On-site rotor balancing in Lisbon and Setúbal: a planned trip from our Gaia base

There are more than 300 km of A1 motorway between our base in Vila Nova de Gaia and the Lisbon and Setúbal region. We have no workshop and no staff in the south: the person who arrives at your site is the same engineer who left Gaia that morning, with the Balanset instruments in the boot. That is why a trip south is not booked for the day after tomorrow. It is planned, and it is planned so that the drive pays for itself. This page covers what actually runs in the cement plants, the chemical works, the port terminals, the food factories and the large HVAC plant of this region, the vibration those machines typically develop, and how we calculate travel so there are no surprises on the invoice.

Updated 27 August 2026 · by AXILINE · Vila Nova de Gaia

One base, 300 km, and no branch in the south

Base address: Rua das Colectividades 76 R/C ET, 4430-625 Vila Nova de Gaia. That is where the engineer sets off from and where the kilometres are counted from. We have no office, workshop, store or resident technician in Lisbon, Setúbal or Sines, and we do not pretend otherwise. That is the more honest arrangement for you: you always know where the van is coming from and what travel you are paying for.

In concrete numbers: around 320 km to Lisbon and around 350 km to Setúbal by the A1, with Sines further still. That is three to four hours of driving each way. A same-day round trip would mean seven hours behind the wheel plus the four-hour site minimum, with no margin at all for a closed gate, a postponed window or a second trial run. So we plan southbound trips with an overnight stay and treat them as two working days on site.

We cover the whole belt between the Tagus and the Sado, and we take in the Tagus valley when those machines sit along the route of the same trip.

• Greater Lisbon: Lisbon, Loures, Odivelas, Amadora, Sintra, Cascais, Oeiras, Vila Franca de Xira, Azambuja.
• Setúbal peninsula: Almada, Seixal, Barreiro, Moita, Montijo, Palmela, Setúbal, Sesimbra.
• Southern axis and coast: Alcochete, Alcácer do Sal, Sines and its industrial and port complex.
• Tagus valley: Santarém, Cartaxo, Rio Maior, when they fall along the route of the same visit.
• Distance is counted by road route from Gaia, not as the crow flies on a map.

What we offer in the south is not proximity, it is planning. A trip agreed in advance, the travel cost calculated and fixed before we leave, and a list of machines long enough to make the drive worthwhile for both sides.

What actually runs in this region: industries and machines

Lisbon and Setúbal concentrate sectors the north has on a far smaller scale: cement and aggregates on the Setúbal peninsula and around the Arrábida, chemicals and petrochemicals at Sines and Barreiro, port terminals in Lisbon, Setúbal and Sines, food and wine production along the Tagus valley and around Palmela, and an unusual density of large HVAC plant: hospitals, office towers, shopping centres, data centres, tunnel and car-park ventilation.

The sector changes, but the rotor always demands the same things: a stable working speed, access to a correction plane, that is, the point on the rotor where the mass goes, and a confirmed dominance of the 1x component, the vibration at rotational frequency. What really changes from sector to sector is what throws the rotor out of balance and what stops us correcting it on site.

We do not publish client names or specific project numbers, in this region or any other. If you want to know whether we have handled a similar machine, describe the equipment over the phone and we will answer straight.

The vibration these machines typically develop, and what we do about it

The picture repeats by sector. Below are the cases that most often end in a trip to this region, and what the measurement usually shows once we get there. Note that half the rows do not end in balancing: that is exactly why vibration diagnostics come first.

Absolute vibration zone limits depend on machine type, power rating and whether the support is rigid or flexible: the applicable part and edition of ISO 20816 has to be checked for the specific machine, and there are exceptions. The balance quality grade is chosen to ISO 21940. What we always record is before and after at the same points, in the same direction and at the same operating condition, without nudging the result onto a convenient line of a table.

What a trip to Lisbon and Setúbal costs

The price of the work is the same across the country and depends on rotor size, not on distance. What distance adds is two lines: travel and, when the job runs longer than a day, the per diem.

• Lisbon, about 320 km by road from Gaia: the round trip is about 640 km, less the 20 km included, at 0.60 EUR per kilometre, which comes to roughly 370 EUR + VAT.
• Setúbal, about 350 km: on the same arithmetic, roughly 410 EUR + VAT. Sines is further and costs proportionally more.
• Travel is paid once per visit, not per machine. Two machines or six on the same day carry exactly the same travel charge.
• The 140 EUR per day per diem applies when the job runs longer than a day. At this distance that is the normal case, not the exception.
• Minimum invoice per visit is 500 EUR. A single machine in package S does not reach the minimum, so the invoice will be 500 EUR.
• If your own people do the fitting and welding, it is included in the price and you do not pay for it separately.
• All prices are plus VAT at the applicable statutory rate.
• We calculate the exact travel figure by road route to your address and fix it in the quotation before we leave Gaia.

The travel figures above are an order of magnitude to orient yourself by, not a quotation. The quotation comes in writing, with the drive already calculated for your specific address and the number of days expected, before any trip is made.

