Small Removals

What counts as a small removal

There is no official definition, so here is ours — roughly, anything that fits in one van in one trip with two people loading it.

• A studio. Bed, sofa or chair, a small wardrobe, a table, kitchen boxes and clothes. Usually a half day in London if you are packed.
• A one-bed flat. The same plus a proper wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a washing machine and more boxes. A half day with a lift, a full day up a walk-up or if the packing is not finished.
• A student room. A bed's worth of belongings, a desk, a bike and six to ten boxes. Frequently two rooms in the same building on the same trip — see student moves.
• A part load. Not a whole property: the furniture you are keeping, a room going to a relative's house, the contents of a garage, or half a flat going into storage while the other half stays.
• A first move in together. One person's things joining another's, which is almost always a one-van job even when both people think it is not.

What it is not: a two- or three-bed house. That is a full crew and a different page — house removals. And if you are only moving one sofa or one bed, do not buy a removal at all; buy the fixed single-item price at £55 within the M25 on single item moves.

One driver, or a van and two movers?

This is the decision that moves the price most, and it has a clean answer.

• One driver, priced by the loaded mile. Right when the job is one item, or a handful of things one person can carry. £55 within the M25; outside it a £95 minimum covering the first 50 loaded miles, then £1.90 a mile collection to delivery. Collected today, nothing else in the van. Add £45 if a single piece needs two people at one end, or £25 for a second item from the same pickup.
• Van and two movers, by the hour or by the block. Right for an actual move: a room or more of furniture, boxes, a staircase, a deadline. £89 an hour with a 2-hour minimum, or £340 and £640 for the blocks.

Every hourly booking runs two movers. There is no cheaper one-mover hourly tier, and that is deliberate: one person carrying a sofa down a communal staircase is how walls, doorframes and backs get damaged, and a job that takes one person three hours often takes two people ninety minutes. On a 2-hour minimum, a second pair of hands routinely pays for itself inside the first booking.

Where people get this wrong is booking the hours for a job that was really a delivery. If the honest answer to “how many trips up the stairs?” is one, you want the fixed price, not the clock.

Local, or long distance

Inside London and the Home Counties, small removals run on the hourly rate or a day block, because the time is spent at the two addresses rather than on the road.

Once you are going up the country that stops being sensible — nobody wants a meter running on the M40. A long-distance van load is priced as a day rate with two movers, fixed before you book:

• London to the Midlands — £450. The Birmingham band: Coventry, Leicester, Northampton, Milton Keynes and the rest of the corridor.
• London to the North — £600. The Manchester and Leeds band, and the cities either side of it.
• Everywhere else on the mainland gets a fixed day-rate quote before you commit — the same shape of price, worked out for your route rather than guessed from a band.

If it is genuinely a single item rather than a van load — a sofa, a bed, a fridge, a bike — it goes on the courier ladder instead and is usually far cheaper: £1.90 a loaded mile with a £95 minimum, so London to Birmingham is £238, London to Leeds £371 and London to Manchester £380. That is one driver, one item, collected today and delivered the same day up to about 200 miles — overnight beyond that. Ask, and we will tell you which one your list falls into. The important part is that ours is a dedicated van either way: your things go straight there, not into a shared load waiting for a driver already heading your way.

What a two-hour minimum really buys

Nearly every hourly man-and-van firm in London has a 2-hour minimum, and it is worth understanding what it is for rather than treating it as a trick. A van and crew have to get to you, and the trip out and back is real cost that nobody bills for separately. The minimum is what makes a small job possible at all.

What you get for it here: the van, the fuel, two movers, trolleys, straps, moving blankets and floor protection. The clock starts when we arrive at the collection address and stops when the last box is in the right room. Driving between your two addresses is inside the hour, not added to it. There is no stair charge and no surcharge for a walk-up.

Two hours with two people is more than it sounds: a packed studio with lift access at both ends is regularly done inside it. What breaks the estimate is not distance — it is a long carry from the van to the door, a lift that is booked out by another resident, and packing that is still happening when we arrive.

Past four hours, stop buying hours. The half day at £340 is four hours all-in and the full day at £640 is eight. Between the two we charge the half day plus £89 an hour and never more than the full day, so an overrun cannot cost you more than the day rate.

Packing, boxes and what to do the night before

Packing is the biggest lever you have on the bill, because it converts your unpaid evening into paid crew time if you leave it. A rule of thumb: everything that is not furniture should be in a sealed box before we knock.

• Boxes. A studio is usually 10–15 medium boxes; a one-bed 20–30. Medium beats large — a big box full of books is a box nobody can lift safely.
• Label the side, not the top. Boxes get stacked. Write the room it is going to, not what is inside it.
• Beds and flat-pack. Say up front if a bed frame or wardrobe needs dismantling. We can do it, but it is time, and knowing beforehand is the difference between a half day and a full one.
• Appliances. Fridges and washing machines should be emptied, defrosted and drained the night before. A washer wants its transit bolts in if you still have them.
• Keep a first-night bag. Kettle, bedding, charger, toilet roll, tools. It travels with you, not in the van.

We bring trolleys, straps, moving blankets and floor protection as standard, and we wrap furniture rather than stacking it bare. If you would rather not pack at all, say so when you ask for the price — it is a longer booking, and the honest thing is to price it as one rather than discover it on the day.

Moving day timing

We run seven days a week, 7am to 10pm. For a small removal that flexibility matters more than it does for a house move, because the constraints are usually the building's rather than yours.

• Book an early slot. A 7am or 8am start beats the parking wardens, the school run and the lift queue in a block of flats. It is the single easiest way to keep a small move inside a half day.
• Check the lift and the loading bay. Many blocks require the service lift to be reserved and some restrict moving hours entirely. Two phone calls a week ahead — building manager, then the council about parking — save more time than any decision we make on the day.
• Tenancy overlaps. If the keys to the new place only appear at lunchtime, tell us. We can load in the morning, hold the load in the van and deliver when the keys land, rather than you paying a crew to wait on the kerb.
• Same-day. A crewed removal needs a booked slot, so today depends on the diary having one free. A single item is different — that is the courier run, and it is collected today as standard, usually within two hours of booking, with nothing added for it. West London, Hillingdon, Bucks and the M40/M25 corridor get the fastest turnaround — we are based in Uxbridge UB8 and Chalfont St Peter.

Ask us for the current insurance certificate, cover limits and exclusions that apply to your job before you book. Congestion Charge (£18) is passed through only where the route actually crosses the zone; the vans are ULEZ-compliant.