How Cranes Work | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too and this is stuff you should. know the Tonka. edition you know I had a terrible. thought earlier that it might be fun. to uh release this episode on cranes and. then one the bird cranes uhhuh and then.

we have another one coming up that I. just uh you know asked our our friend. Dave ruse to get on that could we could. also do you know that one is did you see. that I don't want to give it away it's. also a food in a. cartoon I don't remember we could do one. on the food in the cartoon with the same. title and we should just start doing. even more confusing titles okay I think. that's a great idea so we got to do it. on the bird cranes next okay so and. we'll just title them the same thing.

yeah okay how how cranes work how cranes. work yeah figure it out people won't. know what they're cuz that happens a lot. anyway like when we did Nirvana we. actually put not the band right right. that the the opposite of being. purposefully confusing yeah exactly. today in this episode couple minutes in. now we'll finally reveal we're talking. about the construction version of cranes. that's right yeah that's why I said the. Tonka edition which is probably a bit of. a giveaway where you into Tonka uh I.

wasn't that into Tonka okay I think I. had a truck or something but I wasn't I. was a sensitive boy I wasn't banging. trucks around and Building Things I was. too uh I also feel like we we've gone. back in time because this feels like a. very 10 years ago thing for us oh yeah. the um article on the house of Works. site was written by Marshall brain. himself oh goodness Mr ruse helped us. out with this one yeah okay was that the. deal.

no it wasn't I actually didn't know that. there was um something I was looking I. was looking up some fact or whatever and. that article came up and I was like oh. okay so yeah yeah no it wasn't that. wasn't the deal but um I don't remember. what made me want to do this I think it. was just probably saw one huh I don't. think so I mean I've seen plenty but no. I don't I really don't think that's what. did it I don't know where it came from. but I think it's just kind of like a. lifelong fascination with it like I'm. I'm not like a cran ofile or anything.

like that I can't tell you like you know. the names of The Operators I don't have. the trading cards or anything but um I. do find construction stuff pretty um. impressive from like a distance you know. what I mean totally you can't see people. yeah when I see one of those things. going I'm I always stop and take a look. and just think my Lord what what have we. come up with now yeah we should say. there's a ton of different cranes so. this is specifically Tower cranes and we. didn't call the episode that.

just because apparently we're going to. confuse everybody Tower cran would have. given it away but we're talking about a. very specific kind of crane and it is. the construction crane the kind you see. on construction sites especially these. days if you're driving through. Toronto yeah apparently uh Dave dug up. some stats on crane usage who knew that. existed and uh Toronto right now leads. the way in North America with the most. operating cranes I guess they're. building a lot there yeah they've got. got 12 21 going but.

uh1 boy in the 2010s he found that there. were about 100,000 cranes operating. around the world during that big you. know 2010's construction boom yeah and I. mean that's a really good proxy for how. the um Global construction industry is. doing because I guess you you. essentially can't undertake any decent. size construction project without a. tower crane of some sort on your site. yeah if if you want height you're going.

to need a crane yeah you want height you. want it very quickly and easily move. like a pile of um you know steel girds. or rebar like yeah you can break down. that that that bunch of rebar and have a. bunch of guys just kind of card it from. one side to the other or you can save. about 20 manh hours and just lift it up. and move it over with the crane they're. they're invaluable for a construction. site uh they are and he also found this. cool stat which is the largest one going.

right now from uh I don't know how to. say that croll cranes that oh has a null. set line to it so yeah some some Danish. pronunciation but the the. k1000 my friend as you know and my. friends out there listening that can. lift about 100 SUVs 528,000 PBS yeah and. like 100 SUVs yeah not like escapes. either like like normal size SUVs I. Googled like midsize Volvo SUV R okay.

yeah it it makes sense it's a lot of. SUVs all at once that it could lift up. and that's um as we'll see it depends on. where it's lifting from and all that. there's a lot of a lot of uh variables. and factors and all of that put together. combined with the danger and just the. unique um situation anybody who's. operating a crane is in um makes it a. really demanding High Press job.

um I saw one crane operator basically. liken it to eight hours of non-stop. surgery essentially because of the the. attention to detail you have to have at. all times you have to anticipate what. people on the ground are going to do. based on like their body movement and. you're working with your hands like. you're you use two joysticks and it. seems very simple but you can make the. crane do all sorts of interesting things. with just those two joysticks and. depending on how busy the construction. site is you might not stop moving those.

joysticks essentially the entire day. yeah all sorts of things how about a. soft. shoe sure yeah it's like uh Battle Zone. remember that game no battle Z I think. we've even talked about this that's the. one where you look through the uh the. arcade game where it was made out of. like. green uh what's it called when it's just. lined out and not colored in like a. vector like a yeah sort of and you had a. left and right joystick like you were. driving a tank around okay and looking.

