This is one fantastic vid, Charlie really knows his equipment and tasks.... He's not cocky about things, just very knowledgeable about his planning and lifts. And trust me have I done some with hiabs, but all of mine was "hang over lifts" , really like the under fix under lift idea. If only all APs was as good at the job as Charlie.
Excellent video, Roger, thank you. Really good to see all the planning that goes into executing a safe lifting plan. I see a lot of comments here regarding the specification of the steels for domestic work and wonder if you might consider doing a discussion video with a structural engineer much in the same way you had a series of discussions with Adam at Heat Geek. They served to show how discussing an engineering 'problem' from two different but very experienced perspectives can result in better understanding for all, especially your subscribers!
I love the industry in 2024. Some great solutions to common problems from really knowledgeable businesses. Also great that it looks like it was delivered using Thunderbird 2.
Nice to see. Clever bit of kit.. The 14yrs I've worked for my current employer I've seen the beams we supply to builders on site just getting heavier and heavier it's ridiculous. Some one commented about splicing them. We did one a while ago and because it was easier to split it and install it in 3 bits the engineer went thicker again big splice plates top, bottom and side with a shit load of bolts. The labour involved in cutting welding and drilling holes (and the cost of a heavier beam) it would of probably been cheaper to get these guys in
Great presentation from the Steel Beam Lift team. Great kit, safe working process, good to see. The main guys run through was thorough however i did struggle a bit with the speed he ran through it. Could take a leaf out of Rodgers book, slow down the speaking a little and im sure you will convey your professionalism further.
You would be amazed how much we cut out of that chat, Charles rattled through a lot more details but it just got to the point where we thought it would lose people.
I used to go back to three structural engineer and tell him to design 2 beams and bolt together or ask him how would he like to lift a single one in , or get someone else …
Many thanks to Roger and Dylan for a great video showing builders there’s other methods and equipment out there for builders to work safer and smarter on complex and hazardous jobs, especially when the traditional tools and methods won’t do.
Very neat, and a lot safer than seeing you and your two chums teetering about on those B&Q steps, that still gives me the heeby geebies. ATB from J & H Builders
Great video as always. I want to do a similar job to this with similar sizes. I worked out from the video the horizontal Beam is a 305 UC Steel spanning 7.6 Metres sat on 2.4m High RHS 305x100 Steel bolted into a concrete pad. HOW WAS THE STEEL FRAME TIED TO THE BUILDING BRICKWORK? The reason why I ask this is because on my last extension my engineer made me bolt the uprights into the brick wall for lateral stability. Why does there not look to be any ties or holes for ties on this job or is there a reason why they dont need to have these?
That looks to save a lot of backs, fingers and toes Roger, my only slight concern is I would have put some noggin in between those open joists, maybe a tenners worth of timber, there may be some there that I couldn't see, cheers.
@@SkillBuilder I was more thinking of the loading on those joists while the beam was being moved into place, they may have fixed the bottom of the joist to the board before propping. I never like to assume they didn't do something because I can't see it.
As a builder I would love to use these lifters but in reality not always have space. Really we need to go back to the engineers and ask WHY is this steel being used for a domestic house as all engineers use different gauges and thickness of steels on the same job, it’s a joke.
Completely agree... Just finished a lovely job and the steels that went in could have supported a multistorey commercial building.... Instead on literally a single storey timber frame first floor! It was a joke and cost the client far too much....
i think its more laziness or inexperience. you always want a margin of safety with the steel... massively overspec is any easy way of achieving it if you cannot be bothered or know how to accurately factors in the loads. playing devil advocate, overspecing the steel might be cheaper than the cost of the time to get it right.
That was very impressive both in terms of the equipment and the people, it is an elegant solution to a difficult and potentially very dangerous operation. I am not a builder (a now retired Marine Engineer), but I have serious suspicion over structural engineers, the software they use and the resulting specification of the steels. I cannot help thinking that somewhere in the software that these structural engineers use, there is a wee box marked ‘safety factor’ and they have ‘dialled it all the way up to 11’. I had a 6 metre extension done in a standard two storey house in 2017 and I could not believe the specified solution which could have been used as the keel in one of the new aircraft carriers. I was sorely tempted to do the calculations longhand but realised it was futile to argue with a professional. 😉 Does anyone else with experience believe the scantlings of these beams are increasing over time rather than increasing to the calculated load and stress?
norman I am with you completely on that, steels have just got bigger and bigger and no two structural engineers agree on anything. It is very much pot luck who you get.
With a beam of this span some structural engineers can get into problems with deflection governing the design. There are methods to deal with this but not all engineers are aware of them or choose to employ them.
