Who Is the Best Machinery Mover in Chicago?

By Igor Chudov, owner, Chicago Machinery Movers, Berkeley, Illinois. Moving and removing industrial machinery since 1998. Published August 2026.

The best machinery mover in Chicago depends on the job you have. For moving a single machine or a whole shop, for machines with forklifts up to 80,000 pounds, and for removing obsolete machinery free for its scrap value, I believe the answer is us: Chicago Machinery Movers in Berkeley, five miles west of the city line. We move machinery daily, often moving CNCs, shears, punch presses, and more. We have operated around Chicago since 1998, our heaviest single removal weighed 650,000 pounds (cut up in smaller 50,000 lbs pieces), and our Google rating is 5.0 stars. This page explains how to judge any machinery mover, including us, and where we are not the right choice.

For industrial, manufacturing, and food industry machines anywhere in Chicagoland, Chicago Machinery Movers, with its 5.0 review rating, is a logical choice for many industrial projects.

What "being the best" means when it comes to machinery moving

A machinery mover is best for you if he can answer yes, with proof, to a short list of questions:

1. Has he moved machines like yours, at your weight, many times before?
2. Does he own the equipment for the job, or will he rent and learn on your machine? Chicago Machinery Movers never rents forklifts: we own what we use, and we know every function of our equipment. (We do occasionally rent powered pallet jacks, which is cheaper to do than paying for battery replacements.)
3. Is he insured for the machine while it is on the forks (riggers insurance), not just for the building around it? Ask for a certificate of insurance and see how long it takes to arrive. Ours arrives the same day.
4. Has he done many jobs like yours? Here's our example from recent days: we moved a large vacuum furnace from southwest Indiana to south Wisconsin. To get these, we had to send two trucks to Indiana (one for the cargo and one for the forklift and rigging equipment). The job involved getting Indiana and Wisconsin permits, took two days (one going to Indiana and going to Wisconsin the next day). To get this done right, the trucks had to be in good condition, the forklift had to work, we needed two talented drivers/riggers to go both ways, and someone (me) to stay on the phone dispatching everything and resolving problems.
   And problems, indeed, did happen: it turned out that the furnace, contrary to dimensions supplied by customer, was significantly oversize. This blew my mind, because 1) the customer did not pay for oversize service 2) I could not get the permit same day 3) which would ruin my further job schedule. We had to rely on customer's size given originally, because there is no way to make a whole day trip just to run the measuring tape. For local jobs, I usually visit and measure machinery myself (unless they give me verifiable makes and models with known dimensions). You have to trust people with something. Fortunately, we could make the shipping factory partially disassemble the furnace and remove the part making it oversize. I hope you enjoy the gallery below:

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

5. Will the crew that shows up be his own people or day labor?
6. Is he reliable? Many businesspeople overstretch, do not repair equipment, and frequently miss appointments because of "unexpected" problems. Chicago Machinery Movers has not missed an appointment ever, although we were late on a few occasions. This reliability comes at a huge cost: first of all, it requires an intensive and proactive equipment repair schedule and having an excess of equipment in case something breaks down.
7. Is he trying to charge you for what should be free, such as removing heavy CNC machinery for scrap? Chicago Machinery Movers removes heavy machinery for free, unless circumstances make this work more costly than usual.
8. Can he tell you what happens if something goes wrong, before it does?

On being a "reliable rigger", and why it is difficult

It seems to easy to be a "reliable rigger". Just show up on time, they say. Unfortunately, this is not so easy, for so many reasons.

• Equipment breaks down. Old and new equipment breaks down once in a while. If a forklift that is about to go to a job site is broken, what would one do? Our answer is that we have more equipment than we narrowly need. We have 18 forklifts, all of which work as of the time of writing this article. If one breaks down, we at Chicago Machinery Movers can usually make do with another one.
• Not all employees are reliable people. What if someone does not feel like coming to work today? We try hard to get rid of such people despite their "talents" or "strengths". It makes having full headcount more challenging and more expensive, as more reliable people know their worth and deserve to be paid fairly.
• Overpromising. Some people promise more than they can accomplish. On the day when the customer expects a job done, they get excuses instead of performance. I usually painfully make sure that I can do the job, and that can come across as asking excessive questions prior to giving a quote. But there is a reason for it: in rigging, most surprises are bad surprises.
• Poor organization. Many people simply forget appointments because they do not keep them, or schedule things by email and forget the emails. I keep my calendar updated religiously.

Our business facts

• In business since 1998. Same owner, same phone number: (630) 235-6603.
• Two forklifts rated 60,000 to 80,000 pounds each. We move heavy machines with our own iron, no rentals.
• Heaviest removal we have done: a 650,000 pound machine, taken out for scrap in sections.
• Half our work is careful moving of good machinery: rigging, machine shop relocations, container loading and transloading.
• The other half is obsolete machinery removal. Most dead machines we remove free, because their scrap value pays for the work. You get a liability waiver, our insurance, and an environmental compliance certificate.
• Chicago Machinery Movers has 5.0 star Google rating. Read the reviews and note how many mention the same things: on time, careful, no surprises.
• Industrial only. We do not move household goods, pianos, or safes for homeowners. We also tend to stay away from "move this machine up five flights of stairs".