through a eyepiece yes I remember now. and then that made me talk about sea. wolf I think the the Periscope submarine. game basically yeah all right yeah but. um can move on for Mar yeah exactly it's. kind of like that but um with real death. involved. potentially right uh and this whole. thing was the idea of a German. construction engineer post World War II. named Hans liba.

uh because. HBA had a lot of Germany and all of. Germany had a lot of Germany to rebuild. especially in the city centers yeah post. World War II and so he came up with this. idea in 1949 of a mobile tower crane. that you could you know take from place. to place uh what you would say now it. was probably what we would call A Ling. crane LOF fiing G uh which we'll talk. about a little bit later on when we're. detailing cranes so not the you know the. the hugest super tall ones but it was. 1949 and it was a good start yeah I mean.

give Liber a break like he's the one who. essentially said like we need cranes and. we can do more with cranes like there. would not be skyscrapers without Tower. cranes sorry face it yeah um and also we. should probably give them their due it. goes all the way back to at the very. least the 6th Century BCE Greeks who. were the first ones to start using. cranes and construction. projects yeah of course so basically. nothing happened for 2600 years. roughly until Hans Libra came along uh.

these climbing cranes we're going to. detail came about in the 1960s thanks to. and these things are pretty remarkable. that's the really giant tall ones that. you see that kind of build themselves uh. and boy just stick around everybody. because it it gets pretty hot but they. were came to his courtesy a couple of. Aussie Brothers uh Ted and Eric uh favel. I guess in 1962 sure and because they. were Australian of course they called.

them kangaroo jumping. cranes like for real I'll bet everyone. but the Australians called it that oh. maybe so uh but they helped erect the. Twin Towers in New York City yeah. apparently so did the k1000 from what I. understand oh so that one's been around. huh yeah I think a lot of cranes help. build the the Twin Towers but you you. couldn't have built the twin towers. without um climbing cranes and like you. said man if you understand how the. climbing cranes work they're just it's.

amazing but it also answers a really. great question like how do those little. cranes get all the way on top of a. skyscraper just wait just you wait the. eight-year-old kid in all of. us uh but we're going to be mainly. talking about what's known as a. hammerhead tower crane and that is when. you look up in the sky uh and you see a. giant giant tall tea essentially with a. a very long side of T horizontal t and a.

shorter side coming out the other side. of the T it's like an inexpertly written. T it looks like one of my daughter's. te's okay well I would call her inexpert. at this point she's just starting out. yeah her penmanship is terrible we're. working on it um just teach her how to. cut Letters Out of magazines we were. yeah I should we were working on her. math last night and she was having me. check her actual math work and I said. your math is all perfect I said I'd like. to see you work on just sort of the. neatness in how you display your answers.

she was like what it's like well you. know I can look at this I was kind of. pointing things out in a very Larry. David kind of. way so I'm not sure if it sunk in we'll. see did she get the curb references oh. she totally did Jeff Garland's her. favorite so um all right well let's talk. about the the the components of a crane. because it's actually extraordinarily. simple mhm it's extraordinarily it's. just as it's just as easy as that there. really simple machines but they're.

they're intricate in how precise they. need to be yeah uh so we got to start. let's go bottom up you want to go bottom. [Music]. up okay yeah that seems all right all. right well we got to start with the. foundation because obviously if. something is this tall and they're you. know lifting things like 100 SUVs. basically you're going to have to have a. heck of a foundation and that's where. you're going to start these these things. are actually sunk into a concrete pad uh.

the concrete pad for the largest ones uh. weighs about 4,000 lbs and it is it's. not like they do this in blocks and. sections it's one big long concrete pour. through rebar uh to just make that thing. as solid as it was built into the actual. Bedrock of the Earth yeah they. essentially are creating their own. Bedrock to to pour around the foundation. of the of the Mast is what it's called. that part of the crane that rises upward.

from the ground that's called the Tower. or the Mast and the the bottom of the. Mast is cemented into an enormous multi. 100,000 PB block of concrete it's pretty. impressive in and of itself right. totally so the Mast you might uh if you. look closely you'll see uh is made of. essentially trusses squares and trusses. and if you will refer to our bridges. episode we came face to face with the. realization that dresses are the most.

beautifully strong structure uh on Earth. essentially yeah so it makes sense. because as we'll see you want these. these um the Mast sections to be fairly. lightweight and you can make something. lightweight if you use trusses so I'm. sure it was Hans Liber who figured that. one out like right out of the gate yeah. absolutely uh depending on you know your. project is how tall your Tower is going. to be. because like you said they well you'll.