While you guys in the UK and Europe have all kinds of cool machine toys... Over across the ocean we do everything the hard way here. Here in the US it's been the trend since the late 80s that people were cheaper than equipment so we just throw more people at it. We are finally starting to see more equipment aids but it's slow and regional. In the southern US roofers don't even have conveyors to get shingles on the roof. They carry them up all by hand and asphalt shingle bundles are heavy.
We have plenty of people who would rather throw cheap labour at a job than use a machine. The influx of immigrants looking for a day's work for cash is the same here as it is in the U.K and there are plenty of people who would rather use them.
there is also the cultural difference, the european attitude is that when an employee goes to work, never coming back shouldn't something you need to think about, whilst in the states an employee is just a hammer and a hammer you just rent. H&S in the europe the tradition is that where there is a risk, before you use PPE and training to protect your staff, you first have to show you cannot remove the risk in the first place. i.e. so rather than dressup your employee is flash protection suit when you need to turn a large breaker off, you are expected to goto the expense of installing a remote controlled breaker you might only use 2 or 3 times a decade.... these cool machines are just tools to remove people from a risk.
Genie about £40 a day these machines ??? Plus how many jobs can you really get a track machine to the back entrance . Brilliant if you have the room and money in the job 😉
There are jobs where a Genie is fine but this isn't one of them. You are not supposed to use more than two because of the unequal loading and this beam is too heavy for two. As for money in the job, that is all about pricing. If you are seriously saying that a customer expects you to take out the back end of their house and put a steel in but isn't prepared to pay for it to be done safely and properly then you are in a race to the bottom.
What also needs to be considered is that a Genie can’t unload a beam from the delivery wagon or transport it round the back for you. I also speak to a lot of builders who feel extremely uncomfortable when trying to crank a large heavy beam up on Genies. Agreed - we can’t access EVERY site - but we have done over 4000 lifts to date, so we can obviously access most 👍
I am not disputing the use of these anything to make the job easier im all for it . But thanks to both of you for your words of wisdom . After 33yrs i'll bare it mind when im next pricing a job so as to make sure im not at the bottom 😉
The cost of getting a steel beam in is, or should be, the cost of supplying and fitting. What other industry has the approach adopted by some builders "The steel beams cost a thousand quid so we are going to have to find a cheap way to get it into the hole for nothing"? It is nonsense.
A lot depends on the specifics of the job - exact weight of beam, difficulty of access, oversite, how many other beams need moving/lifting, any bags/pallets need shifting, the distance to the site, etc; but for the move and installation of one huge beam you’d usually get plenty of change from £2k. Obviously it would be a lot less if the beam was under 1000kg, and so only required 1 x machine and operator 👍
Well I don't know why I came here tonight. Coz everything that they sell here is sh*te. The have Pâté and they're calling it pate. And all the bread's at least a week out of date. Lampshades to the left of me. Clothes pegs to the right. Here I am, stuck in the Lidl with you.
Just an additional expense to lump onto customers already paying through the nose. Off loading your work to the customer to sort out.How did we manage up to now without 2 of these things? Perfectly good solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
Hi Christopher Do you not charge your customers for the work you do on installing steel? The Steel Beam Lifter doesn’t just lift the steel into position, it can lift off the truck and carry round the back saving on cost of time, labour and crane hire. Skill Builder’s response to others mentioning Genie Lifts explains why Genie Lifts wouldn’t do on this job. As a retired builder, the state of my back is why I wouldn’t attempt lifting these beams. It’s all about working smarter and safely for the good of our trade - you can’t put a price on safety when it comes to structural work. I know all those who have hire the Steel Beam Lifter and Prop Pal can vouch for that. All the best 👍
Christopher If you only ever work on modest sized extensions you may not be aware that there is a whole big world out there. 20 years ago the idea of knocking out the whole back end of a house and building an open plan extension was considered ambitious but now it is commonplace. This is entirely due to the way steel beams are now used. Interestingly architects design these jobs and structural engineers work out how to support the building but often they have no idea of how this will be executed. That is where the builder has to use skill and experience to find a way. Speaking from experience the customer is often impressed and delighted to see an operation like this. One guy I went to see had some steel beams put in by some Albanians who smashed the place apart and left him with an unsafe job. He then told them he wasn't going to pay them the £9,000 for the day's work and they said they would come back and burn his house down. His son was a policeman and his advice was to pay them and move on.
We are aware of the crane and also the road closures etc. Even lifting it over the roof doesn't get it into that slot so you need to build a scaffolding and slide it in. You have to weigh up the options and decide which is best.
