Crane on pavers

[oldirty]

you can't be anymore wrong meatwagon. plywood makes all the difference in the world.

 

[meatwagon45]

For driving on or for outriggers? I drove a boom truck for a lumber yard for 6 years and plywood never offered the support that was needed. Maybe the difference is most of the places I went were new construction sites and the plywood didn't have a solid, firm base to rest on.

Just my findings

 

[oldirty]

driving on. and well it makes a good base to put the dunnage on so you don't wreck the lawn/driveway/walkway with dunnage imprints.

 

[mattfr12]

driving on. and well it makes a good base to put the dunnage on so you don't wreck the lawn/driveway/walkway with dunnage imprints.

ya believe it or not plywood does make a significat weight dispurtion difference. if you got the $$ get alturna mats thier even better than plywood. i think thier over 200$ per sheet at the moment.

 

[beowulf343]

and well it makes a good base to put the dunnage on so you don't wreck the lawn/driveway/walkway with dunnage imprints.

Good point and one i forgot. Our beam dunnage often covers more surface than plywood so have gotten out of the habit of putting it down.

 

[oldirty]

ya believe it or not plywood does make a significat weight dispurtion difference. if you got the $$ get alturna mats thier even better than plywood. i think thier over 200$ per sheet at the moment.

i used to think that way once along time ago. yes alturnamats do have there place on say a bucket truck but i highly recommend just plywood (the thick ****) if you going to be working with a crane.

 

[oldirty]

Good point and one i forgot. Our beam dunnage often covers more surface than plywood so have gotten out of the habit of putting it down.

if you look at the looking down pic you can see where we stash all our dunnage and plywood. we even have 8 8ftr of dunnage behind the boom cradle. and 2 boxes that hold more dunnage behind the last duallies. (9 5ft's per side) that crane is a dunnage and plywood wagon! thats it! covered in big block dunnage and half sheets in the back! lol

 

[beowulf343]

if you look at the looking down pic you can see where we stash all our dunnage and plywood. we even have 8 8ftr of dunnage behind the boom cradle. and 2 boxes that hold more dunnage behind the last duallies. (9 5ft's per side) that crane is a dunnage and plywood wagon! thats it! covered in big block dunnage and half sheets in the back! lol

That is the way to do it. Got to carry mine in a trailer behind one of the chip trucks or my pickup-with a little better than half a load of cw, both block and ball, and a full tank of fuel, we are right on the ragged edge of legal.

 

[treeclimber101]

You've actually got it backwards-the problem is going to come when you drive the crane onto the driveway since that is the point in time that the most weight is spread over the smallest surface area. Once you start putting the riggers down, there are formulas that can be used to figure out how many square inches of dunnage need to be under every rigger based on soil composition. For example, in a worst case scenario paver driveway, i can figure that my crane is going to need about 194 square inches of dunnage under every rigger. Now that is alot, yes, and more than i've ever put down, but i'm talking about something like bricks laid on dried mud. Using a formula and common sense, compression damage caused by riggers can be almost eliminated. The damage will come from the initial drive on.



Use proper cribbing techniques and worries about settling can be eliminated. Not every one pulls up in a 20 ton crane, throws down the riggers on a piece of plywood and goes to town, while rocking on the riggers. My crane's chart might as well be thrown out the window if it's more than .6 degrees off level so we make as positively sure as possible that no sinking can occur. Not to mention, use the creeper gear in a situation like this, eliminates hard stops.

(Going to rant a bit now.) What i'm loving about this thread is all the advice from guys who've never put a crane on pavers or even know what a paver driveway is. Listen todd, we do alot a high end work which seems to mean a lot of paver driveways. I'm willing to bet over the last seven years we've worked on over 500 paver driveways with cranes over 50 tons. Only five got tore up and every one of them was from the initial drive on. Use your head, if your comfortable, do it, if not don't. In my personal experience, asphalt drieways give me more headaches-pavers are meant to flex a bit and are much more forgiving and there are a lot more crappy asphalt driveways than paver ones. If you do it, there are ways and means of minimizing your footprint. Heck, on old ones that have two imprinted wheel grooves down the driveway from usage, i've run one side of the crane down the middle and the other side off the driveway all together on planking.
Anyway, i'm going to leave this thread alone before someone comes up with more brilliant ideas.
Good luck, do it smart.

Let me rant a bit are you directing that response towards me ??