see how they build themselves uh but you. don't want one that's taller than it. needs to be and obviously you want it. tall enough uh the tallest ones are over. 400 feet tall and uh the the more. standard ones are in the like 250 foot. range right I guess that what the k1000. and I think some um I think China just. released like the largest toughest crane. around it's a real competitor to the. k1000. does surprise me anything over about 400.

ft we haven't really cracked the physics. of of a freestanding tower crane beyond. that it just it's too unstable it's too. risky it doesn't work um but so let's. say we top out at about 200 250 I think. you said something like that yeah 250ish. the top I don't know 10% of that. probably would be um made up of What's. called the cat's head and the cat's head. is essentially the top of the crane that.

all of the parts that actually do the. work above the Mast connect to okay yeah. so for example you have the sing unit. and the sing unit is is at the neck. basically the base of the head of that. cat's head and it's essentially huge. disc that the whole thing can spin. around on. 360° go by a work site tower crane shout. up to him say do me a 360 he any crane. operator worth their salt will just stop.

what they're doing and do a 360 for you. to show just how amazing the sing unit. is uh did you know what the definition. of slooh is uh does it have something to. do with. Seattle no it's uh to turn violently or. uncontrollably no yeah that's what the. verb is uh you know undergoing sing or. as a noun uh a violent or uncontrollable. sliding movement Chuck I tip my Breton.

cap to you for looking up that word in. year 15 man way to go well I I didn't. know what it meant um so I appreciate. that but it's just I don't know I'm sure. someone can explain this boy I'm hoping. we hear from crane people oh I hope so. too and I hope they're like gosh you. guys sure got it right not like I'm. never listening to you again like the. scuba people so the sing unit is the. it's where the Mast and the the top. functioning part of the crane meet in. its spins it around it's what allows the.

the the whole thing to spin around all. right the next thing we have is that the. you know the big long arm that big. working arm that extends way out the. horizontal arm that lifts the stuff uh. although it doesn't actually lift the. stuff it holds the stuff right that's. called the jib arm uh a jib is it's not. uh specific to cranes there are all. kinds of jib arms uh if you've ever. worked on a movie set and they you know. have uh crane shots and stuff like that. those are called jibs as well right uh. why is that funny why are you laughing.

at everything because are you drunk no. I'm not drunk I'm drunk-ish but not. fully not enough to explain my. liness uh so the jib can go out you know. a few hundred feet sometimes for the. extra large ones uh and it basically. allows it to lift things up swing it. over and drop it off somewhere else and. if you're thinking well that sounds a. lot more complicated than that it is and. it isn't it's not in that that's what.

that jib arm is there for but there is a. something called a load chart that you. know you really got to be well. acquainted with because if you're. picking up something from the very Tippy. end of that 300t jib you're not going to. be able to lift as much as you would if. that thing were pulled back to like 50. or 60 feet because of physics it would. tip over yeah you can't you can't lift. the full load of Volvo midsize SUVs that. you could if it's much closer the load's. closer to the center of gravity for the.

whole crane right yeah so I guess that. maximum lift capacity would be when it's. at its uh peak of uh you know position. yeah Peak balance like lifting POS yeah. Peak balance right so it would not. necessarily. be I don't know it depends on the weight. of the load where that peak of balance. would be right um so but for the. heaviest for its maximum lift it would. probably be pretty pretty much close to. the center of the jib arm maybe yeah no.

I think it's actually a little closer. regardless the thing that I I I think is. ingenious about all this is that the jib. arm never moves it's static it might. move like swiveling but it's not. swiveling itself it's just swiveling. with the rest of the whole working part. of the crane right so the jib arm stays. where it is MHM so they've actually. designed everything else around the fact. that the jib arm stays straight and.

that's what allows um loads to like move. toward the cab away from the cab toward. the end of the arm toward the inside of. the arm the jib arm um through a bunch. of pulleys and specifically a uh. something called the trolley which is. attached to the underside of the jib arm. and it's just what moves back and forth. along the jib arm allowing you to kind. of move a load you know closer or. further away depending on where the. people on the ground need it yeah like. if you stood up and put one arm out that.

arm would just stay there and there's. and picture a a little little carriage. on the underside of your arm that slides. you know down to your fingertips and. back to your armpit yeah the stuff that. hangs down from like your bicep when you. just let your arms stay there imagine. that moving toward your fingers oh God. uh It's called Aging uh so your arm stay. straight the whole time and that little. carriage on the underside of your arm is. what's moving stuff and then if you want. to move it from here to there you turn. your whole body and you go while you do.

