Tower Cranes

Maybe like me you have an inquisitive mind and find everything fascinating especially when we take so many things for granted. Todays thing I guess we take for granted is tall tower blocks, how they are built and more importantly the cranes that build them.
Living next to a building site for the past 18 months I have learnt alot about dust, noise, cement and reinforced concrete, the time it takes and many other things. But the best thing I learnt was how a tower crane gets taller and also how they are fixed to the building they are helping to build. However I am not going to mention the supports.
I have however a few photos showing how a crane gets taller by itself and some men and basically it is a lego set for grown men in hard hats and to make a crane grow taller by 2m takes about an hour.

The crane has brought up the next segment

The other crane is far taller and yes it leans

The top bit with the cab and cables etc has hydraulic jacks connected
so it can raise or lower itself as pieces are added or removed

 The new segment is slid in place and the men secure it

Not the slowest or quickest procedure but it does have to be the most accurate

Watch the new piece move in

In it goes

and now they fix it

And another piece

same procedure

Notice the crane has grown as the yellow bars at the bottom
of this picture are further down from the platform

And the weights are above the Monas

Yes that is a man with the concrete funnel
on the left of this picture

Slotting the other piece into place

Almost finished

Far taller now

2 questions remain...........
1. How do they all get up there? Do they climb the ladder inside?
2. How do they all get down?

The crane is taken down the same way it builtn up.

Now we know and can all sleep better at night knowing this, and you will be able to tell anyone who points at a tower crane and says 'wow thats tall', how it gets to be so tall....