Asheville Crane Contributes to Extreme Makeover

Enlarge Image Extreme Makeover

August 1, 2011 – In July, ABC’s “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” came to Fayetteville, N.C., to build a home for homeless female veterans. Barbara Marshall, a former Navy officer, had been using her house for the Steps-N-Stages Jubiliee House. Over the course of a week, that structure was demolished and a new one, better suited to housing multiple families, was built in its place. Helping the effort was Asheville Crane, Candler, N.C., a crane rental company serving the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.

The job entailed setting pre-cast foundation walls and 13 boxes for a modular log cabin. The cabin was designed by Blue Ridge Log Cabin, a manufacturer of pre-fabricated cabin buildings. Having worked with Blue Ridge Log Cabin in the past, Asheville Crane was a natural choice to do the heavy lifting.

 

“I donated a 2006 ATC-3130 Link-Belt all-terrain crane with three support trucks and a 2005 Tadano ATF 650XL AT with one support truck and nine employees because we had to work around the clock to get it done,” said Teresa Wilson , owner of Asheville Crane.

 

Both cranes worked simultaneously on different parts of the job. Wilson explained that there wasn’t time to reposition a single crane. With the 65-ton Tadano positioned at the front of the house and the 130-ton Link-Belt set-up in the back, one lift could begin as soon as the other had finished.

 

Enlarge Image Extreme Makeover

The first stage, which took about 12 hours, involved setting the pre-cast foundation walls, provided by Superior Walls. This was followed by placing the modular boxes that made up the log cabin. The four largest of these measured about 50-foot square and weighed approximately 34,000 pounds. The process was completed in about 9 hours, but Ashville Crane’s crew remained on site to finish the job placing windows and setting roof trusses.

 

As a taxi-crane provider, Asheville Crane is used to short-term jobs. But this was something out of the ordinary, said Wilson. “Everything was perfectly staged…graders, cranes, roofers. The Extreme Makeover team had everything pre-planned and knew how long each step of the process would take. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. Stopping only for filming and show production, the house was completed in seven days.

 

Barbara Marshall’s new home provides living quarters for herself and her son as well as space for three female veterans and their children. The Extreme Makeover Home Edition show featuring this project is scheduled to air on ABC in October.