Tractor towing Boom lift

[JB4310]

Prokop,

Half of those pictures are at my own yard doing tree work, another benifit of the tow behind. Finish the job where the customer payed for the lift, then bring it home for the rest of the day to work with, bring it back for off rent in the morning.

They are a great and convenient tool that's why they are becoming so popular with homeowners. At one time the rental companies had a more elitist attitude and didn't want to rent boom lifts to weekend warriors, but now as long as you have a credit card they'll give you what ever you want.

Just be careful to not let any extra weight of the cut branches load the boom, they're only rated at 500 pounds so you could overload the basket/booms capacity easily with you in it and even a small branch/trunk section, causing a tip over hazard.
Cut everything in a way that it drops clear and away from you.

Wear some kind of safety belt/harness. Either a full fall protection body harness or at least a positioning belt that does not allow enough movement to let you get out of the platform.

I've shown some pics before of the larger lifts we rent.

 

[NSBound]

You go ahead, I'll stay down here.

I agree. You' never get me up in a rig like that. When I was a kid we had a TV tower in the back yard. My Dad had to have the guy next door, who worked for the local hydro utility, go up to mount the antenna.

 

[jinman]

A few years ago I rented a Genie tow-behind unit to stain my house siding. It had manually operated outriggers with levelers similar to trailer tongue jacks. There was a series of lights to tell you when a certain axis was level, but no bubble or anything to tell you when you are getting close. On my uneven and sloping ground around my house, it was a nightmare to reposition and get re-level. I used my tractor to put it into position, but I spent way too much time with getting it level. That was my only complaint. Otherwise it was excellent. I believe my rental for the whole weekend was less than $250.

 

[JB4310]

The new ones are one button auto level. You hold the button and all four outriggers go down at once and level the machine, No guess work, even on steep slopes that wheeled machines would be way out of their safe operating zone on.

The first tow behind I ever noticed was here on TBN just a year or so ago, some one had rented one to get a kite out of a tree for there grand child.

 

[dfkrug]

The new ones are one button auto level.

Yeah, ain't hydraulics sweet? The rental yards in our area have all seemed
to have dumped units with manual outriggers, since they are tedious to set
up.

Even this push-around unit's outriggers are tedious. I just picked this up
yesterday and I plan to adapt it to my pallet forks and use it with my FEL.
It is a Genie AWP24 vertical telescoping manlift (Aerial Work Platform),
which is powered by self-contained 12V motor-powered hydraulics. It
weighs about 800#. I will likely run it off my tractor battery, with a possible
eye towards using my tractor's hydraulic system.

 

[Johndeere3720]

My grandpa has an upright scissor lift that goes either 25 or 30 feet up. It is a massive off road model and can get anywhere. I think it was around 7 or 8' wide. It is fun to take people up in it, they usually are scared the way up then see the view and change their minds.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Afternoon John,
That really is a nifty tool, but I have to think there is a good amount of sway when its fully extended !

Thanks for all the pics !

 

[JB4310]

Good Afternoon John,
That really is a nifty tool, but I have to think there is a good amount of sway when its fully extended !

Thanks for all the pics !

After a few days of being on the lift all day, you will wake in the night to a swaying feeling. Maybe something like sailors experience.

It's not to bad when your up there, you try and stay close to the building when possible, it's more comfortable having a fixed reference point close to you even when way up. It gets a little hairy when you pull way back away from the structure and there's nothing around or under you except pavement 90 or 100 feet below but that's how you get some cool pictures.

Couple of pics of a smaller unit we used this past year, very maneuverable, also some other big ones we use to do restoration and waterproofing on a couple of churches.

 

[Low Bucket]

Nice pictures JB!- There isn't too many people that would do work like that.

I've enjoyed all the different pictures.- How do you have the lifts delivered to the job-site ?- Especially the large one.

I don't work 100' or so in the air. But I do work on some steep mountains in a D9 and sometimes a D10 dozer.

 

[JB4310]

Nice pictures JB!- There isn't too many people that would do work like that.

I've enjoyed all the different pictures.- How do you have the lifts delivered to the job-site ?- Especially the large one.

I don't work 100' or so in the air. But I do work on some steep mountains in a D9 and sometimes a D10 dozer.

It's not the only work I do but it's the most interesting, do masonry restoration and slate roof repair etc on those old Church's.

A picture of me installing a sump pump or cleaning a ranch house's gutters wouldn't be that exiting

Been using those boom lifts for a long time before they were so common place, I saw 6 different lifts on a Dunkin Donuts construction job, nobody wants to use a ladder or staging now.
On those Church's they are really a necessary, the gutters on that brown stone church are 52 feet off the ground.
The lifts are alot more productive, and safer than a Boson's chair or a 60 foot extension ladder like we use to use!

The machines are delivered to the jobs, the biggest I use is 135ft, that one is to wide for over the road so the axles retract so it can be moved legally on a detachable speciality flatbed, once on the job the axles have to be set/extended to allow full function.

I've only had a dig camera since around 2001, got 20 years worth of printed pictures, some day I'll have to scan some of them. Have some from a job where I went 185 ft up to the top of a church steeple, in a crane basket I wouldn't do that again, talk about pucker factor!