Hire Crane Request crane hire

Machinery moving

Moving a machine across a factory floor, into a new building or to another site? Tell us what it is and we pass your request to firms that move plant and machinery.

  • Free to use, no obligation
  • One short form, about a minute
  • We pass your request to crane hire firms that cover your area
  • We are not a crane hire company and do not plan lifts

Request crane hire

Free, no obligation. About a minute.

What kind of crane do you need?
When do you need it?
For how long?
Contract lift or crane hire with operator?

What is the difference?

Where is the lift, and what is it?
Who should the crane hire firms contact?

Hire Crane is an introduction service. We do not hire out cranes or plan lifts, and we never sell your details to marketing lists.

What machinery moving involves

Machinery moving is getting heavy plant out of one position and into another safely: across a floor, through a building, onto a lorry, and into place at the other end.

Typical jobs are CNC machines, presses, printing presses, generators, transformers, compressors, production lines and lab or medical equipment. A whole factory relocation can involve dozens of machines, disconnection and reconnection of services, transport, and installation on new foundations.

The equipment used

  • Machine skates: low rolling platforms placed under a machine so it can be pushed or pulled across a floor that can take the load.
  • Jacks and jacking systems: to raise a machine enough to get skates under it, or to lower it into position.
  • Gantries: lifting frames, some of them hydraulic, used indoors where a crane cannot reach or will not fit.
  • Counterbalance and specialist forklifts: for loads within their capacity, on suitable floors.
  • Cranes: a mobile crane to lift machines out through a roof or over a building, or a mini crane working inside.
  • Lorry loaders: a HIAB to load and unload smaller machines at each end.
  • Low loaders: for transport between sites. Big or heavy machines may be abnormal loads.

When is a crane needed?

When the machine has to go up, over or out, rather than along.

A crane is usually part of the job when a machine has to come out through a roof or a high opening, be lifted over a building or obstruction, be loaded where a forklift cannot reach, or be set onto a mezzanine or upper floor. Where a machine can be rolled out at ground level through a wide enough door, skates and jacks may do the whole job without a crane. The firm doing the move decides the method after looking at the route.

Planning the move

Whatever the method, lifting a machine is a lifting operation. Under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER), every lifting operation has to be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely. BS 7121, the British Standard code of practice for the safe use of cranes, sets out how that is usually done. Lift plans and the appointed person explains what that means. Firms that move machinery will usually want:

  • The machine's make and model, weight, and dimensions, and where its lifting points are.
  • The route out and in: door sizes, floor loading, ramps, steps, overhead obstructions.
  • Who disconnects and reconnects power, air, water and any fluids, and who recommissions the machine.
  • Whether it is moving within a building, across a site, or to a new address.
  • Dates, and any production downtime you are working around.

Where Hire Crane fits

We are an introduction service run by Domain Farm Ltd. We do not move machinery or plan lifts. We pass your request to firms that move plant and machinery, and they contact you directly about the method and the price.

Other types of crane

Crane hire by town

All 37 towns

Questions people ask

Do I need a crane to move machinery?

Not always. Machines moved at ground level are often moved on skates with jacks or gantries. A crane is usually needed when a machine has to go up, over a building, through a roof or onto a lorry where a forklift cannot reach.

What is a machine skate?

A low rolling platform placed under a heavy machine so it can be moved across a floor. Jacks raise the machine enough to get the skates underneath.

Does moving a machine need a lift plan?

If it involves lifting, yes. Under LOLER every lifting operation must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner.

Does Hire Crane move machinery?

No. We pass your request to firms that move plant and machinery, and they contact you directly.

Need a crane?

Tell us the job once. We pass it to crane hire firms that cover your area and they contact you directly.

Request crane hire