it y so you know your kids will laugh. and stuff but that's essentially it that. arm just stays there yeah and when you. turn your whole body your hips are. sing right guess so like Elvis so um. then the hook the thing that actually. hooks onto the load that's just. connected to the trolley right MH um. it's pretty neat because you actually. raise and lower the hook so it's. connected to a system of pulleys like a. whole bunch bunch of different pulley um.

and when you connect these pulleys. together it's called reaving and so. there's a certain way to connect all. these pulley to maximize the just the. grip and traction they have while also. allowing like the the heaviest possible. load to kind of hang from that cable. without snapping yeah and it just works. as a like a rod and reel like when. you're fishing uh you just wind it in to. raise it and and let it out to lower it. now that technically is found in the. Hoist unit which to me is just I mean.

it's the it's the thing that makes. everything move well no I guess the sing. unit makes the thing move too anything. that has to do with the load the hook. all of that stuff it's found in the. Hoist. unit yeah and that works with that hook. block uh through a series of a series of. uh pulley they're not just like hey. let's put get this gigantic pulley and a. giant cable they want they want that. cable running through several several.

pulleys right and so that goes up and. then usually up above the top of the jib. arm and then back behind to the counter. jib where it sits I think usually the. Hoist unit sits behind the counter. weights and it consists of a big old. Burly 180 horsepower motor that's. spinning a giant drum that has a bunch. of Steel cable wound around it so the. whole thing acts like a fishing line a. rod and real essentially is is is the.

best analogy for it when you want to. lower something the drum spins and the. line pays out when you want to raise it. back up the drum spins the other way and. reels the line in and Mister you got a. big old couple hundred ton fish on the. end of your line there. congratulations yeah and that cable is. uh I mean you would think like it's got. to be like 3 ft around or something but. cable is really really strong uh I'm not. sure how big this cable is but. I've seen cables that like pull a boat.

out of the water and those things are. not big around at all and I'm constantly. thinking well I wonder when I'm going to. see somebody's boat snap off yeah and it. just doesn't happen cable is just super. super strong yeah for sure you know next. time we do a a topic like this we should. get two five-year-olds to come in and. explain this part cuz they would do it. so so much more simple do you think so I. think so simply yeah oh all right two. five or maybe maybe four year. olds okay uh it's got a counter jib that.

is if you look at the tower crane and. you see that big long arm on the other. side of the mass you're going to see a. much shorter horizontal arm uh out of. what I guess you would call the back of. the crane and that is going to hold the. counterweights because you got to. counterbalance all those Volvo. SUVs uh with a lot of serious weights. and that is those are the counterweights. uh they the the k1000 requires uh almost. as many counterweights as it requires uh. for like the maximum lift it's 491 th000.

uh and change of poundage compared to. what I say like 580 or something like. that yeah it's a yeah and there's just. these huge concrete slabs that are. shaped slightly like a t so the bottom. parts fit into a slot but the tops won't. so they just dangle there it's nuts. actually if you think about what's going. on hundreds of feet up in the air well. what's nuts is when uh they're not. lifting anything those counterweights uh.

make the crane kind of tip backward a. little bit and if you're a crane. operator and you start lifting and. dropping things off that crane does a. little Weeble wobble of a few feet when. it's lifting and releasing things and. you just got to you know you got to be. used to that I guess yeah yeah I'm sure. it takes a lot of getting used to yeah. and then there's a Tower Peak which. Hammerhead Tower cranes don't usually. have a peak it's just flat all the way. across but sometimes they have a nice. little almost like a sailboat sail.

masting kind of thing yeah and usually. that's to help support um from above the. jib um because those things extend out. pretty far and they're can of levered so. they can use all the support they can. get there's more cablage basically right. kind of supporting it from above yes. yeah yeah and there's one more big big. piece of equipment uh as far as. importance goes if you ask me it could. be a little bigger I have some thoughts. on how to improve these things but that. is operator cab where the person sits.

the crane operator sits for 8 to 12 to. 15 hours a day depending on how much. they're being put to work yeah and it's. like roughly smallish walk-in closet. size in a mid Market priced Suburban. home so here are my here are my two. thoughts a these people climb up a. ladder to get there yeah how long does. it take them Chuck it can take like 10. minutes or more depending on how fast. they climbing so my first Improvement is.

you got to get them out of like off that. ladder no one needs to be climbing up. that thing at the beginning or the end. of a shift okay check one there there's. got to be a way to get somebody up there. like a rig they attach them to and. mechanically pulley themselves up or. something like that okay so that's my. first suggestion the other one is that. thing needs a little tiny toilet there's. no bathroom there's climate controlled. which is great but they don't have a. toilet and Dave said he found out they.

