Lift and Shift Edinburgh

Moves up to

60te

From display cabinets to autoclaves

Coverage

Edinburgh

EH postcodes

Quotes

Same day

For most enquiries

Overview

Lift and shift in Edinburgh and across the Lothians

We provide lift and shift in Edinburgh for the business parks, firms around Leith, energy work across the Forth, hospital and university estates, and listed buildings in the centre. It covers heavy or awkward items where a crane cannot reach or cannot do the final placing: transformers and switchgear into switchrooms, chillers, boilers, air handling units and generators in and out of plant rooms and basements, machinery repositioned inside a unit, tanks and process skids, and delicate items such as display cabinets and laboratory equipment.

We work across Edinburgh, Leith, Sighthill, South Gyle, Musselburgh, Dalkeith and Livingston, and out into Fife, West Lothian and the Borders. We can price most jobs the same working day from a desktop survey.

What lift and shift covers

Lift and shift is the part of a heavy move that happens off the crane hook: raising, lowering, turning or travelling an item along a route and putting it down on its base, using gantries, skates, rollers and jacks. Where a crane outside sets the load at the entrance, our crew carries on from there.

What we do

What we lift and shift in Edinburgh

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Transformers and switchgear	Switchrooms in office blocks and substations	Toe jacks under the frame, skated through the door and lowered onto the plinth
Boilers and chillers	Basement plant rooms under hotels and New Town offices	Down the area steps or a lightwell on a gantry, then rolled to the base
Generators and UPS	Data rooms and ground-floor plant rooms on the business parks	Off the lorry at the loading bay and skated in over boarded floors
Machinery and presses	Manufacturing units around Livingston	Jacked, turned on skates and set in a new bay of the same building
Laboratory and medical equipment	Teaching, clinical and life science buildings	Low-headroom gantry, then padded skates between rooms
Display cabinets and heavy fittings	Shops and galleries in the New Town	Padded rollers and hand skates, with walls and floors covered

Tell us what the item weighs and where it has to end up. Read more on our lift and shift service page.

Get a quote

Tell us what needs moving

Send us the details and we will come back with a quote, usually the same day for a desktop survey.

Or call 0131 608 0165

Sectors

Where we work in and around Edinburgh

Our Edinburgh lift and shift work is spread across six kinds of building.

Listed buildings in the Old and New Towns

Central offices, hotels and shops keep their plant in basements and on tenement roofs, and some have no vehicle access at all. Units travel on skates along corridors, with stonework and finishes protected.

Business parks on the west side

Edinburgh Park, South Gyle and Sighthill see switchgear changed in planned shutdowns and UPS brought into comms rooms. See our HVAC and industrial sector pages.

Leith and the Waterfront

Workshops around the port reposition heavy kit inside their sheds, and new Waterfront buildings take plant into their basements during fit-out. See our maritime sector page.

Clinical, teaching and research estates

Edinburgh has a large hospital, university and life science estate. Its chillers sit in rooftop and basement plant rooms, reached along busy corridors. See our healthcare and pharma and education pages.

Energy work in Fife

Across the Forth, renewable energy manufacturing sheds need transformers and switchgear set in new electrical rooms. See our power and renewables page.

New schemes and fit-outs

New commercial and residential buildings need switchgear and generators set on their bases once they are weathertight. See our construction sector page.

Planning

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Edinburgh

Points we check on most Edinburgh jobs:

Buildings off closes and pedestrian streets. In the Old Town a lorry sometimes gets no nearer than the end of a close. We measure the distance, slope and surface from there to the door and plan the skates to suit.
What sits beneath the route. We check the slab along the route, including any cellar under an older ground floor, and lay mats or steel tracks where needed.
Clearance and turning space. We measure headroom with the item on the equipment, then every door, landing and corner on the way.
Buildings that stay open. Offices, campuses and clinical buildings keep going while we work, so hours and barriers are agreed with whoever runs the building.
Unloading on the tram route. Near the tram lines, the lorry position and clearance from the overhead lines are agreed in advance. For a road or pavement closure we can arrange the traffic management with the City of Edinburgh Council.

Routes

Getting it where it needs to go

A job can run into a building, out of one, or both on one visit. Some never go inside: a transformer moved across a yard at Leith onto a new plinth, or an air handling unit skated along an office roof.

Edinburgh buildings put plenty in the way: turnpike stairs in tenements, New Town basements down area steps, small goods lifts, mezzanines and raised floors. Gantries and jacks deal with level changes while rollers and skates cover the distance, with a crane where a roof or lightwell allows. When nothing fits, a frame is stripped back and made good, or the item goes through in sections.

Coverage

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every EH postcode and the Lothian districts around the city:

Edinburgh: Old Town, New Town, Stockbridge, Leith, Granton, Newhaven, Portobello, Marchmont, Newington and Morningside
West and south: Corstorphine, Sighthill, South Gyle, Fairmilehead, Gilmerton and Liberton
The Lothians: Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Tranent, Penicuik, Kirkliston and Livingston
Wider area: Bathgate, Falkirk, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, Haddington and Galashiels

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Synergy

Why Edinburgh firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

Regular work on the western business parks. Plant changes at Edinburgh Park, South Gyle and Sighthill are steady work for us.
The street lift and the move inside on one booking. Where a crane sets the unit down at the entrance, the same crew takes it on under a single method statement.
Replacement plant swapped in a single visit. The old unit leaves by the route the new one arrives on, keeping the plant room down for as short a time as possible.
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.

Services

More than lift and shift

An Edinburgh lift and shift can lead into other work, and we also offer:

Process

How a lift and shift works

Send the weight and dimensions of the item, where it is now and where it is going, with photos of the route.
We price from a desktop survey, usually the same working day, and visit first if the route is tight or the floors are unknown.
We draw up the method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, and check the floor loading.
Our team lifts, moves and positions the item.
It is set down on its base, levelled and handed over.

FAQs

Common questions

Can switchgear go into a new Waterfront building before handover?

Yes. Once it is weathertight, we skate the panels in through the loading door and set them on the plinth.

Can you get plant into a building off an Old Town close?

Yes, where the close is wide enough for the item on skates. We measure it and the entrance, then bring the unit in from the nearest point a lorry can stand, in sections if it will not pass whole.

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.