Thursday 24 September 2009

Going Up in the World

I needed to get up on top of a roof, to fix a leak, but it was a long way up, and having tried it off the big ladder, and discovered there was no way to secure the ladder, so it kept sliding sideways as I tried to step off the top, onto the parapet, I'd almost abandoned the job... But Steve, driver of the big green thing, happened along and said "I can put you where you need to be".

I've worked off various sizes of cherrypickers, and I'm used to a set of controls in the basket, being able to control it from above. This thing's more of a sixty foot reach loader, with a platform on the forks.
Lots of twirly pointy hand-signals are the way to control it. And trust in the driver. Thanks, Steve.

I used to fairly regularly hire 120 foot platforms. Currently the world's biggest platform lifters are built by Bronto Skylift in Finland, and can extent to 104 metres 341ft above the ground..