The Mount Joy, Pennsylvania steel fabrication company needed to lift and place HVAC units on the roof of a major Johnson & Johnson facility in nearby Lititz. Multiple rescheduling instances, a looming deadline, and downtime not being an option for J&J meant the lifts had to take place over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

“While you were enjoying turkey and football, we were laying out HVAC units a football field away” 

That was one line on Greiner Industries’ social media pages as they showcased a crunch-time project – accomplished with relative ease thanks in part to Tadano cranes.

These HVAC units, weighing around 6,700 pounds each, had to be lifted vertically 30-40 feet before being placed at various locations on the roof, in some cases indeed extending beyond the length of a football field.

Dan Haulman, Crane Services Manager for Greiner Industries, deployed Tadano’s AC-500 and AC-300 Demag cranes – two models in their fleet that proved the best tools for the job.

“The farthest reach was a 305-foot radius. We rigged up the AC-500 with 255 feet of luffing jib. It’s the only crane with that capacity for that kind of reach.”

said Haulman

Accomplishing the job while avoiding downtime seemed quite a reach as well. Yet, Greiner was able to bring the cranes in the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and by the time Monday arrived the cranes were heading back with the job complete.

Transport was relatively easy – Haulman noted they removed the AC-500’s front outriggers and simply drove it to the job site 30 minutes away. A crew of eight had the cranes set up within eight hours.

Working around windy weather predictions, the crew took two half-days – including one on Thanksgiving – to achieve 32 lifts, replacing some old units while adding some additional units to increase the building’s HVAC capacity.

The AC-500 was configured with 108 feet of main at a 65-degree angle with 352,000 pounds of counterweight. The AC-300 on the other side of the building reached 230 feet and was configured with 210 feet of main and 68 feet of jib; its counterweights totaled 206,000 pounds.

The AC-300 was noted by Haulman for its versatility on the lift.

“Just the length of that boom is really helpful. We ran that 210 of main and a jib and still had radius. That crane will give you a chart even if you’re not at a fixed main boom angle. We had 65, 70, and 82 feet but you had a chart anywhere in there. The flexibility of adjusting the main boom with the luffing jib on made it easy. Saved a lot of time and money.”

Haulman lauds not only the ability of Tadano cranes to operate safely, but reliably.

“We’ve had the AC 500 for over two years now and it’s worked excellent. Both cranes just go out and get the job done. There’s no down time and the customer doesn’t have to wait because there are no breakdowns. We had a tight window to get this done. We couldn’t afford any kind of breakdown or malfunction.”

Greiner purchased the AC-300 and AC-500 from Empire Cranes of Syracuse, New York and works regularly with Tadano’s Eastern Regional Business Manager Lance Rydbom.

“Lance is a good help. He’s always there to answer questions if we have them. And the after-sales support is excellent. Whenever we’ve had an issue, they get somebody down there right away”

says Haulman

Fortunately – but predictably given Tadano’s reliability – it was an issue-free Thanksgiving. They even had time to post on social media and get home for turkey dinner.