Crane truck hire in Johannesburg
Last updated
Johannesburg crane truck rates: by the hour or by the day
By the hour
About about R1,000 an hour for an 8–10 t truck. Best for one delivery with a lift at each end: collect a generator in Booysens, place it on a slab in Randburg, done.
By the day
R2,500–R5,200 a day with operator for 8–10 t, R3,200–R5,200 a day with operator for 12–15 t. Best for a day of setting trusses, offloading several trucks or moving a workshop.
Both include the operator, who drives the truck and runs the crane, and exclude VAT. The heavy 20–34 t class is about about R1,900 an hour. Beyond the city edge, travel is per kilometre, as in this example of a day placing steel on a new house in Fourways:
| Example quote (for illustration only) | Amount |
|---|---|
| 8–10 t crane truck, 1 day at R2,500–R5,200 a day with operator | R2,500–R5,200 |
| Transport both ways to Fourways | R2,840–R3,440 |
| Example total, excl. VAT | R5,340–R8,640 |
Who hires crane trucks in Johannesburg
Aircon and HVAC installers
Condensers and rooftop units lifted from the street onto office, shop and flat roofs. The technicians then work from a cherry picker or the roof itself.
Solar installers
Pallets of panels, inverters and battery cabinets onto flat roofs and into plant rooms. Panels catch wind, so they go up with tag lines on calm mornings.
Shopfitters and sign makers
Sign boxes, pylon-sign sections, shopfronts, cold rooms and counters offloaded at malls and high streets, often against a tight loading-bay slot.
Builders
Trusses, steel beams, lintels and roof-sheeting bundles across the northern suburbs, Soweto and the south, delivered and lifted onto the walls in one visit.
Homes and small businesses
Plastic water tanks onto stands, generators, empty containers and garden rooms over boundary walls.
Which crane truck for which Joburg lift
Size the crane by weight at reach, not by the number on the truck. Reach counts from the crane column behind the cab.
| Lift | Weight and reach | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Aircon condenser onto a single-storey shop roof | Well under 1 t at about 6 m | 8–10 t |
| Empty 6 m container onto a stand | Tare from the doors, at 4–6 m | 8–10 t |
| Steel beams over a boundary wall | Up to about 2.9 t at 10 m | 8–10 t |
| Workshop machine placed inside a yard | About 4 t at 8 m (ceiling about 5.1 t) | 12–15 t |
| Heavy load high over a building | Several tonnes at 15 m and more | Mobile crane |
Setting up on Johannesburg stands and streets
- Road reserve: pavements, verges and streets fall under the JRA. If the truck must stand there, check with the JRA and have traffic control in place.
- Granite soil in the north: residual granite soil in the city's expanding north can collapse when wet and loaded (University of Pretoria research). Each stabiliser puts a big load on a small pad, so after rain we use wider mats and stay off new backfill and soakaways.
- The ridges: Parktown, Northcliff and the other quartzite ridges mean steep driveways. The truck must stand level, so the street is often the only spot.
- Summer storms: Johannesburg's rain falls between October and March (South African Weather Service). Lifting stops for lightning and strong gusts, so book summer lifts early in the day.
- Overhead lines: suburban streets carry them. Nobody may bring the boom or load inside a line's safety clearance without the utility's permission (Electrical Machinery Regulations, reg 19(5)), so arrange it with City Power or Eskom.
Certificates on Johannesburg sites
Malls, offices and construction sites ask for paperwork at the gate. Our crane trucks carry a load test by a registered lifting machinery entity no older than 12 months, and our operators a certificate of training for truck-mounted cranes from an accredited training provider, as the Driven Machinery Regulations, 2015 require (reg 18). As the hirer, you keep the latest test and service records on site; copies come before the truck, on request. See safety and certificates.
Sizes most hired, and the rest of Gauteng
The 8–10 t does most Johannesburg work; the 12–15 t takes heavier steel and longer reach. Full reach chart, deck space and payload: 8 ton crane truck hire. Sizes and rules: truck crane hire.
Sandton is about 19 km from Johannesburg by road, inside our normal delivery area. The crane truck drives to site, so travel is small and confirmed on WhatsApp with your price. The East Rand runs from Boksburg, and every Gauteng town is on plant hire in Gauteng. All other machines in the city: plant hire in Johannesburg. Elsewhere: crane truck hire in Pretoria and crane truck hire in Durban.
WhatsApp us the load and the Joburg addressQuestions people ask
Do I need JRA permission to lift from a Johannesburg street?
If the truck or its stabilisers stand in the road or on the pavement, check with the Johannesburg Roads Agency first: pavements, verges and streets are road reserve, and the JRA controls work there through its wayleave process and its Code of Practice for work in the road reserve. Plan traffic control for the lift. A lift from inside your property needs none of this.
Can a crane truck put aircon units or solar panels on a roof?
Yes, if the weight at that reach is inside the crane's chart. A 30 t·m crane in the 8–10 t class lifts 4.78 t at 6.1 m and 2.9 t at 9.9 m, which covers condensers, inverters, battery cabinets and pallets of panels onto most low-rise roofs. Send the unit mass, the roof height and the distance from where the truck can park.
How much is crane truck hire per hour in Johannesburg?
About about R1,000 an hour for an 8–10 t crane truck with operator; few price points, so treat it as a guide. A job that ties the truck up most of the day goes cheaper at the day rate of R2,500–R5,200.
Do you cover Sandton, Midrand and Soweto?
Yes. Sandton, Randburg, Soweto and Roodepoort are inside our normal Johannesburg area, and Midrand is served from Centurion. Out west, Krugersdorp is about R2,920–R3,540 there and back.
Related
Sources we checked
- Johannesburg Roads Agency, Wayleaves
- University of Pretoria, Collapse of residual Archaean granitic soils in South Africa
- South African Weather Service, What kind of droughts does South Africa experience? (summer rainfall season)
- Palfinger PK 32080 loader crane leaflet (lifting capacities)
- Palfinger PK 42002 SH technical data
- Driven Machinery Regulations, 2015 (GN R.540), regulation 18: lifting machines
- Electrical Machinery Regulations, 2011 (GN R.250), regulation 19: overhead power lines
Need a crane truck in Johannesburg?
WhatsApp us the job, the town and the dates. We confirm the machine, the start date and the price in writing before the machine moves.
WhatsApp us now