about what the item weighs.
After that it is access: the width of the entrance, the turning room, what the ground will take under the stabiliser legs, and whether anything overhead is in the arc of the boom. Those four decide most jobs.
When a lorry loader is the right answer
When the load has to be both carried and placed. That is the whole advantage: one vehicle, one driver / operator, one visit. A flatbed can bring your load but cannot put it anywhere, so you need lifting equipment waiting at the other end. A mobile crane can place it beautifully but carries nothing, so you are booking two things and paying for both.
When it is not
We will tell you when the answer is a mobile crane. If the weight at the radius you need is beyond what any of our vehicles will hold, or the lift has to go up rather than out, that is a different machine and pretending otherwise helps nobody. We would rather lose the job at the enquiry than turn up and not be able to do it.
What a booking includes
The vehicle, one of our own driver / operators, and the standard lifting gear for the work — slings, chains and shackles. Rates are by the job, the half day or the full day, whichever suits the work. You never have to supply a qualified driver / operator of your own, and the competence and the insurance stay on our side.
The cranes
What is actually on the vehicles
These are the manufacturer’s own figures, from the data sheets we hold for every one of them. Note that the model number is not the tonne-metre rating — the 858 is a 66.1 tonne-metre crane.
| Crane | Lifting moment | With ADC | Max lift | Hydraulic outreach | Lifting height |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HIAB X-HiPro 858 E-8 | 66.1 tm | 71.5 tm | 18,000 kg | 19.6 m | 22.1 m |
| HIAB 855 E-8 HiPro | — | — | 18,000 kg | 19.4 m | — |
| HIAB 658 EP-6 HiPro | 51.2 tm | 55.5 tm | 10,900 kg | 17 m | 19.5 m |
| HIAB 622 E-6 HiPro | 50 tm | 54 tm | 22,000 kg | 15.8 m | 18.5 m |
| HIAB X-HiPro 558 EP-5 | — | 49.7 tm | 10,800 kg | 14.5 m | — |
| HIAB 422 EP-5 HiDuo | 34.3 tm | 37.2 tm | 12,000 kg | 15.4 m | 18.1 m |
| HIAB 700 XS | 66 tm | — | 17,900 kg | 14.8 – 22.8 m | — |
| HIAB 600 | 51 – 57 tm | — | 15,900 kg | 14.8 – 22.8 m | — |
Max lift is the load at its shortest working radius; it falls steeply as the boom extends. ADC is Automatic Duty Control, which allows the extra capacity a properly deployed set-up genuinely provides. Every figure is read from the manufacturer data sheet for that crane. Tell us the weight and the radius and we will confirm what the vehicle coming to you will hold.
Common questions
Truck-mounted crane hire, answered
What is a truck-mounted crane?
A hydraulic loader arm bolted to a lorry chassis, usually behind the cab. It loads the lorry it sits on, so the same vehicle carries the load to site and lifts it into place. The trade names for it are lorry loader, loader crane, crane-truck and hiab — they all mean the same machine.
How is it different from a mobile crane?
A mobile crane is a dedicated lifting machine. It lifts far more and far higher, but it carries nothing, so you also need a lorry to bring the load. A truck-mounted one carries and lifts, which makes it faster and cheaper for anything inside its capacity, and the only sensible option where there is no room to rig the bigger machine.
What does tonne-metres mean?
It is the lifting moment — weight multiplied by distance from the column — and it is the fairest way to compare two cranes, because a headline maximum lift on its own tells you nothing about reach. One warning: the tonne-metre figure is not the model number. Our 858 is a 66.1 tonne-metre crane, 71.5 with ADC. Work from the load chart, never from the name on the boom.
Can it lift over the cab?
Our newer units can. The 858 and the 658 have front-mounted stabiliser legs, which gives full 360 degree lifting without losing capacity over the front of the vehicle. On older configurations the working area in front of the cab is restricted.
Do you supply a crane without a driver?
No. Every one of them goes out with one of our own driver / operators, most of whom are ALLMI trained and CPCS qualified. That keeps the competence, the lift plan and the insurance with us.
Who is responsible for planning the lift?
We are, unless you tell us otherwise. We can supply generic risk assessments and method statements, or job-specific RAMS written around your site, together with a lift plan and an appointed person where the lift requires one. Our health and safety officer is NEBOSH qualified and we take on contract lifts. Tell us at the enquiry if your principal contractor needs the paperwork before the vehicle arrives. We do not hire plant out: we transport it, with our own driver / operator on the vehicle.
Is hiab crane hire the same as truck-mounted crane hire?
Yes, exactly the same. Hiab crane hire, truck crane hire, crane truck hire, lorry mounted crane hire and lorry loader hire all mean one vehicle: a lorry with a hydraulic crane on it, hired with our driver / operator. Hiab is a manufacturer's name that became the everyday word, the way people say hoover. If you have quotes using different words, you are comparing the same machine.
What is the difference between a lorry mounted crane and a truck mounted crane?
Nothing at all. It is the same machine under two names, and which one you hear depends on whether the person says lorry or truck. Both describe a hydraulic crane bolted to a lorry chassis so the vehicle carries the load and lifts it into place.
Can I hire a crane truck without knowing the weight?
Yes. Tell us what the item is and where it has to go and we will work the rest out. People ring us about things they have never had to weigh in their lives, and it is our job to look at a photograph or a description and say which vehicle it takes.
Tell us what needs lifting
A plain description of the load and where it has to go is enough to get a price. If we need anything else we will ask.
