How to Choose a Crane for Your Lift: Type and Tonnage Before You Book

"How much is a 50-tonne crane for a day?" is the question most crane rental enquiries in Egypt start with, and it is the wrong one. A crane's tonnage is its best-case number: the load it can hold at the shortest radius, with every outrigger out and full counterweight fitted. Your lift will not happen at that radius. The weight, how far it has to travel from the crane, and how high it has to go decide the crane, and the tonnage follows.

This guide covers how to choose a crane for your lift, from the customer's side: the three numbers to have before you call, the crane types the market rents and where each fits, how a crane hire is priced, and the site details that stop a crane arriving and going home without lifting. Reading the manufacturer's load chart itself is covered step by step in how to read a crane load chart; this article is about getting the right machine booked in the first place.

Three numbers before you call

1. The weight — all of it. The weight of the item, plus everything between it and the hook: slings, shackles, spreader beam, lifting frame. On a precast element or a generator set, the rigging can add a meaningful amount, and the crane has to carry it too. If the weight comes from a drawing or a delivery note, use it; if it is an estimate, say so.

2. The radius — the worst one. Radius is the horizontal distance from the crane's centre of rotation to the centre of the load, not from the front of the truck. What matters is the largest radius anywhere in the lift: if the crane picks the load up close and sets it down far away, the far point decides the crane. Walls, trenches, stockpiles and parked trucks that keep the crane away from the load all add radius.

3. The height. How high the hook has to reach, which is the height of the placing point plus the height of the load, the rigging and a safety margin. On a roof or a tall slab edge, height can decide the boom length before the weight does.

With these three numbers, a lessor can read the chart for a specific crane in a specific configuration. Without them, anyone quoting you is guessing.

Why the tonnage on the name is not what you get

Capacity falls quickly as the radius grows. A crane that holds its nameplate figure next to its own outriggers may hold only a small fraction of it at 20 or 25 metres. That is why the same lift can need a small crane when the crane stands next to the load and a much larger one when a wall keeps it back. A common and expensive mistake on Egyptian sites is booking by nameplate, discovering on the day that the crane cannot reach, and paying for a second mobilisation.

Two practical rules follow:

• Clear the access before you size the crane. Moving a stockpile or a container so the crane can stand three metres closer can save a whole crane class.
• Ask for the chart value, not the class. The question to the lessor is "what can this crane hold at this radius and boom length, in the configuration you will bring?" — and the answer should come from the chart.

Crane types in the Egyptian rental market

Whether a tower crane or a mobile crane is the right answer for a building is covered in tower crane vs mobile crane. For loads of a few tonnes at modest height on a site, a telehandler is sometimes the cheaper machine; see telehandler vs forklift.

Three lifts Egyptian sites book most often

Precast and steel. Boundary-wall panels, hollow-core slabs, steel beams and purlins for a warehouse: many similar lifts, spread across a site. The crane has to reach the furthest element from each set-up position, so plan the positions on the drawing before booking, and aim for as few crane moves as possible. This is usually a day or multi-day hire, and the rigging crew matters as much as the crane.

Generators, transformers and plant onto a roof or plinth. One heavy lift, often at height and over a building edge. Take the weight from the manufacturer's plate or data sheet, use the lifting points the manufacturer specifies, and check the path the load takes over the roof, not only the setting point.

Unloading at factories and yards. A machine or a container coming off a trailer. The radius is usually short, but the trailer has to park where the crane can reach it without swinging over people or other vehicles, and the ground under the outriggers is often the yard's weakest point.

How crane hire is priced

Crane rental in Egypt is usually quoted on one of these bases:

• Per lift or per job, for a defined lift: arrive, set up, lift, leave.
• Per day or half day, often with a minimum charge, for jobs of a few hours to a few days.
• Per week or month, for projects where the crane stays on site and works every day.

The things that move the price are the crane class and boom length needed, the distance and route to the site, extra trucks for counterweight on larger cranes, the operator and rigging crew, work outside normal hours, and how long the crane waits if the site is not ready. Ask the lessor what the rate includes, and what happens if the lift cannot go ahead because of wind or because the site was not ready. The general structure of day, week and month terms is in how equipment rental is quoted in Egypt.

Who is responsible for what on the day

Most crane hires in Egypt come with an operator, but a lift involves more than the operator. Agree in writing:

• Who plans the lift, and who has the authority to stop it. UK guidance, for example, expects lifting operations to be planned and supervised by a competent person; whatever the contract says, somebody has to own that role.
• Who supplies the rigging — slings, shackles, spreader beams — and whether it is certified for the load.
• Who signals the operator from the load side, when the operator cannot see the load.
• Who prepares the ground where the outriggers will stand: compacted, level, and clear of trenches, soft backfill and buried services.

If the lift is next to an occupied building or a public street, also agree who secures the area under the load and stops traffic and people during the lift. In city work it is one of the points most often forgotten.

Site details to send with your request

1. The load: what it is, its weight and dimensions, and where the weight comes from.
2. The lift geometry: where the crane can stand, the pick-up point, the setting point, and the height.
3. Photos of the site and the access road, including gates, slopes and overhead lines.
4. Ground conditions where the crane will stand.
5. Number of lifts, and whether it is one day or a period of work.
6. Date and working hours, and whether work at night or on Friday is needed.
7. Location: governorate and area, ideally with a map pin.

The mistakes that repeat

• Booking by nameplate tonnage without a radius.
• Forgetting the weight of the rigging.
• Measuring radius from the truck rather than from the centre of rotation.
• Outriggers on fresh backfill or next to an open trench.
• Overhead power lines that nobody mentioned.
• Booking one day for work that needs two, so the crane leaves before the last lift.
• Calling the crane before the item to be lifted has arrived on site, and paying for the waiting hours.
• Wind: coastal sites on the North Coast and the Red Sea can lose lifting time to wind, so allow for it in the programme.

Next step

EXON rents cranes from its own machines, delivered to sites across Egypt. The crane rental page lists the cranes available with their published rates. For a lift, the fastest route is the seven details above: send them to the EXON team on WhatsApp and ask for a quote for your project.