PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Construction Site Accounts

High-Rise and Crane Porta Potty Units: Scheduling Lifts on Tall Construction Projects

Why Tall Projects Need Units Up Top

On a tall building, a trip to the ground-level units can take a worker a long time once you count the hoist, the stairs and the walk across the site. Many contractors put units on upper floors so crews do not lose half their break riding down. Those units are usually lifted into place by crane and serviced on the floor, or lifted back down for service, depending on the project and your company's method.

As a project grows, as covered in Adding Porta Potties as a Construction Project Grows, the unit mix often changes. High-rise units are usually the last addition, once the structure is up. They are also the units most likely to cause scheduling trouble, because they depend on a crane and a crew that is not yours.

Record High-Rise Units as Their Own Type

In PortaPottyBossPro, High-Rise / Crane is its own unit type. When those units go out, record them on the delivery with the quantity, unit numbers and placement notes, just like the units at ground level. Keeping them separate matters because the service is different. A driver who sees "2 High-Rise / Crane, Level 8 and Level 14" on the phone knows this is not a normal walk-up stop.

Use the placement notes to say which floor and where on the floor, such as "Level 8, northeast corner by the stair tower." Those notes show under the address on the office lists and on the driver's phone.

Lift Coordination Notes

Every tall project handles crane time differently. Some contractors give you a fixed window on the crane schedule. Others want a call the day before. Some have a material hoist your driver can use instead. Put the method in the site's access notes so every driver reads it:

• Who to contact for crane or hoist time, by name and phone.
• What day and time window is set aside, if there is one.
• Whether the units come down for service or are serviced on the floor.
• Any safety rules for the upper floors, such as harness or escort requirements.

The site contact for crane coordination may be a different person from the general super. Add both to the site, with a short note on each about who they are.

Scheduling Around the Crane

High-rise service comes due on its own like other weekly service, based on the minimum days between visits. The difference is that the dispatcher should confirm crane time before assigning the stop. Two-way texting with the site contact is a quick way to confirm: "Can we get the crane Thursday at 7am for the two high-rise units?"

Once confirmed, assign the stop to the truck and day on the Scheduled List and set the route order so the truck reaches the site in the window. If the crane is not available on arrival, the driver can Skip with a note, and the office sees why the stop did not get done and can rebook it.

Photos on Every Lift

Photos are especially useful on high-rise units. The driver can photograph the unit on its floor after service, which gives a dated record of where it was and how it was left. If a unit is moved to a different floor by the contractor's crew, the photo history makes it easier to track down.

Contractors' crews do move high-rise units as work climbs the building. Ask the super to text the office when a unit changes floors, and update the placement notes on the site right away. A driver who rides the hoist to Level 8 and finds an empty corner has lost most of an hour.

Billing High-Rise Units

High-rise units are usually priced differently from ground-level standards, because they take more time and coordination. Set your own pricing on your service list. Because they are their own unit type on the delivery, they appear as their own lines on the invoice. For contractors on monthly billing, they show on the statement under the site address with the rest of the site's units.

Rental tracking applies the same way, with the delivered date, days included and per-day rate after, and extra days are added to the invoice automatically.

Taking Them Down at the End

When the upper floors are finished, the high-rise units come down, often before the ground-level units leave the site. Schedule the removal as its own job, confirm crane time with the site contact, and record the picked-up date to close those units out.

Tall projects are a smaller share of construction work but often among the highest value. Getting them right shows a general contractor you can handle anything. To see how unit types and site notes work together, visit PortaPottyBossPro construction porta potty rental software.