they pee in a bottle and poop in a. plastic bag like get a little bitty you. could make that thing a little bit. bigger and put a a couple of mod cons in. there for these people yeah no it's true. for sure um I think the thing that. fascinated me the most about the cab. besides not having a bathroom is that. the the the windshield essentially. extends all the way down below the. operator's feet so when you're sitting. in the seat your feet are dangling over.

the ground hundreds and hundreds and. hundreds of feet. below yeah it's really something see I'm. not trying to be gross but this is real. world stuff what if you've got you know. diarrhea or something and you're up. there well you know I saw I saw a lot a. real problem for sure it is I saw a lot. of um uh like blogs and articles about. how as a crane operator you really need. to take care of yourself like probably. more than the average construction. worker would. in addition to like getting sleep so. you're not like off your game on any day.

um you want to eat well at least for. that reason like you don't want to eat. like a dozen wings for breakfast lunch. and dinner that's a bad idea no chili. nothing like that chili dogs chili con. carne none of that stuff um yeah this is. a real consideration for sure and. because it takes at least 10 minutes to. get to the ground um you of course. you're not going to going to stop every. time you have to go to the potty you're.

going to just go up there yeah you put a. little tiny potty up there is all I'm. saying plus also even if you don't even. if you're like I I want to climb back. down this is going to be awful so I need. to get out of this cab when you're. climbing down and you go to the bathroom. and then you have to climb back up that. could be 45 minutes an hour worth of of. time that's my point that the entire. construction site has just essentially. shut down waiting on you or whatever was. coming next is just waiting on you you. have literally slowed down the entire.

project that's the amount of pressure. that's on the crane operator at all. times typically little bathroom solved. that whole problem yeah at the very. least one of those like Stadium. catheters that people use at football. games should we take a break yes all. right we'll be right back with more on. Tower. [Music]. cranes.

[Music]. serious okay Chuck so now we're at. probably the coolest part you thought. everything was cool thus far MH just. wait for this because you mentioned the. favel brothers out of. Australia and they invented that.

kangaroo crane which from what I can. tell no one calls it that anymore they. probably did at first now they call them. climbing cranes there's actually two. ways they figured out to make cranes. climb to to essentially build themselves. that's what they do because there's only. so much of the Mast that you can build. using smaller cranes eventually the. Crane's going to get too tall for the. cranes that are helping build it to to. lift. and it needs to start taking over it. needs to stand on its own Ted feet and.

take charge of its own. life yeah or really for legs. sure uh the two methods are top climbing. and bottom climbing so at the beginning. of each job you or when you're going to. get a job I guess you have to determine. if you're a top or a bottom and for top. climbing it really helps I got to say to. look at a video like Dave S us these. video demos uh we're going to do our. best to describe this stuff uh if you. happen to be at home or a safe place.

when you're not driving your car you. know give yourself 30 seconds and check. it out I I found a good one for top. climbing search Stafford SOA s o i m a. okay and then for bottom climbing um. Hans leers's company uh has a great. video on it too I love these guys. hopefully this is going to blow up and. they be like man where are we getting. all these views from we've gotten a 100. views in the last six months now yeah I. hope uh that that doesn't mean like we. should invest in buying more cranes.

because of all the interest hey that's. on them if they misread the market that. badly uh all right so the climbing frame. is what uh is necessary to build a top. climbing crra uh the climbing frame is. three-sided it's got you know three. sides and then one open side and it's. built around the base of the Mast kind. of like Dave described it's like a cage. uh that's a little wider than the mass. so it can slide up and down on the. outside which makes a lot ofense you. know those construction elevators that. they have on construction sites that are.

essentially that that people like used. to get up imagine that but there's no. place for you to stand because it's the. the um Mast of the crane is going. through it yeah that's much more. convoluted way to think of it I like the. thing yeah exactly uh the cool thing. about this climbing frame is it is. equipped with these hydraulic jacks so. what it does is it they have all these. you know uh trusses in a in a very. straight line because while you're doing. this that jib arm has to stay completely.

straight and still right uh or I'm sorry. yeah that that long arm you don't want. it moving around and you'll see why in a. second so they line them all up in a row. and that climbing frame uh goes down and. it picks up one of these uh trusses or. you know it doesn't pick it up the I. imagine it gets loaded in or whatever. and then these hydraulic jacks push it. up you know kind of you know a few feet. at a time basically ex you know. decompressing and compressing and.

inching this thing up and up and up. until it gets to the top of where you. need a new section and then they they. slide it in and attach it but the. frightening part is all of this is done. like this thing has to be unbolted in. other to bolt in order to bolt the new. section on so there's a very tenuous. time where everything has just got to be. perfectly in balance while they unbolt. this thing yeah and what's scary is at. that most tenuous time that's when the. crane is lifting the next Mass section.

