Omega Morgan Handles Air-Con Units for Seattle High-Rise

Oregon-based heavy-lift specialist Omega Morgan has been called into action to lift and place five hefty air handling units into a commercial high-rise block in downtown Seattle.

The units, unable to be installed conventionally due to the size of the elevators and limited headroom in the newly-constructed building, comprised two sections, with the heaviest weighing about three tonnes.

Following site visits during the two-month planning phase, the company’s engineering team designed a custom lifting platform measuring 11 feet by 20 feet to safely raise the units. Modified window openings were created to allow the units to be unloaded and skated into place.

Test lifts were carried out at the company’s warehouse in Fife, where the units were being stored.

A GMK 6300L 350-tonne capacity crane was selected to carry out the two-day move, which involved a crew of eight plus a project manager hoisting the units up to five separate floors. The weight of each lift including the platform and equipment was about 10 tonnes.

“Each floor had an Omega Morgan certified rigger and certified bellman to signal the crane and help the mechanical contractors, who placed each section after unloading,” the company said.

“Completing the second, eighth and tenth floors on the first day, our crews returned bright and early on Sunday to finish the job. Omega Morgan’s team seamlessly completed the final two floors, the sixth and fourth, before the last lift of several HVAC components onto the roof – a height of 175 feet.”

Omega Morgan’s professional-grade crane fleet includes all-terrain cranes, lattice boom crawler cranes, ringer cranes and rough terrain cranes, with capacities ranging from 12 to 3,200 tonnes.

The company, active in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada, also specializes in machinery moving, heavy rigging and transport, millwright and industrial services, industrial storage and warehousing and applied metrology.

Omega Morgan will be exhibiting at Breakbulk Americas 2022, taking place on 27-29 September at the George R. Brown Convention Centre in Houston, Texas. You can meet the team in Hall A&B, Stand J24 (road transport zone).

To register for the conference, click here.

PHOTO 1: The Omega Morgan Crane team safely harnessed while working together to bring an air handler through a window. CREDIT: Omega Morgan
PHOTO 2: An air handler is lifted off a platform while the crane service team looks on. CREDIT: Omega Morgan