Big rig needed to remove machine from Edmonton’s towering high rise

Big rig needed to remove machine from Edmonton’s towering high rise Manitowoc 2250 takes down Epcor Tower crane

By Stephen Dafoe

EDMONTON — At 28 storeys, the Epcor Tower is Edmonton’s largest high rise, a building that required a Peiner SK 414 to erect. But the task of taking down the 250,000 tonne tower crane fell to Nisku-based Mains Crane and Rigging which brought in a bigger crane to do the delicate job.

Martin Inglehart, operations manager with Mains Crane and Rigging, said the company used a Manitowoc 2250 with a maxer attachment to take down the crane last winter. Classed as a 500 tonne capacity crane, the unit combined 400 feet of tower crane with more than 500 feet of boom to be able to lift the loads.

“The crane itself was 300 feet of main boom and 200 feet of luffing jib,” Inglehart said. “It was full counterweight on the super lift, which is 462,000 pounds. So our overall crane weight was roughly 1.1 million pounds.”

Although cranes of that size are common in Alberta’s oil and gas industry, navigating the gear in the relatively tight confines of downtown Edmonton  proved to be more of a challenge. Two city blocks were closed to accommodate the 28 truckloads of units needed to erect and boom up the crane on the side street. But closing Edmonton streets were not exclusive to erecting the crane. Inglehart said 101 Street was closed to accommodate preparing the surface for the massive crane to sit on.

“We need a perfectly level pad for that crane,” he said. “If it’s not perfectly level then the boom wouldn’t be plum. We actually had to build gravel up on the road and then we put timber crane mats on the crane pad. That was our operating foundation for our lift from the tower crane. ”

The process of levelling the surface took a full day before the 60 foot by 80 foot timber mat area could be laid. But the time was well spent. Inglehart explained that a three-inch discrepancy at the base could result in a five-foot variance 500 feet above.

A crew of 25 worked on putting the crane together over three to four days, helped along by two assist cranes: a 60-tonne truck crane and a 100-tonne all terrain crane. Once the big crane was assembled and all final checks on lines were completed, it was time to move the crane from the side street to the job site and jackknife it into full position.

Taking down the Peiner SK 414, which took about four days, was one of the more unusual jobs the company had done, Inglehart said.

“What we learned during assembly was that Manitowoc may have never had this crane assembled in this configuration before,” Inglehart said. “This was pretty much the largest configuration we could get in this particular type.”

But while the height and scope of the crane job was high, the temperatures were low. The crane was assembled between Christmas and New Year’s when temperatures were in the minus 25 Celsius range. Those temperatures remained through the whole of the job making chilly conditions for crane operators and support crews.

“They were exposed to that at 400 feet in the air,” he said. “Our crews work day and night, so they’re outside 12 hours a day.”

The operations manager said Mains has assembled the same Manitowoc crane to perform heavier lifts, but never with as much boom as the Epcor Tower job.

“We think it’s the largest crane that’s ever been assembled in downtown Edmonton,” Inglehart said, adding some mid-construction changes to the design of the building added features that prevented the Peiner from being able to jack itself down. “It was a change in construction on the tower that created this demand for a crane this size.”