up so that it can be slid into that open. fourth wall of the climbing frame it's. really nuts and the and the drivers The. Operators even out cuz they don't even. want anyone in the cab moving around. like you know with. diarrhea right but no I saw in one video. that that the CR the crane had to have. the operator in there to to lift up the. each each Mass section well I saw that a. lot of times they're not in there so. some may be self- operational and some.

may require just a very steady uh you. know someone on some em modium I mean. yeah no that makes sense that there. wouldn't be any in there because it's. it's very dangerous because the only. thing connecting the entire top part of. the crane which is already built to the. bottom of the Mast is that climbing. frame at those points when they're. starting to move a new section in but. when you do this you can do this up to. what was it about you know 400 feet. where the whole thing tops out like. yeah that's I can't imagine seeing.

something like that let alone working on. it because I don't know if you said on. that climbing frame there's some. dudes being gender neutral here um. riding that thing like you're a dude if. you are sticking giant pins into the. Mass frame sections to erect a giant um. a giant tower crane that's just the kind. of personality it takes I think yeah and. I I had always assumed these were. telescoping like a uh a fir truck ladder.

nope I thought it was just some huge. unit on the ground that could just. telescope up to 400 ft uh the fact that. this is how it's done is remarkable yeah. and so you can almost imagine the. climbing frame is like a giant speculum. that. separates the the top of the the um. tower crane from the bottom and you. insert another section and then it does. it. again all right you explain the bottom. cuz I I got it and I saw the video but I. had a couple of questions oh okay all.

right so bottom climbing you do the. opposite with the top climbing you're. adding the new sections at the top at. the bottom you build the crane like any. other tower crane to start up to 200 300. feet whatever and you use it like normal. but the difference is with a bottom. climbing crane you build the the. building around the crane with a top. climing inside build exactly top. climbing is outside the building it. stays outside of the building the whole.

time bottom climbing you build the. building around the crane and eventually. as the building gets tall enough it. starts to serve as the support structure. for the crane because eventually you. have to decouple the the crane from the. foundation that was poured for it like. any other crane mhm and there's a jack. that climbs up these climbing rails. essentially two ladders that are on the. outside of the the crane itself M and it. pushes the crane up little by little.

usually about three stories at a time. and so now the crane has lost its bottom. section because the bottom section is. now three stories above it and the top. three stories is now unsecured to the. next top three stories of the building. so they then secure that to the building. with collars and then they disassemble. everything below it and build the the. building out around the shaft where the. crane used to be they fill it in as the. crane just moves Higher and Higher and.

Higher and with this method you can you. can build as tall a building as as. physics will allow because the crane. grows upward with the building as the. building grows upward yeah it's amazing. and I guess that answer my question my. question was sort of if you need that. kind of foundation for a freestanding. outside like is being attached to the. building enough and I guess it. is yeah yeah yes for for sure and I I. think it's like special parts of the. building it's not like they attach it to.

like studs and drywall or something like. that like I think the building is. designed to accommodate this CR also I. think that that more than answered my. question yes but those are the two ways. that you can raise a crane and they're. both spectacular in their in their. ingeniousness all right so that's how. they're built uh bottom up or top down. not top down how do we say it well uh. either one I think bottom climbing or. top climbing you mean I guess so uh.

those are the giant Tower cranes we. mentioned that luffing uh crane at the. beginning uh this is a this is when you. don't have a ton of space and I saw a. video where it showed especially when. there's multiple cranes on a job. swinging around yeah uh you got to think. about the fact that like if you're. swinging something 300 feet everything. has got to be out of the way of that. swing as well so when you have tighter. spaces you might want a luffing jib arm. and that is when the horizontal arm. actually raises and lowers so instead of.

having that that block and hook going. you know up and down on uh with a pulley. it's just sort of there and the action. of lifting that arm up and down is what. brings the the thing on the hook closer. or further away yeah if you've ever seen. like one of those wrecking balls that. they use that's attached to a ling crane. typically. sure what about self. Erectors these are um pretty neat they. usually show up on the back of like a. truck and the truck puts down some feet.

for stabilization and probably lifts the. truck off of the ground and a a a crane. just kind of pops out it folds out. telescope it's that telescoping effect. that you were um you thought the. original tower cranes were doing this. essentially do this is a folding it's. not telescoping okay but it's it's. folded up in itself it's all there and. it unfurls I guess is what I'm at after. here yeah I just want to make sure you. know what telescoping meant I learned.

what telescoping means and sing thanks. to you in this one episode that's right. these things just unfold into the sky. and it's a really also some really cool. videos you can watch yeah should we take. another break well before we do I wanted. to take another crack at explaining. bottom climbing we'll be right. [Music]. back. [Music].

