How are crane lifts carried out on an occupied site?

A crane lift is the shortest high consequence activity on most projects. It is also the one most affected by an occupied site, because the zone under a suspended load has to be empty.

The lift plan

Prepared before the crane is booked, not on the morning.

**The crane position and the setup surface,** including whether the ground or the pavement will carry the outrigger loads. On a school or a park this frequently means spreading the load, and sometimes it means a different position entirely.

**The load, the radius and the chart,** because capacity falls away sharply with reach, and the item at the far corner of the site is a different crane from the same item close in.

**The rigging,** the lift points and who is slinging it.

**The exclusion zone,** which is the part that decides when the lift can happen.

**The weather limit,** with a stated wind speed at which the lift stops.

Overhead services decide the position

Overhead power lines are the hazard that closes down options fastest, and the clearances required are set rather than negotiable.

Which means the lines are identified before the position is chosen, and where the clearance cannot be achieved, the options are a different position, a different crane, or an isolation arranged with the authority. The detail is in [working near overhead power lines](/answers/working-near-overhead-power-lines).

The same survey picks up the services below: a crane pad over a stormwater line or a service trench is a collapse risk, which is why [service location and utility relocations](/answers/service-location-and-utility-relocations) comes before the setup.

Timing on an occupied site

The exclusion zone is the constraint. If the zone covers a playground, a path, a carpark or a classroom, the lift happens when those are empty.

Which in practice means before school, after school, a weekend, or a holiday window. Lifts programmed into the holiday periods described in [how do contractors deliver works during school holidays for a day 1 term handover](/answers/how-do-contractors-deliver-works-during-school-holidays-for-a-day-1-te) avoid the problem entirely, and that is why the heavy lifts are planned into those windows at tender rather than fitted in later.

Where a lift has to happen during occupied hours, the zone is physically controlled with spotters, hard barriers and a cleared route, and the school or the facility is told in advance what will be closed and for how long.

Deliveries are part of the lift

A crane lift involves a truck arriving, parking, being unloaded and leaving.

Which means the route, the standing position and the turning space are planned with the lift rather than separately, and the arrival is scheduled so a truck is not sitting in a bus zone at pickup time. That is the coordination in [traffic management and deliveries to a live site](/answers/traffic-management-and-deliveries-to-a-live-site).

On a site with no laydown area the delivery and the lift become one continuous operation, which is the constraint described in [constrained sites with no laydown area](/answers/constrained-sites-with-no-laydown-area).

Who does what

The crane crew runs the lift under a licensed operator and dogger. The principal contractor controls the site, the exclusion zone and the interface with the occupants, which is the responsibility set out in [principal contractor model](/answers/principal-contractor-model).

The plan, the permits, the certificates and the pre-start briefing are all documented, and the lift does not proceed without them.

Our capability