Software for the yard running towable boom lifts.

A towable boom lift is the unit a yard reaches for when a crew needs height for a day and wants to tow it there themselves. It rides on a trailer behind a pickup, sets down on four outriggers, and articulates up and over a fence, a roof, or a parked car the way a self-propelled boom parked at the curb never could. That is what makes it popular with tree crews, sign and lighting services, electricians, painters, and facility maintenance — and it is also what makes it tricky to run as a fleet. The unit leaves on the customer's own hitch, comes back with trailer wear a self-propelled machine never sees, and turns over fast on short rentals. EquipFlow handles towable booms the way the yard that built it handles every unit: dispatch, billing, maintenance, and return inspection on one record.

Built inside Rental King, right now.

Rental King is a heavy-equipment rental yard in Odessa and Midland, TX. They run towable boom lifts, manlifts, forklifts, light towers, generators, compressors, and water trucks on MSA contracts through the Permian Basin — 24/7, oilfield pace. EquipFlow was designed and first deployed inside that yard. Every feature was tested against their live operation before it shipped. The product runs there today.

Towable booms are low-dollar, high-turnover units, and that is exactly where a yard bleeds money in small leaks instead of big ones. A unit out on a multi-day job earns nothing for the idle days if standby never reaches the invoice, and it loses on the next rental when trailer or outrigger damage goes out the gate uncaught. Because the customer often tows it themselves, the yard never sees the unit in transit, so the return inspection is the one moment to catch what went wrong — which means the hour reading and the photos have to land the same way every time, on the rental record. When dispatch, billing, maintenance, and inspection all read from one unit record, the counter quotes the right rate, the mechanic services against real hours, and the bookkeeper closes the month without reconstructing a stack of short tickets from memory.

Towable Boom Lift specs the rental record tracks.

Every number below is a sourced specification range. The render layer is the only path these values reach the page — they live on the unit record, not in a dispatcher's head.

Max platform height

34-55.5ft

Max working height

40-55.5ft

Horizontal outreach

18-31.5ft

Up-and-over clearance

15-22ft

Platform (lift) capacity

500lb

Gross machine weight

3155-4800lb

Max towing speed

60mph

Optional gas engine power

9hp

How EquipFlow handles towable boom lifts on the dispatch board.

A towable boom is rarely delivered the way a heavy unit is. The customer hitches it behind their own truck and tows it to the job, which is why dispatch tracks the trailer hand-off — who hooked it up, that the lights and chains were checked, and when it is due back — rather than just a delivery run. Each unit shows on the same driver-by-hour board the yard uses for everything else, on a screen that loads at any hour without an app install. The trap is the tow vehicle: a customer who shows up with a half-ton and no working trailer plug cannot legally pull the unit, so the dispatcher confirms hitch class and a working connector on the rental record before the customer leaves the gate. Because these units turn fast on short residential and light-commercial rentals, the board surfaces double-bookings at assignment, not at pickup.

Billing towable boom lifts — MSA, standby, and site-level tax.

Towable booms skew toward walk-up contractor and day-rate rentals more than long oilfield contracts, but the billing model is the same. When a customer is on a master service agreement, the negotiated rate override lives on their customer record per equipment class, so a towable-boom rental created for that account applies the right rate without the counter person hunting a rate sheet. Day and week rates ride the same record. When the unit sits on a multi-day job and the crew only works it a few hours each day, standby covers the idle days at a rate separate from active use, and the invoice carries both lines without a month-end rebuild. Delivery or pickup fees, if the yard hauls it, ride the same invoice. Tax follows the job-site record, so a unit used across more than one jurisdiction bills correctly per site. Invoices post to QuickBooks Online on close.

Maintenance on towable boom lifts.

Preventive maintenance runs off the hour meter, not the calendar, because a towable boom can sit in the back of the yard for weeks and then run hard for a solid week on a tree job. The meter reading is captured at the return inspection and posts to the unit record, and the maintenance module advances the service clock from that reading so the next interval lands on real use. The systems that fail on these units are specific: the battery pack and charger on the electric models, the hydraulic lift and articulation cylinders, the outrigger and leveling jacks, and the trailer running gear — axle, bearings, tires, and lights — which a self-propelled boom does not even have. Work orders, parts, and meter history live on the unit record, and a damage charge written up at return becomes a repair ticket on the same record.

Towable Boom Lift return inspections.

Two rhythms apply. The operator runs a pre-use check every day the unit is on rent — that is the customer's responsibility under the manufacturer manual and the aerial-platform standard, and on a towable boom it includes setting and confirming the outriggers on firm, level ground before anyone goes up. The yard's own control is the return inspection. Before the unit comes off rent, whoever takes it back runs a mobile-web checklist on a phone, with no app to install, records the hour-meter reading, and attaches required photos that cannot be skipped. The checks that matter here are towable-specific: outrigger and leveling-jack condition, the trailer tongue, hitch, and tires, the platform and basket, battery state on electric models, and any hydraulic weep. The inspection ties to the rental record before the unit is accepted back, so a damage dispute has photos and a timestamp behind it.

Common towable boom lift classes in the field.

The product, the same way it runs for towable boom lifts.

The sections below are the EquipFlow modules that matter most when running towable boom lifts — each links to the full feature detail.

Operator guides for running towable boom lifts.

Field-tested playbooks that go deeper on pricing, dispatch, billing, and maintenance for fleets like this.

• Aerial Lift Inspection Requirements →
• Boom Lift vs Scissor Lift for Renters →
• Renting Out Aerial Lifts Safely →
• Reducing Equipment Downtime in a Rental Yard →

What you give up running towable boom lifts in EquipFlow.

EquipFlow is a web app, so the return inspection needs a signal to load. A towable boom often comes back to the yard rather than being inspected in the field, which suits these units, but a yard that wants a field inspection on a dead-zone job site will be capturing the photos and hour reading later than ideal. There is no built-in telematics today, so battery state and run-hours from a manufacturer portal are not pulled automatically — the meter is read at return. And the rate logic is built around the master-agreement-and-standby model the oilfield runs on; a yard whose towable-boom business is mostly cash day-rate counter rental should bring that mix to the demo so it gets scoped honestly.