Aircon units onto rooftops. Light steel erection. Generator drops. Small machinery moves. The crane that does most of South Africa's daily lifting — quick to mobilise, easy on access, sensibly priced.
Small-band crane hire is what most South African industrial work actually needs. Aircon units lifted onto a warehouse roof, a structural steel beam dropped into a fit-out, a back-up generator placed on a rooftop plinth, a satellite dish raised onto a comms mast — these are the jobs that get done in a single morning by a 20, 25 or 35 ton mobile crane.
Despite the label, "small" is misleading — a 35-ton mobile crane is a serious piece of equipment. The band describes lifts that don't need a hundred-plus-ton machine. Most lifts under 15 tons at modest radius (10–18 metres) fall here. Anything heavier or further from the crane and you're stepping up into the medium band.
The entry point — and the most-deployed crane size on the East Rand. Short setup, modest counterweight, tight site footprint. 20-tonners handle HVAC unit lifts onto two-storey roofs, light beam erection for retail fit-outs, satellite dish installations, and small generator drops. If your job's accessible from a normal access driveway and the load is well under 10 tons, a 20-ton almost always works.
Step up when the lift radius opens out — taller building, longer reach, awkward approach. 25 and 35 ton machines have the boom length and counterweight to handle three- and four-storey rooftop work, larger air-handling units, and small substation drops. They mobilise on standard lowbed transport and set up inside most industrial yards without ground prep.
Tell us the load weight and the lift radius and we'll spec the right tonnage in seconds. The calculator uses our internal crane matrix — the same lookup our dispatch team uses. Open the Crane Size Calculator →
Tell us the lift and we'll come back with a price.