@@ThriveTalesTV Because it's impossible to equally load three throughout a lift. At some point the weight would shift to just two, and then they would be overloaded.
Interesting that you think you can judge the weight of the beam from the video. Do you know the length? While we have you here, would you care to guess the weight of the Hooka machine? You got the beam wrong even after we told you but we are feeling generous and are going to give you a second chance.
@@SkillBuilder so if I was feeling the need to be accurate I could simply count the bricks and work out the length but I’d guess at 8m Looks like an 8” H beam so 110kg a meter ish so that’s less than a ton! If it’s a bigger beam I might be wrong! But as I said it’s a nice set up and a lot easier than many make it… but shifting heavy steels without mechanical assistance can be done without being Hercules - just need bits of steel pipe, timber, levers… just like building the pyramids!
nothing more satisfying to watch than a well thought out solution.
This is one fantastic vid,
Charlie really knows his equipment and tasks....
He's not cocky about things, just very knowledgeable about his planning and lifts.
And trust me have I done some with hiabs, but all of mine was "hang over lifts" , really like the under fix under lift idea.
If only all APs was as good at the job as Charlie.
He's very effective in communicating how his system works, and its benefits. Well done
Very nice bit of kit.
Work smarter, not harder. 👊🏻
Amazing that they got everything through such limited space. Great gear and a very impressive solution.
Excellent video, Roger, thank you. Really good to see all the planning that goes into executing a safe lifting plan. I see a lot of comments here regarding the specification of the steels for domestic work and wonder if you might consider doing a discussion video with a structural engineer much in the same way you had a series of discussions with Adam at Heat Geek. They served to show how discussing an engineering 'problem' from two different but very experienced perspectives can result in better understanding for all, especially your subscribers!
Very interesting to see the lifters and props on a video .
Brilliantly explained too Roger . Both great pieces of kit 🧱👍🏽
I love the industry in 2024. Some great solutions to common problems from really knowledgeable businesses. Also great that it looks like it was delivered using Thunderbird 2.
Production quality is getting to TV level Rog!
Thanks, we have professionals on the job.
@@SkillBuilder👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽🧱👍🏽
Nice to see. Clever bit of kit.. The 14yrs I've worked for my current employer I've seen the beams we supply to builders on site just getting heavier and heavier it's ridiculous. Some one commented about splicing them. We did one a while ago and because it was easier to split it and install it in 3 bits the engineer went thicker again big splice plates top, bottom and side with a shit load of bolts. The labour involved in cutting welding and drilling holes (and the cost of a heavier beam) it would of probably been cheaper to get these guys in
Great video lads. Very impressive stuff. Cheers.
Technology comes at last to the steel beam installation process!
Squatted beam very strong and space saving but I’ve lifted bigger with jacks and props through windows etc etc those lifters look bad ass
Great presentation from the Steel Beam Lift team. Great kit, safe working process, good to see.
The main guys run through was thorough however i did struggle a bit with the speed he ran through it. Could take a leaf out of Rodgers book, slow down the speaking a little and im sure you will convey your professionalism further.
You would be amazed how much we cut out of that chat, Charles rattled through a lot more details but it just got to the point where we thought it would lose people.
I used to go back to three structural engineer and tell him to design 2 beams and bolt together or ask him how would he like to lift a single one in , or get someone else …
Many thanks to Roger and Dylan for a great video showing builders there’s other methods and equipment out there for builders to work safer and smarter on complex and hazardous jobs, especially when the traditional tools and methods won’t do.
Very neat, and a lot safer than seeing you and your two chums teetering about on those B&Q steps, that still gives me the heeby geebies. ATB from J & H Builders
Great video as always. I want to do a similar job to this with similar sizes. I worked out from the video the horizontal Beam is a 305 UC Steel spanning 7.6 Metres sat on 2.4m High RHS 305x100 Steel bolted into a concrete pad. HOW WAS THE STEEL FRAME TIED TO THE BUILDING BRICKWORK? The reason why I ask this is because on my last extension my engineer made me bolt the uprights into the brick wall for lateral stability. Why does there not look to be any ties or holes for ties on this job or is there a reason why they dont need to have these?
That looks to save a lot of backs, fingers and toes Roger, my only slight concern is I would have put some noggin in between those open joists, maybe a tenners worth of timber, there may be some there that I couldn't see, cheers.
The blocking goes in the web of the beam between each joist, That is done after the beam in place.
@@SkillBuilder I was more thinking of the loading on those joists while the beam was being moved into place, they may have fixed the bottom of the joist to the board before propping. I never like to assume they didn't do something because I can't see it.
