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Safe, Expert Handling for Heavy and Complex Laboratory Equipment
Not all laboratory relocations happen at ground level. Many require expert planning, specialist lifting equipment, and experienced teams to safely move complex and heavy assets through challenging environments.
Harrow Green provides technical and contract lift services for wet labs, research facilities, and industrial laboratories across the UK. Whether equipment needs to be moved up staircases, over balconies, or via cranes and HIABs, we deliver the right technical solution, safely, compliantly, and efficiently.
Specialist Lifting Solutions for Every Laboratory Environment
From precision instruments to industrial machinery, our technical relocation team has the expertise and equipment to manage even the most demanding moves.
We routinely support relocations involving:
- Wet and analytical laboratories
- Physics, engineering and materials science labs
- Workshops, fabrication and test environments
- Industrial and production laboratories.
Our experience covers a wide range of heavy and sensitive assets, including:
- Scientific and analytical equipment – SEMs (Scanning Electron Microscopes), NMRs (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance systems), tensile testers, spectrometers
- Workshop machinery – lathes, pillar drills, milling machines, press frames and cutting equipment
- Environmental chambers, centrifuges, incubators and autoclaves
- Large industrial plant or process rigs.
Every lift is carefully planned, risk assessed, and delivered using trained personnel and the most appropriate equipment for the environment.
The UK’s Most Advanced Stairwalking and Lifting Equipment
We invest in the best available stairwalking equipment and specialist lifting aids in the UK. This allows us to safely manoeuvre heavy laboratory equipment up and down stairs or through restricted spaces with minimal disruption.
Using powered stairwalkers dramatically reduces manual handling risk, prevents injury, and minimises potential equipment damage, particularly for high-value or delicate laboratory instruments.
All team members are manual-handling trained as standard, with additional, role-specific training for those operating powered stairwalkers, gantries, hoists and winches.
Our equipment moves safely. Our people make it safe.
Qualified Lifting Teams and Appointed Persons
All complex lifts are coordinated by Appointed Person-qualified employees who plan and supervise each operation. Supporting them are Slinger Signaller-trained staff, ensuring all loads are lifted, moved, and positioned precisely and securely.
This in-house expertise removes the need for third-party supervision and guarantees that every lift is conducted to LOLER and PUWER regulations with full documentation and lift plans provided.
Crane, HIAB and Contract Lifting Capabilities
Where access is limited or loads are exceptionally heavy, we utilise gantries, winches, cranes and HIABs to complete the move safely.
Harrow Green maintains strong national partnerships with trusted crane and HIAB companies, giving us access to all forms of lifting plant, from compact city cranes and vehicle-mounted HIABs to heavy mobile cranes for major installations.
Our appointed personnel work closely with lifting engineers and site teams to ensure each lift is carried out under strict safety control and according to risk assessment and method statements (RAMS).
Safe and Compliant Lifting – Every Time
Every technical lift or equipment move includes:
- Lift planning and risk assessment by an Appointed Person
- Slinger Signaller and lifting team supervision
- Use of the safest and most appropriate lifting plant – cranes, gantries, HIABs, stairwalkers
- LOLER/PUWER compliance and full lift documentation
- Manual handling trained teams to industry standards
- Coordination with site safety officers and facility managers.
We can provide full lift plans, insurance cover and certification for contract lifting operations, ensuring all compliance and safety requirements are met.
Supporting Diverse Laboratory and Industrial Facilities
Our technical lifting teams operate across multiple sectors:
- Higher education and Russell Group universities
- Biotech, life sciences and healthcare laboratories
- Engineering and physics laboratories
- Industrial testing and R&D workshops
- Manufacturing and materials science environments
Whether relocating a sensitive NMR spectrometer, a large tensile testing frame, or a complete industrial lab setup, we provide the technical knowledge, equipment, and control needed for a safe and efficient move.
