Inside a Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia, PA 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 Philadelphia and nearby Pennsylvania 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 Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia's port, refinery & manufacturing 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 Philadelphia. The stock here is older multi-storey brick industrial buildings along the Kensington and Port Richmond riverfront with tight column spacing and small freight elevators, alongside newer single-storey buildings at the Navy Yard, 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 pharmaceutical process and packaging equipment, food processing lines, marine fabrication equipment, and CNC machining centers — each one planned from its weight, lift points, and the floor under it.
Philadelphia, PA runs on port, refinery & manufacturing, 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 Philadelphia heavy lifts include:
That equipment serves Philadelphia's pharmaceutical manufacturing, food processing, shipbuilding and marine fabrication, and chemical processing, where a lift usually happens beside machinery that keeps running. Most of our jacking and gantry work here lands in the Philadelphia Navy Yard redevelopment south of the city, the Tacony-Bridesburg-Kensington riverfront industrial belt, and PhilaPort's Southport terminal district.
Loads lifted and traversed under roofs and inside bays where a crane cannot set up across the Philadelphia metro.
Heavy pieces raised off trailers, foundations, and pits in controlled stages across the Philadelphia metro.
Loads moved along engineered skid tracks or on rollers to the set point across the Philadelphia metro.
Equipment lowered onto anchors, soleplates, and foundations to the layout across the Philadelphia metro.
Plenty of Philadelphia jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-76, I-80, I-81 and I-95, 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 Philadelphia often arrive by rail or water before they ever reach a road. Served by CSX and Norfolk Southern, with a CSX intermodal yard and Norfolk Southern trackage both adjoining PhilaPort's Delaware River terminals. PhilaPort on the Delaware River handles containerized, breakbulk and auto import-export cargo. 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 Philadelphia, PA 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 Philadelphia jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same Philadelphia crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of Philadelphia? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout Philadelphia, PA and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Heavy Lift Rigging throughout Philadelphia and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| Camden, NJ | Camden County | 3 mi |
| Chester | Delaware County | 13 mi |
| Norristown | Montgomery County | 15 mi |
| King of Prussia | Montgomery County | 16 mi |
| Bensalem | Bucks County | 15 mi |
| Levittown | Bucks County | 23 mi |
| Trenton, NJ | Mercer County | 29 mi |
| Conshohocken | Montgomery County | 11 mi |
| Essington | Delaware County | 9 mi |
| Allentown | Lehigh County | 49 mi |
| Reading | Berks County | 48 mi |
| Bethlehem | Northampton County | 48 mi |
| Wilmington, DE | New Castle County | 25 mi |
| Cherry Hill, NJ | Camden County | 7 mi |
| Vineland, NJ | Cumberland County | 33 mi |
| South Vineland, NJ | Cumberland County | 36 mi |
| Abington | Montgomery County | 12 mi |
| Jackson, NJ | Camden County | 20 mi |
| Havertown | Delaware County | 8 mi |
| North Brunswick, NJ | Middlesex County | 50 mi |
| Sicklerville, NJ | Camden County | 19 mi |
| Mount Laurel, NJ | Burlington County | 15 mi |
| Hillsborough, NJ | Somerset County | 46 mi |
| Sewell, NJ | Gloucester County | 13 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our Philadelphia services, Heavy Lift Rigging across Pennsylvania or get a quote.
We run heavy lift rigging in metros across Pennsylvania — pick the nearest crew:
Most Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia crew.
rigging contractors in Philadelphia →Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across Philadelphia as one accountable job.
industrial machinery movers in Philadelphia →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in Philadelphia.
machine tool movers in Philadelphia →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for Philadelphia plants.
Philadelphia plant relocation →In Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia.
The same Philadelphia crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in Philadelphia: chiller and HVAC rigging, transformer and generator rigging, MRI and medical equipment rigging, lab equipment moving, and printing press moving.
Tell us what's moving and where. We'll route the nearest crew and quote it fast.
Get a Philadelphia Heavy Lift Quote