As a builder I would love to use these lifters but in reality not always have space. Really we need to go back to the engineers and ask WHY is this steel being used for a domestic house as all engineers use different gauges and thickness of steels on the same job, it’s a joke.
Completely agree... Just finished a lovely job and the steels that went in could have supported a multistorey commercial building.... Instead on literally a single storey timber frame first floor! It was a joke and cost the client far too much....
You are right there is a huge variation. You would think that some structural engineers get a kick back from the steel fabricators.
i think its more laziness or inexperience. you always want a margin of safety with the steel... massively overspec is any easy way of achieving it if you cannot be bothered or know how to accurately factors in the loads. playing devil advocate, overspecing the steel might be cheaper than the cost of the time to get it right.
Maybe they don’t want to get into legal trouble if the building falls down, they can say well we put that overrated steel in
That was very impressive both in terms of the equipment and the people, it is an elegant solution to a difficult and potentially very dangerous operation. I am not a builder (a now retired Marine Engineer), but I have serious suspicion over structural engineers, the software they use and the resulting specification of the steels. I cannot help thinking that somewhere in the software that these structural engineers use, there is a wee box marked ‘safety factor’ and they have ‘dialled it all the way up to 11’. I had a 6 metre extension done in a standard two storey house in 2017 and I could not believe the specified solution which could have been used as the keel in one of the new aircraft carriers. I was sorely tempted to do the calculations longhand but realised it was futile to argue with a professional. 😉 Does anyone else with experience believe the scantlings of these beams are increasing over time rather than increasing to the calculated load and stress?
norman
I am with you completely on that, steels have just got bigger and bigger and no two structural engineers agree on anything. It is very much pot luck who you get.
With a beam of this span some structural engineers can get into problems with deflection governing the design. There are methods to deal with this but not all engineers are aware of them or choose to employ them.
@@stevep1050 Thank you for that.👍 Would deflection (within reason)be reduced by the use of a thicker web?
Ha ha Rodger just thought I would say I went to the NSBRC at Swindon, self build show, the other day and the Storm dry people said Hi.😀
Great video Rog.
Glad you enjoyed it
While you guys in the UK and Europe have all kinds of cool machine toys... Over across the ocean we do everything the hard way here. Here in the US it's been the trend since the late 80s that people were cheaper than equipment so we just throw more people at it. We are finally starting to see more equipment aids but it's slow and regional. In the southern US roofers don't even have conveyors to get shingles on the roof. They carry them up all by hand and asphalt shingle bundles are heavy.
We have plenty of people who would rather throw cheap labour at a job than use a machine. The influx of immigrants looking for a day's work for cash is the same here as it is in the U.K and there are plenty of people who would rather use them.
there is also the cultural difference, the european attitude is that when an employee goes to work, never coming back shouldn't something you need to think about, whilst in the states an employee is just a hammer and a hammer you just rent.
H&S in the europe the tradition is that where there is a risk, before you use PPE and training to protect your staff, you first have to show you cannot remove the risk in the first place. i.e. so rather than dressup your employee is flash protection suit when you need to turn a large breaker off, you are expected to goto the expense of installing a remote controlled breaker you might only use 2 or 3 times a decade.... these cool machines are just tools to remove people from a risk.
Now we know how they built Stonehenge :)
A total cost for hire and labour for this job would be interesting, Roger
Looks expensive with the plant involved.
Genie about £40 a day these machines ??? Plus how many jobs can you really get a track machine to the back entrance . Brilliant if you have the room and money in the job 😉
There are jobs where a Genie is fine but this isn't one of them. You are not supposed to use more than two because of the unequal loading and this beam is too heavy for two.
As for money in the job, that is all about pricing. If you are seriously saying that a customer expects you to take out the back end of their house and put a steel in but isn't prepared to pay for it to be done safely and properly then you are in a race to the bottom.
What also needs to be considered is that a Genie can’t unload a beam from the delivery wagon or transport it round the back for you. I also speak to a lot of builders who feel extremely uncomfortable when trying to crank a large heavy beam up on Genies.
Agreed - we can’t access EVERY site - but we have done over 4000 lifts to date, so we can obviously access most 👍
I am not disputing the use of these anything to make the job easier im all for it . But thanks to both of you for your words of wisdom . After 33yrs i'll bare it mind when im next pricing a job so as to make sure im not at the bottom 😉
Nice to see some steel going in. Some builders are stealing and off. But not you rodger we all know your as straight as robin hoods arrow. 👍👍
BLIMEY!! - That'll be and Expensive! Beam 😄
Hi Peter
Nothing in building is cheap any more.
wow
Not practical for most jobs,but a nice idea probably to costly as well .
