Lift and Shift Leeds

Lift and shift in Leeds and across West Yorkshire

We provide lift and shift in Leeds for offices, hospitals, universities, food producers and engineering firms across the city and West Yorkshire. That means moving heavy plant where a crane cannot get to it: a transformer into a switchroom, air handling units up to a plant room, a generator into a basement, machinery repositioned on a factory floor, or laboratory equipment moved between rooms.

We work across Leeds, Morley, Pudsey, Horsforth, Garforth, Wetherby and Otley, and out to Wakefield, Bradford and Huddersfield. Send us the details and photos and we can normally price it the same working day.

What lift and shift covers

Lift and shift covers any heavy item that has to be raised, lowered, turned or moved along a route and set down on a base without a crane hook doing the work. We use gantries, skates, jacks and rollers. Where a crane brings the item to the building, we take over at the door.

What we lift and shift in Leeds

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Air handling units, chillers and boilers	Roof and basement plant rooms in city-centre offices	Craned to the roof or lowered through a hatch, then skated to the base
Transformers and switchgear	Switchrooms in commercial buildings and substations	Jacked onto skates and run through the door onto the plinth
Medical and laboratory equipment	Hospital, research and university buildings	Low-headroom gantry and skates, set down where it is needed
Machine tools and fabrication plant	Older works south of the river	Toe jacks and skates to a new position in the same building
Process tanks and packing machines	Food and drink plants across West Yorkshire	Moved on skates with floor protection, inside a hygiene area
Generators and UPS	Basements, data rooms and energy centres	Rolled in from the loading bay and levelled on anti-vibration mounts

Give us the weight, the size and both positions and we will tell you what it takes. 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 Leeds

Most of our lift and shift work in Leeds falls into a handful of sectors.

City-centre offices and hotels

Tall commercial buildings in the centre replace rooftop and basement plant on a cycle. The unit usually comes off a lorry on the street and travels through the building on skates to a plant room with one way in. See our HVAC sector page.

Holbeck, Hunslet and Cross Green

The busiest part of our Leeds work is in the industrial areas south and east of the centre. Here the lift and shift is machinery moved inside older buildings with tight yards, to fit a new line or free up space. See our industrial sector page.

Hospitals and laboratories

Leeds has a large hospital and research estate. Medical and lab equipment and plant room kit are moved with staff and patients still in the building, on routes agreed with the estates team. See our healthcare and pharma page.

Universities

University buildings bring lab fit-outs and plant upgrades, mostly in the summer when teaching stops. Some older departments have plant rooms reached only by a stair or a small lift. See our education sector page.

Food and drink production

West Yorkshire’s food and drink plants move tanks, mixers and packing machines during short shutdowns, with the floor protected and the work done to the site’s hygiene rules. See our food and beverages page.

Switchrooms and substations

Transformer and switchgear changes across the city are tied to planned outages, and the new equipment often goes in beside the old before the changeover. See our power and renewables page.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in Leeds

Points we check on most Leeds jobs:

Unloading in the centre. Unloading in the pedestrianised core is restricted to set hours, so the move inside is planned to start as the lorry arrives.
Old floors. Many buildings south of the river have older slabs and cellars under the pavement. We check what the floor will carry along the whole route and spread the load where it needs it.
Headroom and doorways. We measure clearance with the item on the equipment, and every door, corner and threshold on the way.
Buildings in use. Hospitals, offices and campuses stay open while we work, so the route is closed only while we are on it.
Road space. If the lorry needs part of a road or pavement, we can arrange the traffic management and road closure with Leeds City Council.

Getting it where it needs to go

In Leeds we see new plant going in, old plant coming out, and swaps where both happen in one visit. Converted mills bring stairs and goods lifts too small for the item, units south of the river bring mezzanines, and older city-centre buildings bring level changes and tight corners.

Not every job goes indoors. Some are a unit craned to a roof and skated along it, or a transformer moved across a yard to a new plinth. Jacks, gantries, rollers and skates handle most routes, and a frame stripped back for a day solves many of the rest.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every LS postcode and the West Yorkshire districts around it:

Leeds: city centre, Holbeck, Hunslet, Armley, Wortley, Burley, Headingley and Harehills
North and west: Bramley, Pudsey, Farsley, Horsforth, Yeadon, Guiseley and Otley
South and east: Morley, Rothwell, Cross Green, Seacroft, Garforth and Wetherby
Wider area: Wakefield, Bradford, Huddersfield and Harrogate

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why Leeds firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

We measure the route first. We survey doors, corners, floors and headroom before we price.
One firm for the crane and the shift. The lift outside and the move inside are planned as one job, under one method statement.
Dates agreed when we quote. We agree the hours and the order of the move with you when we quote.
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

Lift and shift in Leeds often comes with other work, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Tell us the weight and dimensions, the start and end positions, and send photos of the route.
We price it from a desktop survey, normally the same working day, and visit first if the route or floor is uncertain.
Method statement, risk assessment and lift plan are prepared and the floor loading confirmed.
The crew rigs, lifts, moves and positions the item.
It goes down on its base, is levelled and handed over ready to connect.

Common questions

Can you replace plant on the roof of a city-centre office?

Yes. A crane lifts the new unit from the street, often on a Sunday, and we skate it across the roof to the base while the old unit comes down the same way. We arrange the road space as part of the job.

Can you get a boiler into the basement of an older Leeds building?

Yes. We check the stairs, any pavement hatch, the goods lift and the floor over the cellar, then decide whether it goes in whole or in sections. Photos of the way in are enough for a first answer.

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 Leeds

Phone: 0113 734 1504
Email: leeds@synergy-lifting.co.uk

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

We also provide lift and shift in York, Doncaster, Sheffield and Manchester. See all the lift and shift locations.