UK
One of the largest crane lifts ever recorded for a laundry machine delivery in the UK took place at CLEAN Camberley last month. A 500 tonne crane, located in the car park was set up to remove an existing Kannegiesser PP13 wide-format press, originally installed in 2009. The PP13 press had operated continually for seven days a week over two and a half shifts for 10 years. A brand new PP13 wide-format press was scheduled to take its place.
To ensure a seamless installation, regular planning meetings were held between the Kannegiesser UK project manager, Daniel Bones, Clean’s Camberley laundry site management team and the crane supplier, Finches.
The design and layout of the building meant the only way to execute the exchange of presses without significant downtime, was to crane it in through the roof. However, the position of the car park in relation to the roof hole was a distance of 32 metres.
“In order to achieve this, we needed one of the largest cranes available, suitable to lift the 28 tonne machine to its new location,” said Bones. “The location of the PP13 PowerPress replacement was located in the centre of the laundry. Access for the installation was always going to be a major challenge. When the original Kannegiesser PowerTrans and PowerPress were installed, a dedicated route for future press replacement access was marked out through the laundry floor. However, over time, this route became obstructed with large scale mechanical services subsequently installed. Hence the decision to come through the roof offered minimum disruption to the laundry’s operations.”
The crane arrived at lunchtime together with two flat-bed lorries with the counterbalance weights required to ensure that the crane lift was safe. Immediately the crew began the extensive set-up; four rail riggers laid down sleepers, foam and matting to prevent road surface damage.
Although raining, there was no wind, and so the lifts were performed at 20:00. The installation of the new press was successfully achieved by 23.00. Impressively, the roof hole was sealed and watertight by midnight, and the press was in full operation the following day.
Kevin Featherstone and Rob Stuart lead as supervising engineers for Kannegiesser UK. Stuart commented: “Mechanically the installation went really smoothly, everyone worked well together and did a great job.”
Bones concluded: “A big thanks to Larry Armistead and all at Clean Camberley, Andrew Finch and all at Finches of Bookham, Rob Stuart and the KUK Installation team and of course Stuart Rigby for attending in person to photograph the even."