Which removal firm have you used and why?

[Yurtgirl]

Message withdrawn

try to get personal recommendation.
pickfords are rubbish IME

Have used pickfords and GN lIners. Apart from the packing ( had a learning disabled person on the team but no-one really supervised him so he packed individual knives in abou 10 layers of paper)Pickfords were fine. GB Liners were very good too.

And we used them because our removals have been paid for by work, and they will only pay for the cheapest of 2 quotes!

Message withdrawn

I'm not a fan of Pickfords at all! I have had really good experiences with small local firms.

It cost £700 for a local firm to go pick up my stuff (contents of a 2 bed flat incl. piano) & drive it to Southampton. Much cheaper than Pickfords & they did a good job. I guess it depends on how much kit you've got

I used a fabulous company - can't remember the name at the moment

a bunch of lovely-looking Australian men in SHORTS turned up and ran round my flat packing everything, they were wearing singlet vests too, and then ran all the boxes down to the lorry.. the the other end .. the same team of lovely-looking Australian men, in shorts ran the boxes in to the new house and put them

so picture me .. sitting in a chair, with a cup of tea watching lovely-looking Australian men in shorts running ... for a whole afternoon

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

London .. there's loads of them here

I have used Ward-Thomas (based in Battersea) twice - excellent. They moved me 4 streets away in London, and then from London to Wilts. My experience was extremely similar to twigletts, except I think the fittest one was a Kiwi...!

Ok we moved a two bedroomed flat just under 200 miles recently. I googled for removals in both places (outgoing and incoming). I also went to here as they will give you the 3 nearest in both places.

We used a local firm in the place we were going to, as they slightly bettered the price of Pickfords. They were very good and worked their socks off. (but we did feed them bacon sarnies)

We had Pickfords when we moved from Scotland to South-East England basically because Dh's company were paying for it. I couldn't fault them. The people who did our removals were a local company who are now part of Pickfords. I don't know if Pickfords are franchised or if they have just taken over lots of small removal companies so it could just be the luck of the draw as to how good the actual removal men are. They do send someone round a week or two before the move to assess what size of van is needed etc

Have used Pickfords for our last two moves, they are expensive but both times i thought they were excellent

we used fox-moving.com for our move last year. They were excellent, although sadly no hunky Kiwis, just a driver who had to have tea breaks every 15 mins because he was diabetic( and lots of choccie biscuits to keep his sugar levels up) WTF?
Excellent service, highly recommend them. took 5 days to pack, move, unpack, and were still £1K cheaper than Pickfords. Its all down to the crew you get on the day, however good the sales spiel.The people we bought from used Pickfords, and the garage loft was still full of their stuff when we moved in. They are still waitiing for Pickfords to come back and move it for them. Look out for listings soon on ebay!
I would go to the website of the British Association of Removers for a list of their members in your area and get quotes from the listed people only, and don't forget to check the amount your stuff in insured for is at least related to the amount on your home contents insurance.- get valuable items listed and insured seperately, and make sure they export wrap any art so that it is well protected.
Good luck!

Message withdrawn

A good removal company will happily sort out adequate insurance for you at a reasonable rate and are pretty good at estimating the total value of goods (you just need to draw attention to unusal items etc).
At the end of the day, whatever the sales spiel, in my experience most of these firms use a great deal of casual labour mixed in with more experienced staff. It's often down to luck of the draw as to how good the staff allocated to your move are. I had a really good experience with a small local firm 4 yrs ago and the a disaster with the same firm(different crew) two yrs later!
(Sorry, I know that's not what you needed to hear!)

Yurtgirl - just think of the lorry lying on its side on the motorway, with all your stuff over the carriageway. Didn't happen to me, thank god, but i still remember the pictures from the local paper. the firms insurance cost was v reasonable, and it covers you if one of the crew drop your tv, for example. Moving is costly enough without having to replace your posessions too!

Remember ... Aussie men in shorts .. running ...

Ward Thomas, based in London. I'm sure that would be Twiglett's Aussie boys in shorts.

yup that's them .. same company as the Princess ..

mmm... aussies .. shorts .. running