Inside a Seattle 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 Seattle, WA 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 Seattle and nearby Washington 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 Seattle 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 Seattle's aerospace tooling & port cargo 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 Seattle. The stock here is a mix of early-20th-century brick and heavy-timber warehouses near the waterfront with tight column spacing and low dock heights, and newer clear-span industrial buildings further south along the Duwamish, 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 aircraft assembly jigs and tooling, shipyard cranes and dry-dock equipment, commercial fish-processing and flash-freezing equipment, and CNC machining centers — each one planned from its weight, lift points, and the floor under it.
Seattle, WA runs on aerospace tooling & port cargo, 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 Seattle heavy lifts include:
That equipment serves Seattle's aerospace manufacturing and final assembly, maritime and shipbuilding operations, commercial fishing fleet support and seafood processing, and electronics and precision manufacturing, where a lift usually happens beside machinery that keeps running. Most of our jacking and gantry work here lands in the Greater Duwamish Manufacturing and Industrial Center along the Duwamish River, including the SODO and Georgetown areas, the Ballard-Interbay Northend manufacturing and industrial area, and Fisherman's Terminal on Salmon Bay, home port to the nation's largest fishing fleet.
Loads lifted and traversed under roofs and inside bays where a crane cannot set up across the Seattle metro.
Heavy pieces raised off trailers, foundations, and pits in controlled stages across the Seattle metro.
Loads moved along engineered skid tracks or on rollers to the set point across the Seattle metro.
Equipment lowered onto anchors, soleplates, and foundations to the layout across the Seattle metro.
Plenty of Seattle jobs start and finish on one floor. The rest have to travel — to a new building across the metro, a sister plant down I-5, I-90 and I-82, 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 Seattle often arrive by rail or water before they ever reach a road. Served by BNSF, whose SIG Yard sits in the SODO area of the Duwamish industrial district and connects to Port of Seattle cargo terminals. The Port of Seattle operates container and cargo terminals on Elliott Bay and along the Duwamish River waterway as part of the Puget Sound gateway to Asia-Pacific trade. 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 Seattle, WA 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 Seattle jobs. For bigger moves we walk both sites before we price anything.
The same Seattle crews handle every kind of industrial rigging. If your job looks more like one of these, start here:
Running a trucking fleet out of Seattle? See truck dispatch for fleets of 4+ trucks.
Working throughout Seattle, WA and the surrounding metro — backed by a nationwide network of 88 locations when a move crosses state lines.
Heavy Lift Rigging throughout Seattle and the industrial suburbs around it — the towns below are where the plants, shops and distribution parks actually sit:
| Town | County | From downtown |
|---|---|---|
| Tacoma | Pierce County | 25 mi |
| Bellevue | King County | 6 mi |
| Kent | King County | 16 mi |
| Renton | King County | 10 mi |
| Auburn | King County | 21 mi |
| Everett | Snohomish County | 27 mi |
| Federal Way | King County | 20 mi |
| Sumner | Pierce County | 28 mi |
| Fife | Pierce County | 25 mi |
| Lakewood | Pierce County | 31 mi |
| Kirkland | King County | 8 mi |
| Marysville | Snohomish County | 32 mi |
| Redmond | King County | 11 mi |
| Olympia | Thurston County | 47 mi |
| Shoreline | King County | 10 mi |
| South Hill | Pierce County | 32 mi |
| Sammamish | King County | 12 mi |
| Burien | King County | 9 mi |
| Lacey | Thurston County | 46 mi |
| City of Sammamish | King County | 14 mi |
| Bothell | King County | 12 mi |
| Edmonds | Snohomish County | 14 mi |
| Puyallup | Pierce County | 29 mi |
| Bremerton | Kitsap County | 14 mi |
Moving across the metro or out of state? See all our Seattle services, Heavy Lift Rigging across Washington or get a quote.
We run heavy lift rigging in metros across Washington — pick the nearest crew:
Most Seattle 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 Seattle crew.
industrial rigging in Seattle →Presses, compressors, generators, full production lines — disconnected, rigged, hauled, and re-leveled across Seattle as one accountable job.
machinery moving in Seattle →Machine tools are instruments, not freight. VMCs, lathes, and grinders moved on air-ride and squared back to the builder's spec in Seattle.
CNC machine movers in Seattle →Moving the whole floor instead of one machine? Phased teardown, sequenced loads, and reinstallation planning for Seattle plants.
Seattle plant & factory relocation →In Seattle 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 Seattle.
The same Seattle crew also handles millwright services, machinery removal, crane and rigging services, and machinery loading and unloading.
Specialty rigging in Seattle: chiller and HVAC 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 Seattle Heavy Lift Quote