Lift and Shift Sheffield

Lift and shift in Sheffield and across South Yorkshire

We provide lift and shift in Sheffield for engineering works, food producers, hospitals, laboratories and the distribution units along the M1. The work covers heavy or awkward items that a crane cannot reach or cannot place: transformers and switchgear into switchrooms, chillers, boilers, air handling units and generators in and out of plant rooms and basements, machinery repositioned inside a works, tanks and process skids, and delicate items such as display cabinets and laboratory equipment. In a city this hilly, the street where the lorry stands is rarely level.

We cover Sheffield, Attercliffe, Hillsborough, Chapeltown and Mosborough, and out to Rotherham, Barnsley and Chesterfield. Most jobs can be priced the same working day from a desktop survey and a few photos.

What lift and shift covers

It means raising, lowering, turning or moving a heavy item to its final position where no crane hook can do the work, using gantries, skates, rollers, jacks and toe jacks. On many jobs a crane sets the item down outside and our crew takes it from there to its base.

What we lift and shift in Sheffield

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Transformers and switchgear	Switchrooms in works and commercial buildings	Jacked onto skates and run through the door onto the plinth
Chillers, boilers and air handling units	Rooftop and basement plant rooms in the city centre	Craned up or lowered to the door, then skated to the base
Standby generators and UPS	Energy centres and data rooms across the city	Rolled in from the loading door and levelled on mounts
Machine tools and presses	Engineering works in the east end and around Darnall	Toe jacks and skates to a new bay in the same shop
Process tanks and skids	Mixing and filling rooms in food factories	Skated over protected floors inside the hygiene area
Display cabinets and delicate instruments	Shops, galleries and teaching buildings	Hand rollers and padded skates, moved at walking pace

Send us the weight, size and both positions, and we will set out the method. Our lift and shift service page explains the process in more detail.

Get In Touch

Please leave a few details and a member of our lift and shift team will be in touch to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Where we work in and around Sheffield

Our Sheffield work comes from six kinds of building.

Works along the Don Valley

Between the city centre and Tinsley, steel, forging and precision engineering firms still fill the older works. Machines get shuffled along the shop floor under low roofs to make room for new plant. See our industrial and plastics and metals sector pages.

Hospital, laboratory and university buildings

Across Sheffield’s large healthcare and research estate, our work is mostly chiller and air handling unit replacement, plant room equipment and laboratory kit moved through buildings that stay open, on routes agreed with the estates team. See our healthcare and pharma and education pages.

City-centre blocks

New student and commercial buildings in the centre need plant units taken up to the roof or down to a basement plant room, with a single way in. See our construction sector page.

Food and drink production

Across South Yorkshire, food and drink plants move tanks, mixers and process skids during short shutdowns. We work to the site’s hygiene rules. See our food and beverages page.

Units along the M1

In the distribution and trade units between junctions 31 and 36, kit on mezzanine floors is lowered or repositioned when a tenant changes. See our HVAC sector page.

Switchrooms and substations

Transformer and generator changes run to fixed outage windows, with the new unit staged close by to go onto the plinth as soon as the old one is out. See our power and renewables page.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Sheffield

Points we check on most Sheffield jobs:

Hills at the delivery point. Many streets and yards fall away steeply, so the lorry may be on a slope while the item comes off. We plan the unload and any restraint before the day.
What sits under the route. Older Don Valley works can have pits, ducts and cellars beneath the shop floor. We check what the slab spans and lay mats or plates where needed.
Headroom and the way in. Clearance is measured with the item on the equipment, along with every door and turn on the way.
Buildings in use. Hospitals, laboratories and offices keep working around us. Moves are timed to suit whoever runs the building.
Tram lines and road space. Where the lorry has to stand on the road or close to the tram overhead lines, we arrange the traffic management or road closure with Sheffield City Council.

Getting it where it needs to go

Some Sheffield jobs bring new plant in, some take old plant out, and plenty do both in one visit. Others stay outdoors: a transformer across a works yard to its plinth, a tank between two buildings, or a unit craned onto a roof and skated to its frame.

Older works bring pits, level changes and doorways sized for smaller plant. City-centre blocks have basement stairs and goods lifts too small for the load, and hospitals have ramps and raised floors. Gantries, jacks, rollers and skates get past most of these, with a crane where it helps. When nothing fits, a door frame is stripped back and made good, or the item goes through in sections.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every Sheffield S postcode and the districts around the city:

Sheffield: city centre, Attercliffe, Darnall, Brightside, Tinsley, Hillsborough, Walkley, Nether Edge, Sharrow and Heeley
South and east: Gleadless, Handsworth, Woodhouse, Mosborough, Halfway, Dore and Totley
North: Chapeltown, Ecclesfield, Oughtibridge and Stocksbridge
Wider area: Rotherham, Maltby, Wath-upon-Dearne, Barnsley, Eckington and Chesterfield

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Sheffield firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

At ease in buildings that stay open. Sheffield’s hospital and laboratory buildings carry on around us while we work.
One contract for the crane and the shift. When a crane lands the item at the door, our own crew takes it on under the same plan and paperwork.
Planned to your outage. Transformer and switchgear swaps are sequenced so the supply comes back on at the time agreed.
Qualified and accredited. CPCS and NPORS operators, lifts planned to BS 7121, equipment inspected under LOLER and PUWER, SSIP approved, Constructionline Gold Member, certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and members of the Construction Plant-hire Association.

More than lift and shift

A lift and shift in Sheffield can come with other work, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Give us the weight and dimensions, the current and final positions, and photos of the route between them.
We price from a desktop survey, normally the same working day, and visit first for tight routes or unknown floors.
We draw up the method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, and check the floor loading.
Our crew lifts, moves and positions the item.
It is set down, levelled and handed over ready for connection.

Common questions

Can you take plant down to a basement in a city-centre block?

Yes. We look at where the lorry can stand and the way into the basement, then decide whether the unit goes down whole on a gantry or in sections. Photos of the street and basement are enough to start.

Can you change a transformer in an older works during a shutdown?

Yes. We bring the new unit to the switchroom before the outage, take the old one out on skates once it is isolated and set the replacement on its plinth ready for your electricians.

How much headroom do you need?

Less than most people expect, but it decides the method. What counts is the gap between the top of the item and the lowest obstruction on the route once the item is on the equipment. Where it is tight we use a low-headroom gantry or jacks and lift in smaller steps.

Will you damage our floor?

Not if the route is prepared, and that preparation is part of the price. We spread the load with mats or tracks where the slab needs it, protect finished surfaces, and agree beforehand what gets covered and what gets made good.

Get a quote for lift and shift in Sheffield

Phone: 0114 352 0269
Email: sheffield@synergy-lifting.co.uk

Send us the weight, the dimensions and photos of the route, and we will come back with a price.

We also provide lift and shift in Chesterfield, Doncaster, Stockport and Leeds. See all the lift and shift locations.