Site Preparation and Crane Setup
Ground, foundation, and base
A tower crane delivers every load into a small footprint, so setup begins below grade. The foundation - ballasted mat, pile cap, or rail-mounted base - must be designed for the crane by a qualified person or engineer and must suit actual soil bearing capacity. Verify that no excavations, utility trenches, vaults, or un-compacted fill lie within the load spread; a crane base can settle or punch through voids. Subgrade must be drained so water does not soften the bearing soil. The base must be level within the manufacturer's tolerance and the anchor bolts or ballast installed exactly as specified - ballast count and position are part of the load chart configuration, not a field judgment call.
Clearances and the surrounding site
Lay out the swing radius, counterjib tail swing, and the full jib sweep on the ground and control access to it. Check overhead power lines against the minimum approach distances (10 ft for lines up to 50 kV, 15 ft for 50–200 kV), and check adjacent cranes for overlapping arcs; anti-collision and zoning systems must be configured before operation. Also confirm hook height versus neighboring structures and the crane's own free-standing limits.
Traps in questions
Watch for: assuming good-looking soil is adequate; treating ballast blocks as interchangeable; confusing jib length with working radius; and forgetting that level tolerance is a manufacturer number, not a guess.
Worked example
If the manual allows 1/1000 out-of-level and the base is 8 m across, the maximum corner-to-corner elevation difference is 8,000 mm ÷ 1,000 = 8 mm. Exceeding 8 mm puts the mast out of plumb and invalidates the chart.