Rooftop chiller replacement, Brisbane CBD
Two 1,180 kg chillers swapped on a 14-storey plant deck inside a single Sunday window, with no street closure.
The constraint
The plant deck sat 14 storeys up behind a parapet, set back 9 m from the building line.
The only crane position was a two-lane arterial requiring a full weekend closure and traffic management.
Building management could not surrender tenant access on a weekday, and the chillers were already failing.
The lift
- Load weight
- 1,180 kg
- Aircraft
- Black Hawk UH-60
- Line length
- 45 m
- Crew
- 6
- Exclusion zone
- 60 m
- Lift cycles
- 4
01Flew from Archerfield with a 45 m long line and remote hook, staging the replacement units on a closed carpark deck two blocks north.
02Old units were cut free, rigged and flown out first so the deck was clear before the new plant arrived.
03Riggers on the roof worked inside a marked 60 m exclusion zone under a dedicated ground controller on a discrete frequency.
04Four cycles total: two out, two in, with the deck signed off before the CBD reopened on Monday.
The numbers
- Time on site
- 1.5 hrs
- Flight time
- 0.8 hrs
- Crane alternative
- 3 days · $41,500 – $55,500
- Road closures
- 0
On site
Flight record
Long line operations, Black Hawk UH-60, Turbot Street, Brisbane CBD.
Client record
“We had quotes for a weekend road closure that cost more than the plant. The aircraft was on site for ninety minutes and the street never shut.”