The cost of getting a steel beam in is, or should be, the cost of supplying and fitting. What other industry has the approach adopted by some builders
"The steel beams cost a thousand quid so we are going to have to find a cheap way to get it into the hole for nothing"? It is nonsense.
go on then how much did that lift/job cost ££ ????
2-4k £ i would imagine .they have 5 people on site
A lot depends on the specifics of the job - exact weight of beam, difficulty of access, oversite, how many other beams need moving/lifting, any bags/pallets need shifting, the distance to the site, etc; but for the move and installation of one huge beam you’d usually get plenty of change from £2k. Obviously it would be a lot less if the beam was under 1000kg, and so only required 1 x machine and operator 👍
Steve and Alex would get that in with their trusty carts from Liddle
Well I don't know why I came here tonight.
Coz everything that they sell here is sh*te.
The have Pâté and they're calling it pate.
And all the bread's at least a week out of date.
Lampshades to the left of me.
Clothes pegs to the right.
Here I am, stuck in the Lidl with you.
What’s the section size of the beam?
It looks like a 254 x 254UC
@neatripple2784 if its a 254 x254 it's a uc not ub
They've got an early version of Wall-E? 🤖
Just an additional expense to lump onto customers already paying through the nose. Off loading your work to the customer to sort out.How did we manage up to now without 2 of these things? Perfectly good solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
Hi Christopher
Do you not charge your customers for the work you do on installing steel?
The Steel Beam Lifter doesn’t just lift the steel into position, it can lift off the truck and carry round the back saving on cost of time, labour and crane hire.
Skill Builder’s response to others mentioning Genie Lifts explains why Genie Lifts wouldn’t do on this job.
As a retired builder, the state of my back is why I wouldn’t attempt lifting these beams.
It’s all about working smarter and safely for the good of our trade - you can’t put a price on safety when it comes to structural work. I know all those who have hire the Steel Beam Lifter and Prop Pal can vouch for that.
All the best 👍
Christopher
If you only ever work on modest sized extensions you may not be aware that there is a whole big world out there.
20 years ago the idea of knocking out the whole back end of a house and building an open plan extension was considered ambitious but now it is commonplace. This is entirely due to the way steel beams are now used. Interestingly architects design these jobs and structural engineers work out how to support the building but often they have no idea of how this will be executed. That is where the builder has to use skill and experience to find a way.
Speaking from experience the customer is often impressed and delighted to see an operation like this.
One guy I went to see had some steel beams put in by some Albanians who smashed the place apart and left him with an unsafe job. He then told them he wasn't going to pay them the £9,000 for the day's work and they said they would come back and burn his house down. His son was a policeman and his advice was to pay them and move on.
Well that was a long advert
Telescopic crane, lifts it over the roof and into place, simples.
We are aware of the crane and also the road closures etc. Even lifting it over the roof doesn't get it into that slot so you need to build a scaffolding and slide it in. You have to weigh up the options and decide which is best.
hard hat high vis and trainers 🤣👍
Sponsored by Hilti
or just use a Genie lift .
I was waiting for the Genie comments to come in. Do you know what a Genie lift can handle. You can use two but you can't use three.
@@SkillBuilder why cant you use 3 ?
Do a couple of beams bolted together if too heavy
@@ThriveTalesTV Because it's impossible to equally load three throughout a lift. At some point the weight would shift to just two, and then they would be overloaded.
@@markrainford1219 ok thanks for sharing
Funky little set up- beam weight don’t think that beam weighs 1200kg…
Interesting that you think you can judge the weight of the beam from the video. Do you know the length? While we have you here, would you care to guess the weight of the Hooka machine? You got the beam wrong even after we told you but we are feeling generous and are going to give you a second chance.
@@SkillBuilder so if I was feeling the need to be accurate I could simply count the bricks and work out the length but I’d guess at 8m
Looks like an 8” H beam so 110kg a meter ish so that’s less than a ton! If it’s a bigger beam I might be wrong!
But as I said it’s a nice set up and a lot easier than many make it… but shifting heavy steels without mechanical assistance can be done without being Hercules - just need bits of steel pipe, timber, levers… just like building the pyramids!
it's the safe way. . . . . .not the easy way
I have to tell you that it is very easy from the point of view of the builder. Somebody else does the heavy lifting.
Two 1.5T mini excavators with the buckets put on back to front, would be £400 for a day. If you've the room for them.
So you can get two drivers to slot that steel in with excavators without knocking anything down. Good luck with that.