Restricted Space Cranes with Mini Crawlers from Preston

FDC Construction & Fitout project Sydney CBD

We were approached by George Karvountzis of FDC Construction & Fitout in the later part of September 2010 with a material handling dilemma. FDC Construction & Fitout have been contracted to refurbish a plant room on level 6 of an existing building in Sydney's CBD. With the size and mass of the materials that needed to be removed and replaced with no means of getting these materials in and out without disruptions to the tenants. They looked at the possibility of installing a tower crane to service the floor, but weight restrictions and the physical nature of the building stopped that idea.

After analyzing this project using over 10 years of material handling experience and knowledge, The Preston Group presented the solution by using their latest addition to it's Mini Crawler fleet. The URW 706, a 6 Tonne Mini-Crane working in conjunction with the Preston Superdeck loading platform, where the crane could be positioned on level 5 podium and service both the Platform on level 6 and the loading and unloading of trucks at ground level.

This in itself posed a problem as the podium slab had weight restrictions and the physical nature of the building made it difficult to position the crane in such a way to service both the platform and truck with the required loads.

With 1970's drawings to work from, the Preston team got to work (using Auto cad) on plotting the optimum position for the crane. We then learnt that the crane would have to be supported on a Steel Frame as the slab in that location would not be able to take the outrigger point loads under certain lifting conditions. This frame was designed by an external engineer and fabricated in accordance with the Preston dimensions.

The Preston Loading platform and the Unic URW-706 Mini Crane were both installed on Saturday 23rd October and was removed on the 15th January 2011 The key result for the Preston Group was the client (FDC Construction & Fitout) finished this project on time and under budget.