Postage or courier for heavy items

[GeorgeEliot]

If something is a bit heavy for the post, what courier service do people recommend? How do you calculate the postage charge for a courier? Presume they come and pick it up from your house or office?

Thanks!

I've tried to look at this closely.
From what I can tell, as a rule courier only better (than RM) for high value items, very heavy (if you've no car), awkward shape (e.g., too long), when you have regular contracts (lots of similar items to send frequently, or stuff you want to arrive quickly (esp. at busy times like near Christmas).
They do pick up at your door, some will do it in a tight time window others you have to wait in all day for or risk leaving item somewhere obvious for them. Unless you can deliver direct to depot, that is.

Calculating price is a Pigs Ear of a Game, ime; you can try sites like Parcelmonkey which are just resellers for other companies. Parcelmonkey &b it's other incarnations will usually be much cheaper than buying direct (from the courier's actual website). Look closely at the limits (size, insurance, weight, etc.). EG, default value of insurance tends to be lower with couriers (but you can pay to insure for higher).

There is somewhere online where you can read reviews, they all get slagged off plenty, but some are far worse than others.

Ive used parcelmonkey with no problems and parcel2go, i use it for bigger heavy items