Newmarket townhouse case study — the crane-share variation that wasn't anyone's scope
Updated: Jul 9
A Newmarket tight-site townhouse quote priced the crane lifts but not the crane time. The 'crane-share' between three trades wasn't named in any of their scopes — and the head contractor inherited the variation. Catching it at tender saved $25-45k and 2-4 weeks of programme stacking.
By Steve Parker · Trueworks · NZ construction estimation · 5 min
Three trades each priced their lifts. None priced the time between their lifts. The hours between lifts — the standing crane time, the crane operator, the rigger waiting — landed on whoever was holding the bag. That was the head contractor.
By Steve Parker · Trueworks · NZ construction estimation · 5 min
What you'll learn in this case study
The site-logistics scope gap that appears whenever a crane is shared between trades
The NZS 3910 §10.2 site obligations clause that determines ownership of the shared cost
The dollar and programme effect of catching the crane-share allocation at tender versus catching it at first lift day
Quick answer: A Newmarket townhouse build had three trades requiring a crane: structural steel, precast panels, and the roof truss installer. Each quote priced its own lifts in hours and tonnes. None priced the standing time between trades, the demobilisation and remobilisation costs of swapping operators between scopes, or the rigger time on overlap days. NZS 3910 §10.2 makes site coordination obligations the head contractor's by default unless explicitly transferred — and any standing-time delay caused by a sub-trade's overrun lands as a NZS 3910 §10.3 extension-of-time claim from the head contractor against that sub-trade. Catching the crane-share gap at tender saved $25-45k of inherited variation and 2-4 weeks of programme stacking, and pulled the NZS 3910 §14.4 valuation path off the table before any variation was ever raised.
The build
A tight-site townhouse development in Newmarket — six units across a narrow site bounded by a public street on one side, a shared driveway on a second, and two-storey neighbours on the other two. Build value in the $3.5-4.5M range. Crane access was the single tightest logistics constraint on the site. The crane footprint had to be re-set three times across the build to reach different elevations, and three trades needed the crane: steel erector (4-6 lift days), precast panel installer (3-5 lift days), and roof truss subbie (2-3 lift days). The head contractor sent the three trade quotes across at tender stage.
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What we found in the quote
Each trade quote was internally tidy. The steel erector quoted "supply and erect with mobile crane, 4-6 days on site, all rigging and lifting gear included." The precast panel installer quoted "panel installation with crane to suit, allow 3-5 working days, lift schedule attached." The roof truss subbie quoted "supply and install per architect's schedule, lift days as required."
Read in isolation, each was fine. Read together, the gap appeared.
None of the three trades had named who supplies the crane. Two of them implied it would be on their hire ticket. The third was silent. The lift days were quoted in days, not in continuous hours, which meant a 4-day lift day for one trade could include a 90-minute pause while the next trade's gear was rigged up — and that 90-minute pause was being priced by neither.
The bigger gap was the stacking risk. The crane footprint had to be reset between lifts on the front elevation and the rear elevation. Each reset took 4-6 hours including counterweight relocation, ground-bearing verification, and re-permitting if a footpath closure was needed. Three trades meant up to three resets if the lifts weren't programmed efficiently. Each reset was a billable event for whichever trade was on the crane at the time. None of them had budgeted for being the trade on the crane during a reset that wasn't theirs.
And underneath all of that was the truly nasty one: what happens if Trade A's lift day overruns into Trade B's booked window. Trade B has scheduled a delivery for a fixed time, has a crane operator on the hire ticket, and has a rigger on standby. If Trade A holds the crane, Trade B is paying for standing time that nobody priced. On a Newmarket tight-site townhouse with three crane-dependent trades, the overrun probability across a 12-week structural phase is high.
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How the code resolves it
NZS 3910 §10.2 covers the contractor's site obligations — specifically the obligation to coordinate the work of subcontractors and provide site facilities to enable the contract works. Under §10.2 the head contractor is responsible for site logistics coordination by default. That includes:
Provision and management of shared site infrastructure (crane, hoist, scaffold, site shed, water, power)
Coordination of subcontractor lift days, deliveries, and access windows
Allocation of costs for shared resources where multiple trades benefit
Recovery of costs from individual subcontractors only where their scope explicitly accepts the cost
The §10.2 default — head contractor owns coordination unless transferred — has two implications. First, if the crane isn't on any subcontractor's scope, it's on the head contractor's preliminaries. Second, even if the crane is on a subcontractor's scope, the coordination time between that subcontractor's lifts and other trades' lifts is the head contractor's unless explicitly transferred.
The pattern we see in tender quotes: each trade prices its own crane time. None prices coordination time. The head contractor's preliminaries don't include crane time because the crane was understood to be "on the trades." The gap is real money — typically 15-25% of the gross crane hire cost across a tight-site build with three crane-dependent trades.
