Lift and Shift York

Lift and shift in York and across North Yorkshire

We provide lift and shift in York for universities, hospitals, food producers, rail engineering and firms on the industrial estates. That means moving, lifting, lowering, turning and positioning heavy items where a crane cannot reach or cannot do the final placing: switchgear into a switchroom, a chiller out of a basement, a generator into an energy centre, a machine repositioned inside a factory, or a laboratory cabinet taken between rooms.

We work across York, Acomb, Heworth, Fulford, Haxby and Huntington, and further out in Selby, Tadcaster, Malton, Thirsk and Harrogate. With a few photos we can price it the same working day.

What lift and shift covers

Lift and shift gets a heavy item from the lorry or its old position onto its new base without a crane hook doing the placing. Our crews use gantries, skates, rollers, jacks and toe jacks. On bigger jobs a crane outside sets the item at a door or a hatch, and we carry it the rest of the way.

What we lift and shift in York

Item	Where it usually is	How it moves
Transformers and switchgear	Switchrooms in commercial and campus buildings	Jacked up, skated in on a track and lowered onto the plinth
Chillers, boilers and air handling units	Plant rooms in city-centre offices and hotels	Lowered through a hatch on a gantry, with skates for the final run
Standby generators and UPS	Energy centres on hospital and university estates	Rolled in off the lorry and levelled on its mounts
Presses and machine tools	Workshops and small factories on the edge of the city	Raised on toe jacks and turned into a new bay on skates
Laboratory and medical equipment	Teaching labs and hospital departments	Compact gantry, then padded skates to its bench
Display cabinets and heavy fittings	Shops and museums in older buildings	Hand rollers, with floors and walls covered first

Give us the weight, the footprint and both positions. 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 York

Our York work comes from six kinds of building.

Older buildings inside the walls

Shops and museums around Micklegate and Fossgate occupy old buildings with cellars and steep stairs. Boilers and display cases go in with boards over anything historic. See our HVAC sector page.

Clifton Moor, Monks Cross and Layerthorpe

More of our York work comes from these estates by the ring road than anywhere else. Trade units replace rooftop plant, and manufacturers move a press across the floor to clear space for new equipment. See our industrial sector page.

Universities and schools

Laboratory fit-outs and plant room upgrades are done in the holidays, when corridors and lifts are free. See our education sector page.

Hospitals and clinics

Medical equipment and plant room kit move while wards stay open, on routes agreed with the estates team. See our healthcare and pharma page.

Rail buildings on the East Coast Main Line

Signalling equipment rooms and lineside substations get new switchgear inside a booked possession, with fixed start and finish times. See our rail sector page.

Food and drink sites across North Yorkshire

Processing halls move tanks and process skids during short production stops, working to the site’s hygiene rules. See our food and beverages page.

Access and planning for a lift and shift in York

Points we check on most York jobs:

Getting the lorry near. The bars through the city walls limit height and width, and several central streets are pedestrian for much of the day. Inside the walls we work out which vehicle can reach the door and when it can unload.
Old floors and cellars. Older buildings in the centre can have timber floors or cellars. Before a skate crosses them we check what is underneath, and lay mats or steel tracks where the figures call for it.
Headroom along the way. We measure clearance with the item on the equipment, then every doorway, beam, stair and turn to the base.
People still in the building. Hospitals and campus buildings stay open, so we fence off the route in stages at agreed times.
Space on the street. If the lorry must stand on a road or pavement, we can arrange the traffic management and road closure with City of York Council.

Getting it where it needs to go

Some York jobs bring new plant in and others take old plant out, while plenty do both in one visit. The rest stay outside: a transformer skated across a yard to its plinth, a tank moved between buildings, a generator set on a new pad, or a unit craned onto a roof and walked to its base.

In the centre we meet cellar stairs, basements, doors in old frames and small goods lifts. The estates bring mezzanines, ramps, narrow loading doors and raised floors. Gantries and jacks deal with level changes and skates cover the long runs, with a crane where the item comes in from above. When nothing fits, we strip back a door frame and make it good, or take the item through in sections.

Postcodes and areas we cover

We cover every YO postcode and the districts around the city:

York: city centre, Holgate, Acomb, Heworth, Layerthorpe, Fulford and Osbaldwick
North of the city: Clifton Moor, Monks Cross, Huntington, Haxby, Wigginton and Strensall
Villages around the edge: Bishopthorpe, Copmanthorpe, Poppleton, Dunnington and Elvington
Wider area: Selby, Tadcaster, Wetherby, Easingwold, Malton, Thirsk and Harrogate

We also lift and shift right across the UK.

Why York firms choose Synergy Lifting for lift and shift

Crane outside, crew inside, one contract. We plan the crane lift and the move inside together and run both ourselves.
Compact kit. Low-headroom gantries and toe jacks fit plant rooms reached by one stair or a single door.
Used to live campuses and hospitals. York’s universities and hospitals stay open while we work around them.
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 York job can be part of a larger project, so we also offer:

How a lift and shift works

Send the item’s weight and dimensions, where it sits and where it must end up, with photos of the route.
You get a price from a desktop survey the same working day. If the route is tight or the floors are unknown, we visit first.
We draw up the method statement, risk assessment and lift plan, and check the floor loading along the route.
Our crew lifts the item, moves it along the route and places it.
It is lowered onto its base, levelled and handed over.

Common questions

Can you get plant into a listed building in the centre without damaging it?

Yes. We check the doorways and floors at survey, agree protection for historic surfaces with you, and use compact gantries that need no fixings into the structure. If an item cannot pass a historic door, it goes in as sections.

Can you swap a chiller on a university or hospital site while the building is in use?

Yes. The old unit comes out and the new one goes in during one visit, on a route and at times agreed with the estates team. Give us the dates the plant can be off.

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 York

Phone: 01904 282 400
Email: york@synergy-lifting.co.uk

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

We also provide lift and shift in Leeds, Doncaster, Hull and Middlesbrough. See all the lift and shift locations.