Picker (knuckle-boom) truck
A truck-mounted crane with a boom that folds at one or more joints, like an arm. It can reach up and over obstacles — fences, roofs, parked cars — and usually carries the load on its own deck, so one truck does the delivery and the lift.
Boom truck
A truck-mounted crane with a straight, telescoping boom. It typically reaches further and higher in a straight line than a picker, which suits work like setting materials on upper floors.
Mobile crane
A self-propelled crane (all-terrain, rough-terrain and similar) built for heavier and higher lifts than a truck-mounted crane. It sets up with outriggers and is used when the load or the reach is beyond a boom truck.
The three questions that decide it
- How heavy is the load? A crane's capacity drops as the boom reaches further out, so weight only means something together with reach.
- How far does it travel? Measure from where the truck can park and set its outriggers to where the load has to land.
- How high does it go? Fences, rooflines, trees and upper floors all add height.
You don't have to choose
Send what's being lifted, a rough weight, the distance from the street and a few photos. We match the machine — our own crew in the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and Sea-to-Sky, or a vetted operator elsewhere in BC.