Ser all right we talked a little bit. about the uh operator but there are all. kinds of team of people that work with. these cranes obviously uh in the US. there's a certifying body called called. the. NCC National commission for the.

certification of crane operators mhm and. uh so that's that's the big job that's. the most experienced person uh they have. worked on all these other jobs that. we're about to talk about for years and. years before they get to be the crane. operator MH and uh I was curious what. kind of money they made and it's all. over the map if you look on the internet. because it seems like it's just kind of. hard to find that stuff out but I did. see that in in the southeastern United. States like $90,000 puts you at about.

the 75th. percentile uh I also saw on Reddit like. uh my friend does this in New York kind. of thing yeah but apparently this people. on Reddit are saying in New York City. you can make you know two to three to. $400,000 as like one of the top two or. three earners in New York which is I. imagine the top of the game in the world. yeah no I totally believe that like um. you're so in demand that you have. nothing nothing to do with um raising. the crane or or taking it down you're.

there as long as they need a person to. operate the crane for the job and then. once that's done they move you over. somebody hires you on another job site. like you are Untouchable as far as like. the the job site's concerned yeah and in. the interview their first question is. how much fiber do you include in your. [Laughter]. diet um so then there's a lift director. that's somebody who basically manages. the lifting that goes on. uh if it's a heavy load or any kind of. unique or dangerous load they're.

supposed to formulate a plan for it of. how it's going to be lifted where it's. going to go what direction it's going to. follow all that stuff and they. essentially are just kind of running the. show on the ground I believe they're. usually the one no I was going to say. they're the one that the crane operator. is probably in touch with but I believe. that's the signal person instead that's. right H and the signal person is doing. just what you think they're on the radio. and constant communication uh but. they're also doing hand signals uh not.

just on that that CB radio or whatever. they use walkie-talkies yeah uh and. there are times when that crane operator. is working blind and they don't have. sight of what they're doing and that's. when that signal person and really. everyone working together is so key yeah. that's the person who communicates to. the crane operator that the people on. the ground want them to toot their horn. and they use that same pull down motion. that you use for big rig truckers right. or gets the message that I have to go. potty so let's shut everything down for.

40 minutes that's the international. squeeze your knees together and hold. your crotch signal uh did you go over. the rigger no okay now that is the. person who was preparing the load uh. attaching it to the crane hook uh. obviously that load on the ground it's. not just like you know just attach it. there and I'm sure it's fine like. everything has to be so buttoned up like. nothing can be loose or falling off of. that thing like it's got to be a very. nicely wrapped Christmas present yes so.

depending on where you're working there. are 16 States and Seven Cities that. require you to have a license that's it. everywhere else there's State or the. city does not require you to have any. sort of formal training. whatsoever uh the thing is the. NCCC offers certification too which is. usually voluntary but I get the. impression that if you want to be one of. those higher-end crane operators you. would be certified for that job multiple.

times over um and it not only just to. kind of enhance your desirability as an. employee but also um wow I put that as. like the HR person to end all HR people. but also like some job sites might. require you to have at least a. certification if not a license and it. might not even be the job site it might. be their insurers like nobody's going to. be like hey you come here and operate. this crane like you're going to have to. have tons of experience and probably.

some s of paperwork to back that. experience up but I find it shocking and. alarming that plenty of states don't. require the person who's 400 feet in the. air lifting 200 tons to have some sort. of formal training for that totally it. is it shocked me as well yeah uh these. things are expensive to rent uh you're. you know obviously it's a cost a lot of. money to build one but they get that. money back because Dave uh just looked. up just sort of a an average rental uh a.

Flatt top tower crane with an just an. 88,000 lb uh capacity lift which is I. don't know how many Volvos that is but. it's nowhere close to what I said. earlier it's 44 tons uh a 262ft jib arm. so um about you know a little more than. half of sort of the maximum that that. sucker is. $35,000 a month yeah yeah the cheapest. is 3600 and that's for the the one you.

bring on the truck yeah and a lot of. those rental um prices will include. putting the thing together over the. course of four or five days and taking. it down too and maybe even a skilled. crane operator depending absolutely so. you can imagine that these things are. actually fairly dangerous um safety is. far and away like the number one concern. for any crane operator every single. interview I've read with the crane. operator um that all were like it's all. about safety essentially like yes you're. really important on the job site but if.

it's not safe you don't do it like you. just don't um I mean you're lifting. heavy loads you're swinging them through. the air you can drop them there's all. sorts of stuff that can happen um and. they yes wind is a big one as we'll see. but they've kind of figured that out um. but the the just the the the fact that. there's that you have these huge loads. high up in the air when they get dropped. or when something goes wrong people can. die and I mean it does happen uh I. remember this past July in Manhattan the.