Why choose Harrow Green
- The UK’s leading laboratory logistics and relocation specialist
- Advanced stairwalking and lifting technology for confined-access moves
- Appointed Person and Slinger Signaller qualified staff employed in-house
- Manual handling trained teams for every project
- Strong nationwide partnerships with crane and HIAB providers
- Proven experience with SEMs, NMRs, and heavy laboratory instruments
- Fully compliant with LOLER, PUWER, ADR and site safety regulations
- Flexible, scalable solutions for wet labs, industrial labs and workshops.
Lift with Confidence
From a single instrument to complete laboratory systems, Harrow Green delivers a safe, compliant and expertly managed technical lift solution, anywhere in the UK.
Call us on: 0345 603 8774
Email us: enquiries@harrowgreen.com
Trusted as a reliable expert move partner with the following:
Laboratory Relocation Client Testimonials
The Dermatology Partnership/Stratum Clinics Ltd
"I would just like to express my sheer appreciation and gratitude to the team that have helped our Stratum team empty our clinic in Oxford. They have been absolutely incredible and such an amazing, friendly and supportive crew. We are so impressed with their work. Thank you all!!"
Ray Dolby Centre – Cambridge University
"Building relationships with so many staff and coordinating this complex move has been a huge collective achievement. From the careful planning of each phase to the hands-on work of moving specialist equipment and collections, this project has shown what we can accomplish together." -David Hunt
LGC UK National Measurement Laboratory
"We’re very happy, everything went smoothly and the team were helpful and professional. It was not a standard relocation with a one-off SOP being approved by the Home Office but we remained compliant by using cold storage units."
Laboratory Relocation Case Studies
Laboratory Relocation FAQs
This is a question that we get asked very often. The main factors that determine this are things such as where you are up to with any initial planning, the size of your laboratory move, do you need us to project manage the full relocation including fumigation, equipment decommissioning/recommissioning/calibration/validation and the level of complexity of the relocation.
We can accommodate relocations in short timescales in as little as a few days. However, a large and complex relocation which requires project management and a lot of planning a lab relocation could need as much as 6-12 months, or even longer to plan and complete.
The short answer is yes. Laboratory relocation project management is one of our main areas of specialism. Our project managers have vast experience with all types of laboratory relocation planning tasks.
Whether it is completing a full asset survey and asset tagging piece of work capturing key equipment requirements once relocated, compiling full costs for specialist equipment decommissioning/recommissioning/calibration/validation or being the linchpin between a number of key stakeholders such as the lab managers, security, OEMs and third party engineers, relocation teams, office managers and project sponsors, we know all of the steps required to safety and successfully plan and deliver a laboratory relocation.
There are no set timescales for planning a laboratory relocation. We have planned lab moves in very short timescales, a few weeks, but at the same time have had teams of project managers working with our clients’ years in advance of their relocation.
Our best advice is once you know that you are likely going to be relocating to new laboratories then get in touch and we can discuss your requirements and end goals. Once we know a bit about your requirements we can advise from there. Initially fact finding and consultation meetings are free of charge.
Yes. There are a number of factors that will need to be taken in to account for this and need to be accounted for, such as ensuring that equipment is calibrated and validated to the correct standards or providing a full temperature audit trail of cold chain material that is being relocated.
As part of our project planning and fact finding we will liaise with key client staff such as Quality Assurance and Laboratory Managers to fully capture project requirements, provide advice and relocation solutions for you and ensure that the costs to complete correctly are captured and allowed for.
This is a common undertaking for Harrow Green Laboratory Services. One of our first questions to our clients for a large and complex laboratory relocation, where there is a lot of equipment that cannot just be unplugged and moved, is around the management of OEMs and third-party engineers and whether they have time to complete this themselves.
Whether there are 5 or 100 separate OEMs or third- party engineers to contact for costs, availability, and timescales in and amongst the relocation activity, it is a very time consuming and onerous task to complete, especially if you have a full-time job to complete as well.
We have a great understanding of relocation requirements of equipment and what is required in terms of decommissioning and making them “safe” and “ready” to relocate. Therefore, we are used regularly by our clients to complete this element and ensure that the relocation is all planned and completed within the agreed timescales and to the agreed budget.
