Moving heavy and large
household loads such as furniture and fridges, in or out of apartments at the
upper floors of multiple floor residential buildings is a tedious task, most
especially where there is steep and narrow staircase that makes it impossible for one to follow the
basic rules of lifting and carrying. A
portable balcony crane designed to create an alternative to that long and
stressful process, was modified in this work. The modified balcony crane is
incorporated with a rotating arm that would enable loads to be directly lifted
into or from the balcony, without moving the whole crane. The results of the
performance testing of the crane confirmed that a maximum load of 150kg can be
lifted safely, using ten 20-liter plastic buckets of water as counterweight.
The crane, which was designed and fabricated with locally available standard
materials, would help reduce manual lifting of heavy, large and unbalanced
loads in and out of apartments in multi floor residential building. This would
in turn reduce the exposure of residents to musculoskeletal diseases and
trauma. The total cost of producing one unit of the balcony
crane is Sixty-Four
thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty Naira (₦64,850:00) only),
which is more than 62% cost reduction compared to the existing balcony crane.
