The reaction tower was a 70 foot aluminum tank that was suspended by an iron circular frame within the roof through to the inside of the building. Our task was to lift out the reaction tower without damaging the roof or building. This job was challenging from all angles and took many days of prep work to establish a sequence of cuts and separations to be ready for Crane Day. The tower had an upper work platform that required careful, piece by piece torch cutting and lowering. Prior to torch cutting the platform, all residues had to be removed on all edges of the tower, the building roof and beneath. The residues were flammable, wax-like crumbs and lumps that had accumulated for decades.
While the tower was large in height and diameter, the aluminum construction made it light weight causing any amount of wind to move the tower once lifted from the mounting points. The lift proved challenging as the tower was moving with the wind direction and bridging on the remnant iron frame. As well, the tower was seated within 2 feet of the roof edge, thus preventing our crew from working 360 degrees around the tower.
The lift took several hours with our crew carefully rotating the tower to slip through the remnant iron frame until it was free and landed on the adjacent grounds.