If you do have a project lead that does have time to manage this element, then we are happy to offer advice throughout the process as well as if there are any cost savings by grouping equipment or using different qualified equipment engineers.
Whether you are moving a couple of centrifuges or a full 500-person lab and office set-up, we are always happy to complete a laboratory relocation for you.
Yes, we can. Harrow Green Laboratory Services are one of the very few relocation companies that can offer this service in house and do not have to rely on sub-contracting this out to other chemical relocation specialists.
There are a number of ways refrigerated and frozen contents. We will need to understand a little bit about the type of contents that you are relocating, as well as some other key factors, and from this can advise as to the best relocation method to relocate them.
A couple of options are to pack out into shippers with the correct coolant i.e., gel packs or dry ice, or we can look at relocating the contents within their current fridges and freezers using our specialist vehicles that can supply power to them during transit.
Samples and contents that are stored in LN2, where they are standalone dewars or cryo vessels that require a mains feed, both fall under ADR regulations and therefore, as we have DGSAs and ADR trained staff within our full time employed staff, we can safely and legally relocate these under ADR regulations.
ADR stands for Accord Dangereux Routier. Its full meaning in French is “Accord européen relatif au transport international des marchandises dangereuses par route.” In English, it means “European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road.”
Along with CDG regulations (Carriage of Dangerous Goods), if substances are classed as hazardous, and are above limited quantities, then they need to be relocated by an ADR certified driver, in an ADR compliant vehicle with the correct paperwork and overseen by a DGSA (Dangerous Goods and Safety Advisor).
As we have ADR staff, ADR vehicles and Dangerous Goods & Safety Advisors, we are legally able to relocate hazardous materials on public roads which laboratories will almost have in the form of hazardous samples, specimens, and chemicals above limited quantities.
We are a multifaceted business and can complete both the planning and relocation of the offices. We can also assist with other services that include:
- Document Storage & Management
- Document Scanning & Digital Transformation
- Confidential Shredding Services
- IT Lifecycle Services
As we are the largest commercial relocation company in the UK, we have a number of flagship depots in key cities including:
- Glasgow
- Leeds
- Manchester
- Birmingham
- Cambridge
- Bristol
We understand that there can be issues getting large equipment either out of their current location or into their new location. We regularly have to complete the removal or install of large equipment such as autoclaves, -80 freezer and large fume hoods.
However, we will first look at other options to ensure that you have the most cost-effective solution. We have a variety of stair climbing equipment that we regularly use to take equipment up staircases. Our stair climbers have the ability to take equipment up to 1000kg upstairs!
In our world, there is never a time that we cannot complete relocations. We fully understand about the need to keep lab downtime to an absolute minimum. We would first look at the option of moving key equipment in phases so all equipment is not “out of action” and if this is not possible, we can complete the relocation over evenings and weekends if required.
Yes, we can offer insurance cover either under our standard coverage or as a bespoke requirement depending on the value of your equipment.
Yes, we can. We are very experienced in completing relocating into Europe and further afield. We have a very good knowledge of all the requirements including advising clients around the information that they need to provide us and can complete all the import / export paperwork.
Yes, we can. We have relocated a large number of cleanrooms over the years and have a full understanding of what is required in terms of how the equipment needs to be packaged prior to being taken out of the cleanrooms, PPE and how we need to prepare our equipment prior to entering cleanroom environments.
Our experienced team will ensure that they obtain all the necessary information off you to provide costs in line with your requirements.
We regularly come across a lab that is relocating and has either bought a large amount of new equipment to replace old equipment in their new labs and/or has redundant equipment that is broken and “end of life” and needs recycling.
As we have a very good network of contacts in the laboratory industry, as part of our turnkey solution we can look at the equipment that you have that is surplus to requirement and can see if there is any second hand value in it and therefore get you some money back for it through a number of second hand laboratory equipment dealers.
If the equipment is “end of life” we can remove and recycle the equipment for you as we have a waste carrier license.