Britannia AuctionsFactory and workshop clearance in Sheffield
Sheffield factories are heavy. A forging or tooling shop in Attercliffe or Tinsley will have presses and hammers on deep foundations, furnaces, overhead cranes on rails, and machine tools that weigh more than the lorry that brought them. Clearing one is a rigging and lifting job with an auction inside it.
We start from the handover date and work back. The auction closes with time in hand, the collection window follows, and the order for the plant on foundations is agreed with you rather than fixed in advance. Dealing with the rails, the busbar, the pits and the residue afterwards can be arranged where agreed. What does not sell is weighed in, and on a heavy site that figure is worth checking rather than guessing.
If you have a works in the Lower Don Valley or at Holbrook to clear, tell us what is in it and when the keys go back.
Heavy plant between the city centre and the M1
The main lots in a Sheffield clearance are the kind that need a crane to move. Presses, drop hammers, upsetters, large lathes and borers, heat treatment furnaces and their controls. These have a market across the UK and abroad, and one online sale puts them all in front of the plant at the same time. The trade at Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield and Doncaster is a short run from a viewing day, and dealers and export buyers can bid from wherever they are.
Plant on foundations is catalogued with its lifting and removal terms written in, so a bidder knows what they are taking on. Buyers arrange and cover the cost of removal of their own lots, including the rigging crew, and we agree the window and the order with you and attend to release lots.
On the Don Valley estates we measure what the road, the gate and the yard give a low loader before the plan is set. The number of crane and rigging firms in the area keeps the removal options open on a heavy site.
Where the scrap ends and the sale begins
In a steel or tooling works, the line between a saleable lot and scrap is worth drawing carefully. Bar stock, billets, forgings and tool steel offcuts are lotted by grade rather than tipped in the skip, because that lets a firm in the trade bid on material it can use instead of on scrap weight. Tooling, dies, jigs and gauges go the same way where a buyer can use them.
Worn out machines, cable, structural steel and the contents of the far corner go for scrap, and we get the weighbridge tickets so the account is clear. Where clearing the residue is agreed, the scrap income is set against the cost, and on a heavy site that is a figure worth having before the work is ordered.
Furnace linings, hydraulic oil, quench oil and cutting fluids need licensed disposal and are planned in before the auction, not discovered afterwards.
What these sales can include
- Production machinery
- Machine tools and tooling
- Pallet racking and mezzanines
- Compressors and air receivers
- Extraction and filtration systems
- Overhead cranes and hoists
- Forklifts and pallet trucks
- Workbenches, cabinets and stores
- Electrical switchgear
- Office furniture and IT
- Scrap metal and redundant stock
- Vans and site vehicles
The auction stage
We catalogue every saleable item on site, from the main machines down to grouped lots of hand tools and stores. The sale runs online as a timed auction with a viewing day at the premises. The buyer pays the hammer price plus the premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately, and collects during an agreed window.
Lots are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. They arrange and pay for dismantling and removal. Where an item must be taken down carefully, such as a mezzanine or an overhead crane, the catalogue says so and it is part of the lot.
You keep the premises accessible, safe and powered until collection ends. We attend to release lots. The more that leaves through the auction, the less there is to clear at cost afterwards.
The factory and workshop clearance page covers clearance is a different job from a sale, everything that has to come out, the clearance stage, timescales and what slows them down, when a clearance is the wrong approach.
Questions about selling in Sheffield
- We have a press on deep foundations. Does it go in the auction or is it scrap?
It goes in the auction unless it is worn beyond use. Large presses sell to forging and pressing firms across the country and to export buyers, and a press on foundations is catalogued with its removal terms so the bidder knows the crane and rigging cost is theirs. If the auction closes without a bid, we offer it to dealers by private treaty before it is cut up. Scrap is the last option, though on a big press even that has a value worth having.
- Our works at Darnall has an overhead crane. Can it be sold or does it stay?
It depends on the lease. A crane and its gantry are normally part of the building, and a landlord may want them left in place for the next tenant. Where the lease lets you remove it, a crane in working order is worth offering, and we catalogue it with the condition that the buyer dismantles and lifts it using a competent contractor. We check the lease with you during our first visit, because the answer changes what the strip out contractor has to do.
More questions about factory clearance
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.