Crane rental in Sioux City, across the Iowa line

Iowa permits for a Sioux City crane

Sioux City runs its own permits for anything in a city street. The two that matter for a crane are the right-of-way encroachment permit and the oversize and overweight permit, and both are on the city’s Engineering permit forms page.

• Right-of-way encroachment: $15. File at least 10 days before the start date. If the work closes a lane or a street, attach a traffic control plan listing the lanes, dates and times. Applications without one are rejected.
• Oversize or overweight on city streets: $35 for a single trip, good for one move within five days, or $400 for an annual permit.

Iowa’s legal limits are 8 feet 6 inches wide, 13 feet 6 inches tall and 80,000 pounds gross. Many larger cranes exceed one of those, so the operator handles state and city permits for the move.

Photo: Ammodramus / Wikimedia

The drive and the bill

Sioux City is about 75 miles from downtown Sioux Falls in a straight line and a bit farther on I-29. On portal to portal billing a crane from the Sioux Falls side adds more than two hours, round trip, to the clock. For a half-day lift that can almost double the bill, so a crane based near Sioux City is usually the better buy.

Common Sioux City jobs

• Rooftop units downtown and along the riverfront. Older buildings with tight access, often a 26 to 45 ton boom truck.
• Industrial and food plant work. Equipment sets and steel along the river and the industrial parks, often 60 tons and up.
• Farm and acreage lifts across Woodbury County, with the same spring road questions as South Dakota.

Rough costs

Job	Machine	Rough cost
Condenser on a small building	26-ton boom truck, 4 hours	$660
Unit on a downtown roof	40 to 45-ton boom truck, 4 hours	$820
Equipment set at a plant	60-ton boom truck, 6 hours	$1,800

Figures are published rates before fuel. The price list covers crew labor, travel and the other extras.