What it would have cost if caught later
| Stage caught | Cost range | Why | |---|---|---| | At tender (paper review) | $0-1,000 (clarification fee) | Crane ownership and coordination named in head contractor's preliminaries with a single hire-and-coordination scope; sub-trade lift schedules locked in writing | | At pre-start (post-award) | $5,000-12,000 | Variation order to head contractor's preliminaries to cover crane coordination; some loss of leverage with sub-trades to re-negotiate their existing lift quotes | | Mid-build (first lift day) | $15,000-30,000 | Crane standing time on overruns charged against head contractor; rigger costs accumulating; programme stacking risk visible but not yet costed | | Through structural phase (12 weeks) | $25,000-45,000 | Full standing-time variation booked against head contractor's preliminaries; 2-4 weeks of programme delay if trades end up sequenced rather than overlapped; potential damages claim from one subbie against another for missed delivery windows |
The headline crane cost across the three trades was around $40-55k of in-quote pricing. The unpriced coordination cost was a further 50-90% of that — $25-45k — and it was sitting in nobody's scope. Caught at tender, it cost a clarification.
The clarification we recommended
The clarification packet to the head contractor named the crane-share scope gap, cited NZS 3910 §10.2, and recommended a single resolution: appoint one party — head contractor or one named sub-trade — as the crane principal for the structural phase. The crane principal owns: hire of the crane, hire of the operator, rigger on standby on all lift days, programming of lift days across trades, recovery of resetting costs, and recovery of standing time from any trade that overruns its booked window.
The sub-trade quotes were then re-issued on a "crane-included" basis (where the trade includes its allocated lift hours in its quote) or a "crane-by-others" basis (where the trade prices the labour only and the head contractor or the crane principal supplies the crane). Either is workable; the discipline is that one of them is chosen and applied consistently.
The Newmarket head contractor went with crane-by-others: the head contractor's preliminaries included full crane hire and coordination for the structural phase, and the three sub-trades re-quoted on labour-only lift days. The total cost was slightly higher on paper — about $8-12k more than the original three trade quotes combined — but the standing-time risk transferred from "unpriced" to "priced and owned." Across the build the actual crane standing time came in at about 18% of total crane hours. Without the coordination clause that 18% would have been a variation cascade.
What other Newmarket townhouse builds should check
Tight-site townhouses with three or more crane-dependent trades will always generate coordination cost — the question is whether it's priced or unpriced
NZS 3910 §10.2 puts coordination on the head contractor by default; sub-trade quotes that say "crane to suit" without naming who owns the crane leave the cost on the head contractor's preliminaries
Each crane-dependent trade quote should name lift hours, not lift days — and should state explicitly whether standing time, reset time, and rigger time are included or excluded
The crane principal model (one party owns the crane for the whole structural phase) is cheaper and cleaner than three sub-trades each owning their own crane time
A footpath or public-road closure for crane setup is a separate permit and cost from Auckland Council — it should be named on the head contractor's preliminaries, not on a sub-trade's scope
FAQ — site logistics on Newmarket townhouse builds
Q1: Why is the crane-share gap so common on tight-site townhouses specifically? Because tight sites force shared infrastructure (one crane footprint, one delivery window, one site access route) across multiple trades that would otherwise each bring their own. Suburban sites have room for trade-by-trade independence; tight sites force coordination — and coordination has a cost that doesn't appear on any single trade's quote.
Q2: Can a sub-trade refuse to be the crane principal? Yes — and most will, because the coordination risk is real and the sub-trade's PI insurance typically doesn't cover delays caused by other trades. The crane principal role usually sits with the head contractor or with the largest single crane user (often the steel erector on a structural-steel-heavy build).
Q3: What's a realistic crane standing time percentage on a tight-site townhouse? Typically 12-25% of gross crane hours on a build with three crane-dependent trades, depending on how disciplined the programming is. The lower end of the band requires the crane principal to programme lift days in continuous blocks per trade with minimum resets.
Q4: How does the crane-share clause interact with Auckland Council footpath permits? The footpath permit is issued to the named permit holder, typically the head contractor. The cost of the permit, the daily occupation fee, and any extensions if lift days run long sit on the permit holder. If the head contractor is the crane principal those costs flow through naturally; if a sub-trade is the crane principal the cross-charging needs to be named in the subcontract.
Q5: What happens if the crane principal's hire runs out mid-build? The crane principal owns re-hire negotiations. If a new hire term costs more (often the case on a re-hire mid-project), the principal absorbs the difference unless the increase is a §14 variation (latent condition, principal's instruction, etc.). Pre-pricing the full structural phase as one hire term avoids this.
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Trueworks is built by Steve Parker — 20 years on the analytical side of NZ construction. Variation reviews, contract advisory, programme review, and AI-augmented document workflows. Trueworks is the productisation of that practice for builders: same defensible analysis, at a price and pace a NZ builder can actually use.
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