Hiab hire and haulage in Falmouth
Falmouth and the Carrick Roads form the third deepest natural harbour in the world, and the deepest in western Europe. It is a working harbour as well, which makes it unlike anywhere else we cover. The docks, the ship repair yards and the marine trade generate lifting work all year round, and it is rarely the same job twice.
It is also a town built up the side of a hill, and a great deal of what we do here is a direct consequence of that.
Access
Steep, narrow, and parked solid
The main street runs the length of the waterfront and changes its name several times on the way. The residential streets climbing away from it are steep, narrow and frequently parked on both sides, which leaves very little room for a lorry to set up.
That produces the classic Falmouth job: the load cannot be carried in, there is nowhere to stand a telehandler, and the answer is to work from the road and lift over whatever is in the way. A property whose front door is thirty steps above the street is often perfectly reachable with ten metres of boom.
The dock estate is the easy end of town — proper access, proper hardstanding, and used to heavy vehicles all day.
The work
Marine work and everything around it
Boats, cradles, engines, masts, pontoon sections and general marine kit come up regularly, and they are exactly the sort of awkward, heavy, oddly shaped load a hiab exists for.
Alongside that there is the student housing and holiday-let conversion work that never really stops here, which means steel, timber and materials going into buildings where the access was designed for a horse and cart.
- Boat cradles, engines and marine equipment
- Lifts into hillside properties from the road below
- Steel and timber into conversion and refurbishment sites
- Containers into yards around the docks and Ponsharden
- Collections from the marine trade for delivery elsewhere in Cornwall
The lorry
What turns up in Falmouth
One vehicle: a 30TM HMF hiab with 10 metres of reach on a cheesewedge body, carrying up to 10 tons. It brings the load and lifts it into place, so there is no second machine to arrange and nobody waiting about at either end.
Questions
Common questions about Falmouth
- Can you lift into a property above the road?
- Usually, and it is one of the most common jobs we do in Falmouth. With ten metres of reach a garden or terrace above street level is often reachable, but send a photograph taken from the road looking up and we will give you a straight answer first.
- Do you do work on the docks?
- Yes. Access there is the least of the problems, and we can work to whatever permit and induction the site requires.
Nearby
We also cover
Some of these are over the county line, which makes no difference to us: we work both sides of the Tamar and there is no surcharge for crossing it. Each is labelled with the county it is actually in.
Cornwall
Penryn
Granite town at the head of the creek, with the industrial estate that serves Falmouth.
Cornwall
Truro
Our nearest town, five miles up the road from the yard at Feock.
Cornwall
Helston
Gateway to the Lizard, with the farms and lanes that go with it.
Cornwall
Redruth
Industrial Cornwall, and one of the easiest towns in the county to operate a lorry in.
Or see every town we cover in Cornwall.
Enquiry
Get a price for a job in Falmouth
Tell us what is moving, roughly what it weighs, and how far it has to go from where a lorry can stand. That is usually enough for a straight answer.