entire jib arm of a crane fell down I. think um I don't remember how many. stories but it was significant I. actually I think it did kill one person. who was in a nearby apartment building. like some of the debris like crashed. through their window and killed them I. think but they were the only person who. died out of this 16 ton load in a jib. arm crashing to the ground in Manhattan. in the middle of a day that one CAU on. fire didn't it yeah there was a fire in. the Hoist um unit for some reason I.

couldn't figure out what caused it. that's a lot uh that no one was killed I. mean that I remember when that happened. too and I I was just like how can that. happen in New York City and not kill. like 12 people below at least you know. yeah apparently another another real. danger Chuck is hitting power lines yeah. because people will walk like they'll. walk like a load you know along to. stabilize it say like a bunch bunch of. pipes and that pipe is connected via. metal cable to the crane and if the.

crane comes in contact with a 13,000. volt power line whoever's got their hand. on that that load of pipes is will be. electrocuted and it happens like a lot. like not not a lot it happens frequently. to an alarming degree how about that. well da found some stats and uh what he. got was from 2011 to 2017 over that. seven years uh they averaged 40 2 crane. related deaths per year MH uh that's not. insignificant you know 42 per year and I.

think half of those were things falling. on people uh not all of them were Tower. cranes it's kind of all all cranes. basically lumped together MH uh but yeah. sometimes they're taking it apart and it. falls apart on them uh it seems like. there's a lot of of crushing death with. it which is just you know unfathomable. yeah people have gotten caught in the. climbing C cage caught between that and. the frame of the the Mast there was one.

guy who was taking um apart a crane and. it was on the he was on the 45th story. and that platform that he was on outside. the crane removing pins didn't have a. railing it didn't have a railing and it. shifted and he fell 45 stories because. it didn't have a. railing wow I I just couldn't believe it. when I read like the oser report I'm. just it's like oh my God that's insanely. nuts but um yeah so safety is.

extraordinarily important you can see. and I said I teased something Chuck that. I think you should take us home with. that they figured out what to do in high. winds yeah you know what you do in high. winds is you unbolt that thing and let. it spin With the Wind uh obviously. you've got the The Reel all the way. reeled in it's not like swinging. anything around but when if you see in. heavy winds a horizontal arm moving uh. that's what it's supposed to do because.

they have learned that if that thing is. bolted down that puts the entire thing. at risk whereas if you just let it move. with the wind and obviously out out of. the way of hitting anything then that's. the way to. go yeah and um I read an interview with. a a crane operator who had to ride out a. storm once because it was too dangerous. to to make the 10-minute climb down so. he had to sit there in the cab and just. get pushed around by the wind letting it. it a Weather Vein. and I'm not even going to make a poop. joke. there uh you got anything else I got.

nothing else this was robust thanks for. doing it with me this is fun um thanks. for being the top or the bottom to this. crane episode Chuck hey anytime uh if. you want to know more about cranes. apparently there's a a house of Works. article on it by Marshall brain and. there's plenty of other interesting. stuff too including really mesmerizing. CGI videos of cranes building themselves. magically uh and since I said that it's. time for listener.

mail all right I'm going to call this. uh well I'm going to call it it's scuba. related this is kind of very uh poignant. email uh Hey guys been listening for a. long time I learned a scuba dive with my. brother and dad when I was 14 back in. 1989 uh the moment we took our first. breaths underwater we were hooked uh. along from aside from a long Hiatus I've. been an avid diver ever since many my. best memories were uh created on dive. trips with my brother and dad uh. tragically we lost my brother to suicide.

last year after a decades long battle. with mental illness uh and I just wanted. to take a moment to commend you and your. team for your sympathy and dexterity. with which you handle M mental illness. on your show uh know that the links in. which you go to assure you are using the. most compassionate language to discuss. mental illness and other touchy subjects. uh does not go unnoticed and is greatly. appreciated uh but to be clear so the. moments you choose to isue the. acceptable standards for a moment to. make a joke uh Chuck this is for you by.

all means please get scuba certified. with your daughter uh and your wife if. she's interested I have so many crystal. clear fantastic memories with my dad and. my brother diving you can't make a. child's life any more awesome than by. taking them to visit another planet. lifetime memories are made uh by the. moment it's a magical Pursuit do it uh. my brother used to say diving is easy to. do and difficult to master so true he. was my friend my D buddy and my hero and. I miss him like crazy uh he sure would.

have loved the scoop episode and that is. from Dan Man Dan thank you for writing. in about that that was really amazing. stuff I'm sorry about your brother. same uh if you want to be like Dan and. write us just a a masterful amazing. heartfelt email we love those things you. can address it directly to us at stuff. podcast at. iheartradio.com.

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