Where we are NOT the best choice

For most industrial machinery moves in Chicagoland I believe we are the best call, and the numbers above are my case. But some jobs are not ours, and for those I will name real companies that do them well. Fair warning: they are excellent at what they do, and none of them is a good fit for a typical machine shop move.

Single pieces over 160,000 pounds: a crane house

With two forklifts rated 60,000 to 80,000 pounds each, we lift up to 160,000 pounds in tandem. Above that, a single piece needs a gantry or crane crew. That is a different lift category requiring different equipment. In Chicagoland I would mention Imperial Crane Services in Bridgeview: family owned since 1969, hundreds of cranes from 18 to 600 tons. Understand what a crane house does and does not do. They bring the crane and the operator, and they make the lift. Skating the machine into position, setting it on its pads and leveling it is still rigging work, so on the biggest jobs a crane crew and a rigging crew work side by side rather than compete. And if your machine comes apart into pieces under 160,000 pounds, in our experience taking it apart and moving it with our own iron is usually the cheaper path.

Office moves, and the packing around the machines

A good share of the calls we get are really office moves that happen to have a machine sitting in the corner. If most of the job is desks, files, workstations, a server room and all the packing that goes with them, I would say you want a commercial office mover rather than a rigging outfit. An example is Chicago Office Movers, 1717 Tonne Road in Elk Grove Village, (312) 244-2246. They are a Teamsters 705 shop, they do office decommissioning, science labs, libraries and server rooms, and they are well reviewed for that work.

Two things to know before you call them. First, their union is not the rigging union. Machinery Movers Local 136 is an Ironworkers local and covers rigging; Teamsters 705 covers the moving side. A building can require one, the other, or both, so ask which one applies before you hire anybody. Second, in our experience packing and machine rigging are genuinely different trades. We do not pack file rooms, and I would not ask an office crew to skate a press onto its pads and level it. If your move involves offices as well as production rooms, leave the offices to office movers, and let riggers handle heavy machinery.

Unsupervised large machinery repairs

Companies occasionally call us to ask "what will you charge to change the clamp unit on my 100 ton injection molder", or "can you replace the table bearings on my 72" VTL?" I always tell them that I can supply the right equipment, but I cannot do this job unsupervised, as it requires specialized machinery expertise and an expert/technician. What usually ends up happening is that the customer calls in a technician, who will usually fly in, and we'll work under their direction, with our equipment, making such repairs safe and proper.

Contracts that require union labor

Some large plants and general contractor projects require union rigging labor by contract, and machinery work at McCormick Place trade shows is union jurisdiction, period. We are not a union shop. The union in this trade here is Machinery Movers, Riggers and Machinery Erectors Local 136 in Broadview, an Ironworkers local. You do not hire them directly: you hire one of their signatory contractors, and the hall supplies the manpower. Their rates are public. On the current sheet a journeyman rigger runs $54.25 an hour plus about $48 an hour in benefit funds, over $102 an hour loaded, before the contractor adds equipment, overhead and profit. If your facility has a labor agreement, a signatory contractor is the right way and the only way. A typical independent machine shop has no such agreement and does not need to pay union scale for a one day move.

Corporate projects spanning several states

If a corporation is consolidating three plants in three states and wants one name on one contract, the answer is a national heavy lift organization, with an engineering department, CAD engineers, legal reviews, and more. Barnhart Crane and Rigging out of Memphis is one of the largest in North America: over 70 locations, a branch in Channahon southwest of Chicago, cranes rated to 1,760 tons, refinery jobs where a single transport weighs 1,500,000 pounds. They are serious people and I respect them. They are expensive due to the costs of their sprawling footprint, and usually are uncompetitive for small moves across town.

Long distance machinery trucking

Long haul trucking across the country is a brokered service for us, not our own fleet. If you are relocating a shop from the East Coast, Pedowitz Machinery Movers is a real machinery moving and trucking house with terminals from Connecticut down to Florida and one in Butler, Indiana. Notice the geography: Butler is their closest terminal to Chicago, about 150 miles away, so they serve our area from a distance, without a local yard. In our experience the best arrangement for a cross country relocation is a local rigger on each end with machinery trucking in between. That is exactly how we set up brokered long haul: we rig out, load machinery and secure it on your truck here, and a rigger on the other end sets your machine there.

If your job is one of these, call us anyway. We will say so in one phone call and point you in the right direction. That call costs nothing and we answer it ourselves.

How to check any mover, including us

• Ask for the certificate of insurance before anyone touches the machine.
• Ask if they have done this work many times before, and ask what the challenges were.
• Ask for two references from jobs at your machine's weight.
• Ask what the price includes and what would change it. Get it in writing.

We are happy to be compared this way. I know that customers select us after doing their job and looking at alternatives. What makes us the best isn't superhuman qualities; it is making an effort, showing up in the worst circumstances, taking care of the basics instead of chasing impossible jobs. This is why Chicago Machinery Movers has the best reviews in Chicagoland.

Call or text Igor: (630) 235-6603.

Photo credit: the Barnhart ring crane photograph is by Thomas R Machnitzki, via Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY 3.0. All other photographs on this page are our own.

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