When a hoist beats a crane

The rule of thumb is simple. Below four storeys or fifteen metres, a crane usually wins on cost and flexibility. Above that, especially where daily material movement is heavy over months rather than weeks, a hoist becomes cheaper, safer and faster.

A hoist is the right call when:

• You are running a build of four storeys or more with sustained material flow
• Crane hours are the constraint, or a second crane cannot be justified
• Loads are contained inside the cage rather than being craned over live site personnel
• Programme certainty matters more than one-off flexibility
• Mechanical services or fit-out crews need reliable vertical access at all hours

A crane is still the right call for very heavy single lifts, occasional movement, or short-programme jobs where hoist mobilisation cannot amortise across the duration.

Hoist types Epic delivers

Epic owns Alimak hoists and holds access to additional hoists interstate where a specific job needs it. The typical Adelaide hoist we deliver is a 2-tonne man/material cage. A second 2-tonne materials hoist is being installed next month.

Cage hoists (goods only). Modular cages, engineered load class per project, running off site power as standard. Right choice for multi-storey apartment builds where the movement is mostly materials.

Man/material hoists (personnel plus goods). Cage plus personnel-rated hoist with the operator ticketing and safety systems that come with certified personnel movement. Our default 2-tonne cage. Right choice on major apartment or office builds where the crew is heavy on the tools every day and running personnel up the stairs kills productivity.

Mast climbers. Sustained facade work (painting, cladding, waterproofing) where the working face is the outside of the building and the crew stays on the deck for months. Mast climber outperforms a swing stage where the duration is longer than four weeks or the load per lift is above what a swing stage can safely carry.

Craneable lifts. Modular lifts designed to be crane-repositioned between phases of a job. Right choice on programmes where the scaffold reconfigures every few weeks and the hoist needs to move with it.

Hoist specifications

Day-one scaffold integration

Most hoist installations we see on other Adelaide sites are bolted on to the scaffold as an afterthought. That means a separate mobilisation, a separate crane call, a separate certifying engineer, and a scaffold that has to be modified to receive the hoist after it is already up.

We do not do it that way. When we quote a multi-storey job that will need a hoist, the hoist tie-in points are engineered into the scaffold drawings from day one. That means one design, one Certificate of Compliance workflow, one team on site, and no rework when the hoist arrives.

The saving on a twelve-storey apartment build is typically two to three weeks of programme and one full crane call.

Prequalification and insurance

Answers to the questions your procurement and WHS teams ask before shortlisting a hoist vendor.

• WorkCover Employer: 28107911
• Public and Products Liability: $20M, insurer Sompo Japan Insurance via SURA Liability
• Engineering: designs certified by DC Engineering (CPEng), Professional Indemnity cover held on the design
• Government work: Epic works for head contractors delivering DIT SA projects and has recently been awarded an SA Water contract. Not OFSC accredited.
• Crew: 2 to 20 depending on the job. Tickets from labourer through to SA-licensed riggers. Working at heights, EWP and confined space tickets typical. Crew hold DCAC cards and SA Water blue cards.
• Standards conformance: AS/NZS 1576 (scaffolding tie-in), manufacturer engineering per hoist type, Certificate of Compliance at install
• Inspection cadence: monthly documented inspections for the duration of hire
• SWMS: issued per mobilisation, JSA on request
• Compliance pack: full pack available for tender submission (insurance certificates, prequalification statements, HRWL register, sample SWMS, engineering credentials)

Case study: Adelaide GPO Exchange, materials hoist install

The job: sustained vertical material movement on the Adelaide GPO Exchange multi-storey works programme. The site was tight, the tower crane was constrained, and running fit-out materials up the stairs would have burned days across the programme, so the hoist had to be planned into the scaffold from the start rather than bolted on late as an afterthought.

The engineered solution. Epic engineered the tie-in points for a 2-tonne Alimak materials hoist into the scaffold drawings before mobilisation. Load transferred back through the Proscaf ringlock structure to the ground-level base rather than needing independent bracing, landing platforms were engineered into the scaffold at each level requiring material transfer, and Certificate of Compliance ran across both the scaffold and the hoist as one design.

Engineered by DC Engineering (CPEng), with the design set to AS/NZS 1576 and AS/NZS 4576. Dry hire with an HRWL-ticketed operator running the cage, and monthly documented inspection reports logged for the duration of hire. The saving on a multi-storey programme like this typically runs to two to three weeks of programme time versus a scaffold-then-hoist retrofit.