house tug
2007-02-02 17:40:31.575995+00 by
Dan Lyke
4 comments
Alas, I don't have good pictures of it, but there was a house installed (and I use that term deliberately) down the road recently, using a crane tall enough that they had a blinking light on the top. Lifted the sucker up (in two parts), swung it up the hill (probably 30 feet above the road) and set it on the bottom story. So it comes as no surprise to me (and this kind of ties in to some of the value of labor musings) that there are specialized tools for modular home installation.
The CSI House Tug is a remote control bulldozer/tractor specifically for dragging manufactured houses into place.
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2007-02-02 20:33:44.268696+00 by:
petronius
A couple of years ago you posted a story about a giant crane being taken under the Bay Bridge to Oakland at low tide with only a meter to spare. I remember being amazed that A. China was apparently the great builder of such gadgets, and B. they sold enough of them that they had built a special ship with ballast tanks to lower the profile enough to get under bridges.
#Comment Re: made: 2007-02-02 22:42:30.974577+00 by:
Dan Lyke
Here are the pictures of them under the Golden Gate. Alas, the other articles seem to have disappeared off the SFGate web site.
Relatedly, I'm kind of amazed at the economics of large boats. Recently someone found some of the old ferries from the Sausalito to San Francisco run tied up to a dock in some obscure tributary up in the delta, apparently some years ago a tug boat captain got concerns about being paid, so he tied 'em to some out of the way structure 'til he got his money, and there they languished. Big floating hulls. You'd think there'd be an application, but apparently it's cheaper just to build new boats and let the old ones rot and sink in the shallows than to refurbish them.
#Comment Re: made: 2007-02-02 22:43:49.958602+00 by:
Dan Lyke
Ah, here's a Chronicle article about one of the crane deliveries.
#Comment Re: made: 2007-02-02 23:27:00.943057+00 by:
petronius
We can afford to let hulks rot, but others can't. A few years ago I saw a thing on the National Geographic network about a ferry going up the Congo. It was actually two old ferries lashed together, and it crept up the river like a floating apartment building. People would get on and off like it was a bus passing villages. Traveling traders would sell their goods, like pots and pans, off the side to local peddlars in canoes. It took a week each way to get up to the shallows, slow and plodding. They would have taken your old ferries and set up a service running the other direction, if the owners of the first ship didn't hire the local strongman to sink it.