Towable boom lift for trusses?

[Baw335]

What's standard practice for lifting material with a towable boom lift, can you do it? Obviously I would stay under the maximum weight rating if this is an acceptable use. We don't have many rental options within 200 miles and I don't have a heavy rig to transport big equipment.

 

[Kaizen]

Weight is going to be your biggest issue. The one I rented before with 35 foot height. It had a 300 pound weight limit. My 30 foot trusses were about 200 pounds so I doubt I could have lifted one with me in the basket. I was not able to move mine around. Just too heavy. If your weight is ok you would park inside and lift it. Not sure if it would even get over the wall to where you have them laying. I built this rig to lift my trusses. Used a harbor freight ac winch. A telehandler or a driving lift will be better
s.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sberry]

It can be done but my ideal is to use a rental crane service. Some sign companies will do it. It is so fast if you are ready, layout lines and marks and have 2x4s at the ready. They actually make folding spacers too. I like to have some cleats ready to set bundles of sheeting up if it's getting shingles, have set steel up too.
If you find one does this regular it can really fly, I set about a hundred buildings like that and send 2 80 footers at a time.

 

[Wolfman6]

I used one I rented from Home Depot rentals to lift heavy beam rafter frames. I was not in the basket, but climbing on the frame. Pre built trusses should be no problem.

 

[12husky]

I rented a 45 footer last weekend that had a 500 pound limit. It would have handled trusses I think.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tonyprovo723]

Never used on myself. Sounds like you have not either so here are my thoughts.

Watch the wind and remember a safety factor as you have increased the profile of the basket a whole bunch. The manual should have a wind limit maybe around 20 MPH. This towable option should be a great for this reason. If you had a crane or other lift option dropped off, you pay if it gets used or not. Towable you can decide when you wake up too windy, I'll pass on the lift and work on something else for the day.

You are still are up against the elements but a hair more in control.

Also have a harness and lanyard handy as your plans to work controls from the ground will shift and you need to be safe.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

 

[TractorJeff]

LOL!
And Don't tell the Rental Company what you are going to do with their Lift!
Kaizen, that a neat looking lifting apparatus!
What is the Boom made of?

 

[matt_i]

Forklift can also do the job.



Armed with custom end effector.




There aren't really a ton of options out there.

 

[Baw335]

Sounds like this may work for me; thanks for everyone's input and other ideas!

 

[Kaizen]

LOL!
And Don't tell the Rental Company what you are going to do with their Lift!
Kaizen, that a neat looking lifting apparatus!
What is the Boom made of?

It has a 2.5 inch tube with a 2 inch inside. Both are bolted to the uprights so it moves originally letting me build 12x12 walls on the base and then lift them into place solo. Then I added a piece of angle for a spine, two pieces of angle as supports, and ratchet straps for guy wires when I did the trusses. It took some thinking. Lifted them up and over the walls and it’s on wheels so rolled into place. Ran into some issues with it being not tall enough to lift over existing trusses. Didn’t want to rent a machine as this was the first time I did this so kinda figured it out as I went. Would def get a lift if I did it again. My issue was I had the trusses dropped at the entrance so I couldn’t get one close enough. Such fun I had.
Also used that winch to lift all sheathing to roof.











Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bullnerd]

How big are the trusses?

 

[rbrock]

We have set trusses on barns and houses with a Genie TZ50. They make a lifting hook that attaches where the bucket goes. It had a 500 lbs capacity, you can control it from the lower control panel. We lifted some ~300 lbs ones up to the roof of a two story house with no problems.

 

[James-W]

When we built our garage I rented a Genie lift. It was the type mounted on a trailer that you can pull behind a pickup truck. It cost $250 me per day and we only needed it for one day. Worked quite well and it sure saved us a lot of hard work.

My neighbor had a scissors lift and we used that to lift the plywood sheets up to the roof. Worked good lifting the shingles up there as well. I used the scissors lift to clean out the house gutters and even to trim a couple branches off a tree. A really nice piece of equipment, and one that I wouldn't mind owning. Trouble is, the neighbor moved and took his scissors lift with him.

 

[T_R]

How big are the trusses?

That was my question as well.

I've set trusses as large as 24' alone with no equipment. You just pick them up and put on the walls upside down, flip them with a rope and block them. It's not hard.

 

[joe_padavano]

That was my question as well.

I've set trusses as large as 24' alone with no equipment. You just pick them up and put on the walls upside down, flip them with a rope and block them. It's not hard.

^^^This. I've also set 24' trusses by hand. We had one person on each side on a ladder and one person on the ground. With the truss point-down, hand one end up, then the other, then flip the truss using a 2x4 to push up on the peak. Of course, this also depends on how tall your walls are. I also set 36' trusses using a rented off-road forklift. The rental company delivered and retrieved the forklift. That was the easiest way to do it.

 

[Tj-gord]

Our trusses were 40 feet long, we had a moble crane come in and land them all as a stack. Myself and a few buddies had them up in a few hours, slid them down 1 by 1 and flipped them up. Cost us about 200 bucks for the crane, and he was only about 30 mins working.

 

[Baw335]

I haven't finalized the plans yet but most likely they will be 28 ft bonus room trusses. I have a few other projects that will require a lift so I'm thinking I'll just get one for the week when I'm ready to set trusses.

 

[3rdgendslmech]

I rented a set of forks from sunbelt to use on a friends tracked bobcat. Then I borrowed what we call "the probe" at work, its an attachment to turn a forklift into a crane. We got started around 10 and were done with setting the trusses at 2.

 

[James-W]

If you are building a small structure, doing it by hand is OK. But when you build something large, like a house, doing it by hand is for the birds. A good crane operator will put the truss right where you need it to go and you will be finished with the job in a fraction of the time compared to doing it by hand. Plus, by using a crane you won't bust your nuts trying to do the job.

 

[6768rogues]

Connect to two panel points (where webs attach to the top chord) on each truss. Don't ******** between panel points or to a web.

 

[Orionrising]

are you in a logging area? I see alot get set by log trucks around here. That is probably not a truss manufacture approved lifting method though...