Inside a New Orleans plant there is usually no room for a crane — a roof overhead, live equipment either side, and a floor that has to carry the load the whole way. That is where heavy lift rigging takes over: hydraulic gantries, jacks and cribbing, and skid tracks that move the heaviest pieces in the building without a hook.
Quick answer: Badass Logistics provides heavy lift rigging in New Orleans, LA and the surrounding metro. We lift, jack, skid, and set heavy equipment with hydraulic gantries, jacking and cribbing, and skid systems — the methods for loads a crane can't reach, can't set up beside, or isn't allowed inside. Our crews work across New Orleans and nearby Louisiana metros, and moves between facilities run as project freight under the same plan — usually quoted the same day. Call (307) 284-1332.
A crane needs open sky, outrigger space, and ground that can take the bearing. Most heavy equipment in New Orleans sits where none of that exists — under a bay roof, in a pit, behind a column line, or in a building the load has to roll into. In New Orleans's port project cargo & energy plants, the way a heavy piece moves is usually up a few inches, along a planned path, and down onto its set point.
Badass Logistics plans those lifts from the load data out: weight and center of gravity, the lift points the builder allows, floor capacity along the route, and the headroom at every stage. We set hydraulic gantries where the piece has to go up, jack and crib it where it has to come off a truck or a foundation, and skid or roll it where it has to travel. When there is room for a crane, the crane lift and the inside move go into one plan. Jacking and skidding, explained →
The buildings decide the method in New Orleans. The stock here is a mix of century-old riverfront wharf warehouses with rail spurs and elevated dock platforms against flooding, and newer single-storey pre-engineered buildings in the eastern industrial corridor, which is why so many heavy pieces move under a gantry or on skid track rather than on a hook. The heaviest loads in the metro are grain elevator conveying equipment, coffee roasting and bagging lines, large-diameter tank and cylinder assembly tooling, and dockside gantry cranes — each one planned from its weight, lift points, and the floor under it.
New Orleans, LA runs on port project cargo & energy, and almost none of it stays put. Same crews and the same heavy lift rigging standards across the region:
The loads that need these methods are the heaviest and most awkward in the building. Typical New Orleans heavy lifts include:
That equipment serves New Orleans's bulk grain and agricultural export handling, coffee import and roasting warehousing, large-scale aerospace structure fabrication, and steel and heavy-lift break-bulk cargo handling, where a lift usually happens beside machinery that keeps running. Most of our jacking and gantry work here lands in the Michoud industrial corridor in New Orleans East, anchored by NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility, the Almonaster Avenue industrial corridor near the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, the Chalmette refining district downriver in St. Bernard Parish, and the Napoleon Avenue container terminal district along the Mississippi River.
Loads lifted and traversed under roofs and inside bays where a crane cannot set up across the New Orleans metro.
Heavy pieces raised off trailers, foundations, and pits in controlled stages across the New Orleans metro.
Loads moved along engineered skid tracks or on rollers to the set point across the New Orleans metro.
Equipment lowered onto anchors, soleplates, and foundations to the layout across the New Orleans metro.
Plenty of New Orleans jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-10, I-12, I-20 and I-49, or a facility in another state. We don't hand that part off. It runs as project freight inside the same plan: machines crated or prepped on site, loads sequenced to the rig-out, transport through our licensed broker and carrier partners with dedicated capacity for bigger moves, and our crew waiting at the destination to set it.
The heaviest pieces bound for New Orleans often arrive by rail or water before they ever reach a road. Served by BNSF, Canadian National, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and CPKC, switched through the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad. The Port of New Orleans handles bulk grain, coffee, steel and containerized cargo on the Mississippi River, including through its Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. Getting a load off a railcar or a barge and onto a trailer is jacking and cribbing work in its own right, and it goes into the same plan as the set at the far end.
Every heavy lift rigging job in New Orleans, LA is quoted from the actual work, not a rate sheet. These are the things that move the number — send them with your request and you'll get a real quote back fast:
Photos of the equipment, its nameplate, and the path out of the building save a site visit on smaller New Orleans jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same New Orleans crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of New Orleans? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout New Orleans, LA and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Heavy Lift Rigging throughout New Orleans and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| Metairie | Jefferson Parish County | 5 mi |
| Kenner | Jefferson Parish County | 10 mi |
| Gretna | Jefferson Parish County | 3 mi |
| Marrero | Jefferson Parish County | 4 mi |
| Chalmette | Saint Bernard Parish County | 7 mi |
| Harvey | Jefferson Parish County | 4 mi |
| Slidell | Saint Tammany Parish County | 28 mi |
| LaPlace, IL | Piatt County | 685 mi |
| Houma | Terrebonne Parish County | 46 mi |
| Boutte | Saint Charles Parish County | 19 mi |
| Laplace | Saint John the Baptist Parish County | 26 mi |
| Terrytown | Jefferson Parish County | 4 mi |
| Hammond | Tangipahoa Parish County | 45 mi |
| Bayou Cane | Terrebonne Parish County | 47 mi |
| Estelle | Jefferson Parish County | 8 mi |
| Thibodaux | Lafourche Parish County | 46 mi |
| Bayou Boeuf | Lafourche Parish County | 32 mi |
| Grand Bayou Mobile Home Park | Lafourche Parish County | 42 mi |
| River Ridge | Jefferson Parish County | 8 mi |
| Belle Chasse | Plaquemines Parish County | 9 mi |
| Mandeville | Saint Tammany Parish County | 28 mi |
| Luling | Saint Charles Parish County | 18 mi |
| Woodmere | Jefferson Parish County | 7 mi |
| Destrehan | Saint Charles Parish County | 17 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our New Orleans services or get a quote.
Most New Orleans jobs don't stop at one service. The crew that rigs a machine out is the crew that manages the move and sets it back down — so you're dealing with one company from the disconnect to the re-level, not three subcontractors pointing at each other.
Machine has to come off the floor, through the door, or onto a pad before it travels? That's the rigging side of the same New Orleans crew.
rigging contractors in New Orleans →Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across New Orleans as one accountable job.
industrial machinery movers in New Orleans →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in New Orleans.
machine tool movers in New Orleans →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for New Orleans plants.
New Orleans plant relocation →In New Orleans we also run riggers, machinery movers, CNC movers, and plant relocation, plus project freight for the jobs we rig — or see every service we offer in New Orleans.
The same New Orleans crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in New Orleans: chiller and HVAC rigging, transformer and generator rigging, and MRI and medical equipment rigging.
Tell us what's moving and where. We'll route the nearest crew and quote it fast.
Get a New Orleans Heavy Lift Quote