Advice on how to lift 150kg steel beam

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Originally Posted by Sprog

Bend the knees and keep the back straight :D :D :D :D

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Bennd zee kneez................

What has an Austrian ski instructor got to do with JMC's beam?

pulse is right, a genie lift is the way to go they look a little bit like a pallet jack only they lift a lot higher. Most hire centres wil have them.

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Originally Posted by old_picker

Any amount of ladders and blokes is insanity.
More blokes and ladders make more opportunities for a slip and someone gets hurt bad or goes off the site in a body bag. 300 kilos of steel at 60 miles an hour onto someones head. think about it..

Figure what sort of machine you can get into the site [backhoe crane scissor lift] and hire it, I have seen really tall heavy lifts done with tripods and block and tackle at the simplest end but know what your are doing. It will be much cheaper than paying some bodies medical bill.

The most difficult part of a lift is to figure what can get in to do it. If no access is possble by machinery, redesign so the lifts are more manageable.

Just my 2c worth.

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I was kidding. :D

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Originally Posted by jimc

Gents

Need advice on the best way to lift a 150kg beam 3.1 metres off the ground? I was thinking two blokes at each end, but most ladders are not rated for 100kg bloke plus 75kgs of beam weight!

Material lifts will not have enough floor space to operate properly/safely.

The beam is only 4.4 metres long. Any ideas?

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150 kg, hummm. That's pretty heavy

It's often fairly simple to reinforce a ladder. I carried myself (120kg!) plus a heavy duty floor sander (~50kg) multiple times up a 3.3m ladder rated at 150kg using 2 x4 bracing shown in the picture, on both sides of the ladder. Basically I dragged the sander up behind me - I had good handles to hang onto and after every step I could pause and rest if i needed to. Also at the top of the ladder was a manhole and once up through the hole all was OK. I can see the beam is going to be a lot harder than this.

If you are going to use ladders alone you need to be able to rest the weight on something at any point in time otherwise if you or your partner get buggered part way up your only option is going to be to drop it.

I would use 4 ladders (2 side by side at each end of the beam) and two winches (one at each end). Clamp a 4 x 2 across the tops of each pair of ladders and attach the winches to that. That way you have the weight covered and your workmen can climb up and down the ladder at will independent of the beam.

As others have said - use a Gennie lift. Forget about ladders etc. Why risk life and limb just to save a few dollars.

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Originally Posted by TARLOX

As others have said - use a Gennie lift. Forget about ladders etc. Why risk life and limb just to save a few dollars.

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G'day Tarlox, he's already said that " Material lifts will not have enough floor space to operate properly/safely."

I guess the question should be, where is he doing the work that makes it so difficult? Some pics of the location might help with a solution.
Cheers;)

Yeah maybe access is restricted? But if you can get the beam, a couple of ladders and four big blokes in there.....you could maybe also fit a Gennie lift?

Access restriction caused by limited floor space...as in not enough room for the material lift's stabilizing legs.
The idea of rope/block and tackle will be a possible work around. I will investigate the possibilities tonight as the beam has to go in tomorrow.

thanks for the tips

you need to post pictures so I/we can look at the environment. however build an "A" frame and suitable anchor points. get a turfer and or block and tackle. you can do it yourself if your clever.

i'vedone it - be careful dont die.

I just put a 7m beam, around 200kg's in our back room.

As we werent removing the roof a hoist was no go, and similarly couldnt get a small lift in due to restricted access. Only had to raise it to ceiling height (2.4m). We ended up hiring some scaffolding and a few acrow props, and got 8 guys to help. Even then it was heavier than i thought. We just got one end in and then lifted the other end.

I thought 8 guys was overkill but went ahead anyway and it meant noone was really struggling. Best to share the load!!
Robert

I ended up sourcing a material hiopst with a smaller footprint, made some additional paltform area for the less weighted outrigger and lifted the beam slightly off centre...although it was lashed to the forks.

I had already anchored one of the legs to the concrete pad bolted the beam to this. Once this was done, I bolted the other upright to the beam, got it plumb, then anchored this as well.

The only hiccup during the complete process was co-ordinating 4 blokes to pickup and move the beam onto the forks...and drilling 14mm holes through 18mm of steel!