Why machines get grouped at this distance

The arithmetic is simple and we have no interest in hiding it. Travel and per diem are fixed costs of the visit: paid once, whether we work on one machine or five. Each additional machine adds only its own diagnostics and its own balancing package.

A single medium-sized machine in Lisbon: 300 EUR for diagnostics with a report, plus 450 EUR for package M, plus roughly 370 EUR of travel, which comes to around 1120 EUR + VAT for one machine. Four machines on the same visit, two medium and two small: 2600 EUR of work, the same 370 EUR of travel and a 140 EUR per diem once it rolls into a second day, which comes to around 3110 EUR + VAT, or roughly 780 EUR per machine. The drive, which carried a third of the first invoice, now carries a little over an eighth.

So the useful question on the phone is not what it costs to balance this one fan. It is what other machines in the plant have vibration complaints. The list almost always materialises: a second extraction fan, a pump that eats mechanical seals, a separator that got worse after the last overhaul.

• Your own machines on other lines or in another building on the same site.
• Machines at another site of the same group within the region, provided they fit into the same two days.
• Machines at a neighbouring company in the same industrial park: the travel charge is split between two invoices.
• Machines that are not bad yet, but whose level has already crept up. Measuring them now costs far less than a second trip in three months.
• Baseline vibration diagnostics across several machines, so you end up with your own reference instead of a generic table.

With four or five machines we plan two days with an overnight stay and work without rushing. This is worth insisting on: rushed work on the fifth machine, late in the afternoon, is precisely where mistakes appear.

How a visit to Lisbon and Setúbal runs

1. 01

   Machine list and screening before we leave

   You send the list: machine type, power rating or rotor mass, working speed, bearing and drive arrangement, and what changed in the last month. From the photographs and the numbers we tell you, while still in Gaia, which machines are worth balancing and which are too early to touch. There is no sense driving 320 km to find that out on site.

2. 02

   Quotation and shutdown window

   We send the cost of the work, the travel already calculated for your address and the number of days expected. You tell us when the machines can genuinely be stopped and restarted: planned shutdown, night shift, weekend. The window sets the date, not the other way round.

3. 03

   Access sorted in advance

   Site passes, work permit, hot work permit if welding is needed, ATEX zone rules, port terminal clearance. This is arranged days ahead: a morning lost at the gatehouse costs, in this region, the entire trip.

4. 04

   Day one: measure everything, then set the order

   We arrive in the morning and measure every machine on the list at the start, before balancing anything. Only then do we fix the working order. That way, if time gets tight, what goes undone is the least urgent item rather than the most.

5. 05

   Day two: finish and verify hot

   We close out the remaining machines and re-measure day one's machines after a full shift under load. That is the advantage of staying over: a check with the machine hot and settled, which a same-day round trip simply does not allow.

6. 06

   Report and stored coefficients

   We record the before and after figures at the same points and the same operating condition. We keep the influence coefficients for each machine, that is, exactly how that rotor responds to an installed mass. On a later trip south, this allows trim balancing, a quick touch-up without fresh trial runs.

Phone and WhatsApp +351 931 831 229, email axilinegeral@gmail.com, Instagram @axiline.pt. Base: Rua das Colectividades 76 R/C ET, 4430-625 Vila Nova de Gaia. A short video of the machine running tells us more than a description in words, especially while we are deciding whether the drive is justified.

What to prepare before we arrive

Preparation counts for even more at this distance than it does close to home. Near Porto, one missing condition means coming back next week. In Lisbon or Setúbal it means a whole trip wasted, with the drive and the per diem already spent.

• A window in which each machine can be stopped and restarted at least three times in succession.
• Access to the correction plane: a hatch that opens, a removable cover, a window in the casing. If there is no access, tell us beforehand, because that changes the work plan and sometimes changes the answer.
• Clean bare metal surfaces at the bearing housings for the vibration sensors, free of paint and dirt, because the magnet has to seat properly.
• A spot for the reflective mark on the shaft or pulley, with a clear line of sight for the laser phase sensor.
• A 220 V socket near the machine for the laptop and the module.
• The rotor cleaned of deposits, if build-up is visible to the naked eye. This is decisive in cement, food and dust extraction.
• Fastenings checked and tightened: feet, frame, foundation. A soft foot, meaning a machine foot that does not sit properly on the frame, ruins the result more reliably than any calculation error.
• The fitter and welder settled. With your own people it is included in the price; with our specialists it is 150 EUR per rotor without welding or 400 EUR per rotor with welding.
• In an ATEX zone, or without a hot work permit, confirm in advance whether welding is allowed at all. If it is not, we plan bolt-on masses, and for that the rotor needs holes or fixing points.
• In food plants and wineries, confirm which materials and fixing methods are permitted in the wet zone.
• At port terminals, refineries and petrochemical complexes, request the access passes days in advance and send us the site safety rules.
• In office buildings, hospitals and shopping centres, confirm who opens the roof or the plant room at night and whether there is a lifeline or anchor point.

Your site's safety requirements always outrank our schedule. We would rather postpone a machine than improvise somewhere improvisation is not allowed, and we say so before leaving Gaia rather than standing in front of the control panel.

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