Heavy goods logistics: Hall, crane and the last mile

Three figures before the visit

Take three figures with you before you drive out. If one is missing, you will see a hall and still not know whether your piece fits.

A bridge crane on the ceiling is one possible answer, not an entry ticket. Some pieces are moved by a heavy forklift. Some come off the low-loader only with a mobile crane, because the hall has no crane and does not need one. Whatever is there belongs in the listing: the load, and the height at which that load still applies.

What the name heavy goods covers

Heavy goods are not a weight class from a statute and not a quality mark. In the warehouse it means a piece the house forklift and ordinary racking can no longer handle. Sometimes the weight, sometimes the size, sometimes both. A long, light section can fail at the door and leave the floor alone. That is oversized cargo, a different conversation.

Texts about heavy-goods warehouses like to promise cranes for several hundred tonnes. Plants like that exist, in large-scale plant construction and on some quays. On a marketplace they are the exception. A listing with the words heavy goods can be a hall with a stronger forklift. The warehouse type heavy-goods warehouse bundles the search. Capacity is only in the individual listing.

Coils, as in the photos on this page, are the common case: round, heavy, and they do not stand on a Euro pallet. Machine beds and generators come less often and stay longer. Both sit on the floor, in block storage or, when the surface can take it, on outdoor storage. Machined faces and electronics do not belong in the rain. High-bay racking is the wrong idea for these pieces, even when the hall is tall.

The expensive lift is the second one

The first set-down almost always looks feasible. The forklift takes the coil off the truck, the hall is high, the floor looks solid. The next lift is the expensive one: shifting the piece because it blocks the way in, or lifting it because pre-assembly happens on the other side of the hall. Every lift needs equipment, someone on the sling and a clear path for the crane. Handle the piece twice and the floor was planned wrong.

A dock with a leveller is built for pallets. A low-loader with a frame stands at ground level. If the only way into the hall is over the dock, the piece stays outside, even when there is plenty of floor inside.

Access belongs to the hall

The road permit is not issued by the warehouse operator. The hall still has to be reachable on the day that permit names. In Germany, abnormal and heavy transports are applied for through VEMAGS. It often gets tight only at the last junction: the turning radius, a bridge before the gate, an overhead line, a tree. If the listing is silent on that, ask about the last delivery that was heavier than a normal articulated truck.

Someone shipping a piece often looks near a port, on this platform for example via Hamburg. Someone taking a machine bed to a customer in the south looks elsewhere, for instance in Baden-Württemberg or through the locations in Germany. The map does not check a bridge. It only shortens the list of halls worth a call.

Who looks for a hall like this

Machine and plant builders, when a part is finished and the customer’s hall is not. Suppliers to the energy sector, for transformers and other large components. Steel trade, when coils do not only pass through but lie for a few weeks. Building-materials logistics is the neighbour for heavy goods that stack more readily. Mechanical-engineering logistics applies once pre-assembly belongs with the space.

A pallet warehouse with a stronger forklift does not become a heavy-goods warehouse through the forklift alone. The truck can lift. The floor and the door have to come with it.

What the listing has to show

LAGERflaeche.de does not operate the halls. The cards often show pallet places, because that field is filled on most listings. For a coil it is the wrong unit. Read alongside:

1. Floor: the area load and, where it is stated, the point load.
2. Crane or forklift: which load, and at which height.
3. Doors: the clear size, and whether access is at ground level.
4. Yard: whether a low-loader can turn and stand.
5. Whether pre-assembly takes place, and whether people are there for it or only the floor.

If the load is missing, the listing is an address. If none of the published spaces fits, name the piece weight, the dimensions, the centre of gravity and the region in a search request.

View heavy-goods warehousesRequest a logistics solution

Rent is the smaller item

This page does not name a price per lift. The table takes its ranges from the article Warehouse prices in Germany 2025. They apply to an ordinary hall and an operated pallet warehouse, not to the lift and not as the price list of the spaces on this page.

What else sets the invoice depends less on the rent per square metre:

Compare two offers against the same load and the same door size. A cheap square metre without a suitable lift is often the longer route for a coil.

Sources

The euro figures in the table come from the article named above. They describe ordinary halls and standard warehousing, not the lift. VEMAGS is Germany’s nationwide application system for abnormal and heavy transports.

• Warehouse prices in Germany 2025. A guide to hall rent and standard warehousing. No tariff for a crane or a heavy haul.