Removal company costs

[SaltySeaAir]

Hi,

Those that have moved recently, how much did you pay for the removal company?

We are going from 3 bed to 5 bed, less than 5 mins away. Does £900 sound an ok price? No packing, or materials.

We've mostly had quotes of about £1000 per day, but to empty our 4 bed biggish house they packed nearly everything into the big van the day before, then came back for the beds and last few things on removal day (because we were in a chain and had to be out by noon)

Sounds ok. We paid around £1000 I think, and £100 refundable fee for boxes. 3 bed to large 4 bed a few minutes away.

The additional packing service was extortionate though because removals were ridiculously busy: around £600 I think, so we chose to pack it all ourselves. Never again

£1,200 inc VAT moving approx 20 miles, no packing or boxes.

3 storey houses at both ends with limited parking at one.

They moved a lot of stuff, and worked really hard. Worth every penny.

Thanks, quote sounds about right then.

My husband is trying to pursuade me we can do it ourselves and just hire a van 😳

In his defence we have a week with both houses, he's slowly bringing me around 😆

We are paying £1700 for our 3 bed to 5 bed move including packing, packing materials and VAT so £950 is a bargain! We are in a very expensive part of London though..

We're paying 2k for a 200 mile move, including packing materials but not packing service. We had a lower quote of 1750 too but the company were really unprofessional so went with the higher.

I recently paid £1600 for a 160 mile move. No packing or materials. South east company if that makes any difference?

DO NOT DO IT YOURSELVES!!!!!

We did a couple of self moves and they were awful. I persuaded OH to go with movers the move before last and it was just bliss in comparison. £600 from 3 bed to 5 bed, 10 minute drive in 2016. They dismantled beds and rebuilt at the other side and worked so hard on what was a really warm day.

Unfortunately on our last move, OH was convinced we could do it ourselves as was about a minutes drive away and I don’t think he could bear up part with so much money to move round the corner, we also had a 2 week overlap as were going from rented to bought…..it was hell on earth, actually worse than that!! Suffice to say we are NEVER doing a DIY house move again, he wouldn’t dare suggest it.

Get the movers OP.

@Spanglybangles This is what I am worried about! We have no local family, and two children in different schools that need taking and collecting. What about it was 'hell on earth?' I really need to convince my husband it's a bad idea 😩

We were quoted £3k - £5k for moving a 4 bed house 15 minutes away from multiple removal quotes. Is it just Surrey and Sutton that's expensive then?

Which removal companies are you using with those £1k quotes?!

It was hell on earth as it’s not really viable for the 2 of you to get all the large pieces of furniture out of the house, secured in a van/lorry then taken off the van and moved into the new place, it really isn’t. Even worse if you have stairs.

Sofas are a particular difficulty depending on doorways and angles, same with large white goods. We had to get a glazier to come and remove our living room window to get the sofa in due to a tight angle from front door to living room but movers would probably have known how to get it in themselves. Wardrobes are not fun to get up and downstairs, sideboards and chests of drawers are heavy and cumbersome. You will get angry with each other, you will probably damage furniture, walls, paintwork.

We have a trailer and a small van of our own and we hired a van too. It wasn’t enough. We ended up desperately phoning every man and van locally on the day we moved this big stuff as we were overwhelmed. They weren’t very good, but they were extra manpower which is what we needed. They damaged stuff, but we were just relieved to finally get everything shifted. It was super stressful and ended up costing not much less than movers. Not worth the hassle I promise you.

There's an art to packing a van or lorry that only comes with experience.

The order stuff is loaded on, what can be stacked, what forms the base or corners of the load etc. It's that experience that means they would get far more into one van than a DIY job, and without damaging stuff or the load shifting in transport and causing more damage or breakages.

They have all the kit needed - hanging rails, mattress and furniture covers, picture and TV/media sleeves if needed and so on. Plus they have insurance in case anything goes wrong.

I moved middle of august about 5 miles , they just moved ready packed ( by me) boxes and furniture , dismantled and remade beds , sofa , table etc cost me £895 which I rounded up to £1000 , I thought it was a good price for piece of mind and a great service ( used them before)

I should have said 3 bed to 5 bed , easy level access to both

I usedGinos removals and they quoted £50ph. £175 well spent. I’m in Birmingham but I think they do other areas.
2bed to 2bed though 20 mins drive away

Some years back we did a similar local move largely by ourselves (toddler and small baby, but the luxury of several weeks overlap enabling us to get the place painted etc). We did however arrange removalists for the large items eg bed, fridge, washing machine etc. Wouldn't have wanted to attempt those by ourselves. As it was DH didn't understand that once we'd moved the bed he wasn't going to get much more help packing up the old place from me, given the logistics of looking after the 3 month old! He was just impatient to get in to the new place.

By all means do some of the stuff yourselves, but it will be so much more straightforward if the bulky heavy stuff is done by others. And if you've got school aged children you'll have a lot more stuff than we did back then.

[quote SaltySeaAir]@Spanglybangles This is what I am worried about! We have no local family, and two children in different schools that need taking and collecting. What about it was 'hell on earth?' I really need to convince my husband it's a bad idea 😩[/quote]
We did it once. Never again. And we had no kids, two sets of fairly young, fit in-laws both with cars, our car, and a hired box van with a tail lift (essential if you have to move a washing machine or cooker).

We had to do it in a day- about the same distance as yours. But things are still just as heavy if you have a week to move them in. If you hire a tail lift for more than day, you will rack costs up that would be better spent on removers.

If you do it over a week, you will also have to schedule it as efficiently as the D-day landings or you'll find yourselves in a house with either a cooker and no bed, or beds and no cooker. Our last move was a 100 mile gradually staged DIY move (we bought a large Transit) over some months as we were rewiring etc, camping out on a futon at the new house, but when the Big Move came with things like big furniture, beds and washing machines, we got removers. And it took a lot of careful planning.

Also, you don't want to start your new house adventure with a slipped disc or furniture damaged when traveling in the van. When we did it, I knew how to lift, and had the grunt muscles for it because loading and stacking artics by hand had very recently been part of my job......

We had a similar situation recently moving mother in law from four bed to three bed house which was about a mile and so five minutes drive away.

We couldnt get a 'proper' removal company owing to delays in moving dates; we feared that we would have to do it ourselves but in the end we had a man and van and it all worked out fine.

We hired a local company who supplied a luton van (bit bigger than a transit) with two men and they managed to do it five trips over the course of six hours or so. Cost was £50 an hour which I thought was very reasonable - this is in Hampshire.

Following advice from friends who have had bad experiences in the past we made sure we went with a 'proper' company with the name on the vans, an actual office and which was happy to give details of their insurance on the website - there seem to be a lot of self employed 'man with van' services available which are less than reputable.

(plus make sure you leave your most precious/breakable stuff out of the van and take it yourself)

We moved 5 years ago and it was £1,000 to move a 2 bed flat to a 3 bed house half an hour away. Worth every penny. They turned up just after 8am and were packed up by 9am. If we'd been doing it ourselves it would have been a few hours and I'm not sure the fish tank would have survived the trip down the stairs They were even quicker moving everything in. DH admitted it was the best money we'd spent.

I am weeping at these quotes. We've been quoted £6k for a 250 mile move (4 bed house, two floors, no special pianos or chandeliers or weird parking). I got quotes from a number of movers to check for outliers and aside from 1 they're all in the 5.5-6k zone including packing.

It's a good thing I like baked beans.

Went 40 miles with a man and a van. 7 years + 2 kids worth of stuff. £200. Would do again!!!