to be confused by removal men

[colourmehappytheresasofainhere]

I'm tearing my hair out !! Getting quotes of 1300 to pack up and move our one bedroom flat which is jammed full of stuff. It's not that I think it's too much I just don't understand what they are on about in terms of numbers of packers, time it takes, lorry size etc and getting in a tizz. Did others find it straightforward or am I being unreasonable to find it so boggling?

I paid £500 to a reputable professional removal company (4 bed detached house, 15 mile move).
You can keep the costs down by packing all your boxes yourself and just have the removal company load and n load the van on moving day.
To do a proper quote the removal company should come to your house and look how much stuff you have got and then give you a price. It's impossible for them to give a price without actually seeing the job as they will know about packing time, lorry sizes, time required etc.

Ah I see. Ok. What was the name of the company you used?

We used P Fahey and sons which are a big firm but I think they only operate within greater Manchester. They did a fab job and it was all super efficient and nothing was broken. We packed everything ourselves but they supplied all the boxes and tape a cople of weeks beforehand and bought hanging wardrobe boxes on the day for our clothing.
Pick fords quoted us around £650, which was still very reasonable (but again we were going to pack everything up ourselves).

Can you hire a van and do it yourself?

Depends if you want them to do all the packing or if you are doing it yourself. Also, without seeing how much stuff you have it might be hard for anyone here to guesstimate how much it might cost. Some people in a big house may be minimalist with hardly any stuff. Some people in a small house may be hoarders and have masses of stuff.

If you don't want to pack yourself you will be paying a premium. We paid around £500 for a removal van to get our things out of storage and bring them to the new house.

Make sure that your movers are BAR registered have a look here

Their biggest cost is manpower. So usually if they are not packing they need the men for one day, if they are packing too that can be at least one extra day if not two.

That sounds like a lot. We paid around £800 to move from a 2 bed flat (3rd floor, no lift) to a house (London prices). We packed for ourselves.

TBH, unless massively pushed for time I would always prefer to pack myself - it is a chance for a good clear out!

We paid £65 a day to hire a large transit van and then packed and moved everything ourselves with the help of ndn's sack wheels for the white goods.
Our friends moved a similar amount of stuff and paid £1000 for removal men to pack everything, transport it and move all the boxes in to the correct rooms at the other end.

Price is dependent on a number of things.

Do you want them to pack every thing for you ? then you pay more.

Are you =wanting to take everything or can you be ruthlessa and have a clear out. If you've got more stuff than the average then it will cost more.

Are you moving far ?

Sounds quite expensive to me - we paid around that for a 4 bed house!! I packed everything apart from the kitchen so they did all the crockery, glasses etc. The reasons for this were twofold: 1) they are professional packers so are fast and know the best way and 2) if they pack the boxes, the come under their insurance not yours. This means if a box of glasses get dropped, it's up to them to cover the cost.