Above Ground Lifts: A Pre-Purchase Install Prep Checklist for Farm Shops

If you run a farm shop anywhere along the Iowa-Illinois corridor and you’re shopping for above ground lifts to handle seasonal vehicle storage, the biggest mistake we see isn’t picking the wrong brand — it’s skipping the site survey before the truck shows up with a crate. We’ve walked into pole buildings where the customer already had a check written for a two-post unit, only to find out the ceiling height, slab thickness, or door clearance made that exact model a bad fit. Before you buy above ground lifts for your shop, walk through this checklist with us first.

Why Seasonal Storage Changes the Lift Conversation

A lot of farm shop owners come to us thinking about above ground lifts purely as a way to do maintenance — oil changes, brake jobs, the usual. But if your real goal is stacking a truck and a combine parts hauler over winter, or parking the pickup above the tractor during planting season, the equation changes. You need a lift rated for long-term static load, not just repeated lift-and-lower cycles, and you need to think about how long a vehicle will actually sit up in the air.

We had a shop owner reach out wanting something that could handle a passenger vehicle under 7,000 pounds, store one car on the lift itself, and still park another vehicle underneath — inside a 30×40 pole building with a concrete floor and 12-foot sidewalls. That’s a completely different spec conversation than a shop doing quick service work. Ceiling height alone ruled out several two-post configurations that run 174 to 198 inches tall once fully raised. If storage is your priority, tell us that up front — it changes which above ground lifts even belong on the quote.

Measure Your Ceiling Height Before You Call

This is the number one thing we ask for and the number one thing people guess wrong on. Above ground lifts, especially two-post symmetric models, can require anywhere from 12 to over 16 feet of overhead clearance once a vehicle is raised to full height with the arms extended. We’ve seen quotes fall apart because a customer measured to the bottom of a truss instead of the lowest hanging obstruction — a light fixture, a header beam, a sprinkler line.

Grab a tape measure or a laser and record the clearance at the exact spot the lift will sit, not just somewhere in the middle of the building. If you’re building new, tell your contractor the lift height requirement before the trusses go up. Retrofitting a shop with 10-foot sidewalls for a two-post lift almost always means downgrading to a lower-rise model or a mid-rise scissor instead — better to know that before you’ve committed to a specific unit.

Check Your Slab Thickness and Condition

Above ground lifts anchor into the floor, and that floor needs to be able to hold the load. Most commercial and heavy-duty lifts want a minimum of 4 inches of solid, cured concrete free of cracks near the anchor points, and heavier-rated lifts often call for more. Older pole buildings poured decades ago sometimes have thinner slabs than you’d expect, especially near the perimeter where the walls meet the floor.

Before you buy, find out the age and thickness of your slab if you don’t already know it. If you’re not sure, we can talk through what to look for or point you toward a simple core test. Cracked, spalling, or expansion-jointed concrete near your planned install spot is a red flag — not necessarily a dealbreaker, but something that needs to be addressed, sometimes with a new pad poured specifically for the lift, before installation day.

Plan Your Bay Width and Door Clearance

Farm shops often have wide doors for equipment, but that doesn’t automatically mean there’s enough width between columns or side walls for a two-post lift’s swing radius. We ask for the distance from floor to the lowest overhead obstruction, plus the clear width between any support poles in the bay you’re planning to use. Above ground lifts need room not just for the vehicle but for the arms to swing out during positioning.

If your building has interior support posts — common in pole barns — measure the exact spacing before ordering. We’ve had to reconfigure orders more than once because a support column sat exactly where a post needed to go. A four-post or mobile column setup can sometimes sidestep this issue entirely since they don’t require the same swing clearance, so if your bay is tight or irregular, that’s worth discussing with us before you lock in a two-post model.

Decide Between Two-Post and Four-Post for Storage Duty

For pure vehicle storage, four-post lifts often make more sense than two-post units, even though two-post lifts are more common for service work. A four-post platform lift lets you drive a vehicle straight on without wheel engagement points to worry about, and it’s a more forgiving option if the vehicle will sit raised for weeks or months at a time during off-season storage.

That said, two-post above ground lifts give you full underbody access, which matters if you’re planning to do repair work between storage seasons. We’ve quoted plenty of farm shops on a two-post model specifically because they wanted both functions — store a truck through winter, then drop it down and get under it for maintenance in the spring. Tell us both use cases and we’ll steer you toward the configuration that actually covers both jobs instead of compromising on either.

Get an Accurate Quote Before You Compare Prices

We regularly hear from farm shop owners who’ve been quoted a number from someone else and want us to beat it — sometimes for a 9,000-pound above ground lift including install, sometimes for a pair of storage lifts bundled together. The trouble is that quotes without a site survey are often missing freight, concrete work, or electrical hookup costs that show up later. A real quote accounts for your specific ceiling height, slab condition, and site access, not just the base unit price.

Before you compare numbers from different suppliers, make sure each quote covers the same scope: unit cost, freight to your location, anchoring and pad work if needed, and full installation labor. We’ll walk your site or ask the right questions over the phone to make sure the number we give you is the number you actually pay, with no surprise change orders once our crew is standing in your shop.

Line Up Installation Logistics in Advance

Once the lift itself is right, installation logistics can still trip up a farm shop project. Above ground lifts ship on pallets or in crates that need a forklift or loading dock to unload efficiently — if your shop doesn’t have one, plan for a lift gate delivery or have equipment on hand the day it arrives. Rural addresses sometimes add freight time too, so build in a buffer rather than scheduling install day the moment you expect the truck.

We also ask about power availability at the install location, since most above ground lifts need a dedicated circuit for the hydraulic power unit. If your shop’s electrical panel is already maxed out, that’s a conversation to have with an electrician before installation day, not during it. Handling these logistics ahead of time is what separates a smooth one-day install from a project that drags into a second visit.