Building Homes in Mexico

Enlarge Image RT530Es and an HDT 80 tower supplied by Guadalajara, Mexico-based MCG dealer Tracsa are being leased by Arco, Casas Beta and GIG.

November 3, 2004—A Manitowoc Crane Group (MCG) dealer in Guadalajara, Mexico has supplied ten Grove RT530E rough-terrain cranes and a Potain HDT 80 tower crane to three contractors building government-funded housing projects. Currently, Mexico faces a housing shortage.

Tracsa, the dealer, is leasing the cranes to contractors Arco, Casas Beta, and GIG. The RT cranes can usually be found in the middle of the road, picking and placing concrete forms on both sides of the street. Reynaldo Tenorio Torres, charged with handling the MCG product line at Tracsa, explains how each concrete form is comprised of six sections, the lightest weighing 1 t (1.1 USt) and the heaviest being 4 t (4.4 USt). Each form is lifted in at a radius up to 21 m (68.8 ft).The houses are around 60 m² and extend up to three stories high. It takes about 20 days to construct a house from start to finish.

In addition to the forms, the three contractors use the cranes • models that have a boom length ranging between 7.6 m and 29 m (25 ft to 95 ft) • to handle tools, timber, welders, buckets and other products.

The Potain HDT 80, a model which is marketed as the Manitowoc HDT 80 in the United States, is a self-erecting tower. For this job, it is often equipped with a concrete bucket. The tower crane features a compact footprint of 4.5 m x 4.5 m (15 ft x 15 ft) and can lift a maximum of 1.4 t (1.5 USt) at a jib length of 45 m (148 ft).