To repeat: I was talking with someone in the industry a while back and he insisted that the crane isn't being taken down because of engineering difficulties. Apparently, they overlooked something and are scrambling to figure out how to fix it. The longer it's there, the more credence this story has--though right now it stands only as a rumour.
 
cleaning

just curious..... how will the glass be cleaned on this building? will a device be stored up top somehow? For some reason the thought crossed my mind.....

called it :| crazy to think this could have been overlooked, if that's what happened here?
 
I can assure you they didn't get through the design process without considering how the windows would be reached for cleaning.
I am sure you are right that it was considered BUT it seems incredible to me that it has taken well over a year to get the actual machinery up to the top of the building. It has been sitting at the base of the crane now for 5 or 6 weeks; do these folk have money to burn on crane rental? The L-Tower construction info site continues to say "The L Tower crane remains is use through October, it’s removal is tentatively scheduled for November. We will provide precise information when it becomes available. " (They also need to finish off the "siding" facing the parkette and along the Yonge Street sidewalk and ???
 
Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not defending the design or the project management, both of which seem flawed to me. I hope they had a high contingency set for the project or they're probably bleeding money by now.
 
With the recent change of our thread title format (at least the ones with dataBase files attached to them), we have seen a lot of threads pop up with | ?m | as part of the name. That's because those dataBase files do not record the height of the building as we are uncertain of what the final height is. We are working to replace those question marks with numbers, but not until we have a document we can refer to that we have reason to believe. It's strange how long it can take to locate one in some cases, but it can be difficult.

Unfortunately the last resort is to go the the architectural firm and ask them to look up the number from the architectural drawings, and that's just because generally they are quite busy and don't want to be bothered. We do ask on occasion, however, and are grateful when firms take the time to search this out for us.

Another method is to check at what other sites who report on height say, but that's not the same as getting the info from the source, and they may be using figures obtained from an old document. In the case of the L Tower, and what skyscraperpage, skyscrapercity, and emporis say, that's what I'm wondering. They have all got 205 metres/673 feet… but I have a document showing the L Tower topping out at 215.1 metres, or 705 feet. The document is related to the nearby 141 Bay development where it compares the heights of it to nearby towers. It makes me suspect that the 205 metre height was related to an earlier, shorter plan for the L Tower. The L Tower did get built taller than originally planned, and Committee of Adjustment decisions on such matter can be terribly time-consuming to locate.

Does anyone have anything that suggests that one number is correct and the other wrong? We would love to hear from anyone who may have "something in writing".

Thanks!

42
 
Guess now we have a good idea why we don't get photos from the crane anymore.

AoD
Further proof that the developer/builder does not know what they are doing and the weekly construction updates (saying crane will, now, go in November are simply untrue.) This is in their release for week of November 6. "The L Tower crane remains is use through October, it’s removal is tentatively scheduled for November. We will provide precise information when it becomes available. " Of course, they may mean November 2017??
 
Yep, that discrepancy shows they're caught as either incompetent or dishonest. Unfortunately, it's likely both. Sad for the buyers here--a putative 'premier' building like this shouldn't suffer from these kinds of oversights.
 
I read the National Post story. The story keeps using the word derrick referring to the new thing being installed. Definition is as follows:

Def. Machinery. a jib crane having a boom hinged near the base of the mast so as to rotate about the mast, for moving a load toward or away from the mast by raising or lowering the boom.

So I understand that they are installing a new derrick, but I don't understand why the existing crane, the tall one, is no good for the job of hoisting up the "huge building maintenance unit" (the term from the article). The big crane built the whole building. Why can't it lift the "huge maintenance unit"?
 
I read the National Post story. The story keeps using the word derrick referring to the new thing being installed. Definition is as follows:

Def. Machinery. a jib crane having a boom hinged near the base of the mast so as to rotate about the mast, for moving a load toward or away from the mast by raising or lowering the boom.

So I understand that they are installing a new derrick, but I don't understand why the existing crane, the tall one, is no good for the job of hoisting up the "huge building maintenance unit" (the term from the article). The big crane built the whole building. Why can't it lift the "huge maintenance unit"?

Speculation for me: It's possible that the "big crane" can't manage the lift because it's off to the side and the reach to where the "huge building maintenance unit" needs to go exceeds the limitations of the crane. From the pictures Skyjacked793 posted on his twitter feed a few months back (https://twitter.com/SkyJacked793/status/639406621068668928), the crane platform they assembled up there on the top isn't up to the job either. Seems crazy to think that they didn't think this through prior, but perhaps either the weight of the BMU is more than they anticipated, or they didn't think know they'd need to hoist it somewhere that would lead to the crane's limits being exceeded?
 

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