Professional movers

MrRemus

Hi - I'm seriously considering hiring some professional movers when we move from our 2 bed house as we have a small child - although it goes against all my money-saving instincts! :rotfl:

Can anyone whose used prof movers tell me roughly:

• what you get for your money
• what elements you can do yourself and save a bit (ie do your own packing?)
• how much it would be ££ approx? We are only moving up the road, around half a mile. We are in Bristol

Thanks in advance :T

Bufger

I havent had the need yet but some close family members recently moved and I did the research and helped them move. On average it was around £400 (quotes from all over the place from big firms to local movers). You have to be very clear and concise with what goes where. We got things into groups the day of the move which helped alot

We did the big stuff first (furniture) and whilst that was being done a few family members basically emptied cupboards and grouped kitchen stuff, bedroom stuff etc all together and the movers sorted breakable from non breakable. We instructed which rooms they would be delivered to and unpacked ourselves as they hadnt purchased all of the furniture they wanted at that time.

Not one single broken item and it was all amazingly quick. I was a FTB and had only a few car loads of possessions when i moved. Now i have some substantial furniture i think i'll end up paying for a removals company as house selling/buying is stressful enough as it is!

hazyjo

I would never ever deal with my own move ever again. OMG I remember lugging a fridge freezer, washing machine, 2 beds, books, furniture and gawd knows what else from my 1st floor flat when moving to a house once... *shudders*

I think removal men are worth their weight in gold. I cannot explain the sheer satisfaction of watching them pick up all those boxes, etc. We paid for them to pack for us last time and what took them just over 2 days would have taken us over 2 weeks. I felt like doing cartwheels round the garden, the feeling of relief was indescribable!

There's more than enough stress going on without having to start packing everything days ahead, then you have to unload it all the other end too! Yuck.

It is expensive, but worth it generally - unless you live very minimalistically. I on the other hand have a ridiculous amount of 'stuff'.

Jx

irishcol

Couldn't agree more with hazyjo.

For a few hundred pounds, you get much less stress, a faster pack/unpack service and the security of their insurance. When you consider how much the whole thing is costing, the cost of movers is by far the best value for money out of anything!

There's plenty else to do on the morning of a move without rushing around trying to finish packing.

i would never move myself again.

bitsandpieces

How much you spend depends on how much you want them to do. I moved pretty cheaply last time - packed myself, but got a 'man with a van' to help shift stuff. A very tiring day - not sure if I'd do it again, but then because of the distance and getting a good price I saved best part of a grand compared to getting a professional company to do all the work :money: Other companies will do everything from pack things up to move them to the new house to unpacking - saving time, but costing you more.

Depends how much time/energy you have and how much your time is worth to you...

phoebe1989seb

We would never trust a removal firm to pack our *stuff* as we have lots of very precious irreplaceable antiques. We have previously paid in excess of £4000 to a professional removal company - although that was to move around 150 miles, included moving a hot tub and took five days - but when on another occasion we did it ourselves in a luton van it took seven (or was it eight?) journeys over the course of a week and still managed to cost around £2000 for van hire and fuel but not including packing materials.......never again!

Yorkie1

When I moved a couple of years ago, I paid the removals firm to pack me the day before the actual move. It was worth every penny. It meant I had no boxes cluttering up my house (which was a small 2-bed terrace) and minimised the stress beyond belief.

They literally packed everything (things like drawers got moved as they were). You put anything you don't want to be packed in one location, and then leave them to it.

I paid about £600 for the packing and move if I recall correctly; I didn't move far.

Lessons to be learned:
- when they quote, make sure you mention wardrobe rails (for your clothes to hang on during the move) and highlight anything outside which will also need moving
- ask for a fixed price rather than hourly for the packing, if possible. My chaps were relatively efficient but with the hourly rate there was no incentive to get it done without my being charged another 2 hours' worth of packing (1 hour each).
- ring the removal company a couple of days before, just to double check that you are booked in. Despite two phone calls and one signed order form, my firm hadn't got me booked in, and had to pull one chap off another job and a second chap in from Leave. Then they did't book me in for the move the following day. Unbelievable!!

eamon

If your are fit and able, comfortable driving a large van (or truck), have some friends to help and time is less of an issue then a DIY move will likely save money unless you are moving hundreds of miles. Otherwise get the professionals in and at the very least get them to quote.

Ivana_Tinkle

Honestly, it's the best money you'll ever spend!

Pack yourself if you want to save money but get the professionals to do the actual moving. There are so many advantages, but just a few more that haven't been mentioned:

- Because they're used to lugging big pieces of furniture around, you'll find that you don't need to do nearly as much disassembling and reassembling as if you did the move yourself. I was astonished that ours were happy to move quite big bookcases just as one piece, and I couldn't believe how skilful they were at maneouvring them through what looked like impossibly small doorways!

- If anything goes wrong on moving day and (God forbid), your stuff had to go into storage, you can ask them to sort it out for you. This nearly happened to us when all the bank computers crashed on moving day and we didn't know if we'd be able to complete. I remember imagining the panic I'd have been in if we'd been trying to do it all ourselves.

- This is less of an issue if both houses have driveways and you can park v close to the property, but, even for a fit person, lugging heavy stuff gets unbelievably tiring unbelievably quickly if you're not used to it, even if you like to think of yourself as relatively fit!

jackomdj

I am going to go against the grain here!

When we moved last year from a 3 bed crammed full of stuff we got several quotes, the smallest of which was £1200(!) As I could not justify paying that out we did it ourselves. I did the majority of the packing on my days off, we hired a van for Fri, Sat return first thing Sun. Fri OH and I did all the smaller bits, Fri night Sat am a friend came and moved all the bits I couldn't do as they were too big for me.

We moved into a 3 story house and managed to happily move it all. Had to get some help with the children, I dropped them to school, friend picked them up, another friend (2 friends don't know each other) collected them from friend 1's and took them to their swimming lessons them returned them to friend 1's for dinner, then they came to their new house... Fun night sleeping on mattresses on the floor! They were 4 and 6 at the time.

Linus2864

Personally I'd recommend a local removals firm with yourselves doing the packing, especially if you are also selling your current property and your vendors are moving out on the same day, as it is much quicker than doing it yourselves.

When we moved into our first house, we moved ourselves as we had the time to move stuff bit by bit and didn't have a lot of furniture.

However for our recent move we got several quotes and used a firm for about £400 who were excellent. We did the packing ourselves once we had exchanged and on the day, two men arrived at 8am and had all the stuff in the removals van within 2 hours.

This was important as the contracts specified that the house had to be empty and ready for completion by midday so we were able to give the house a good clean, call the solicitor and agents and drop the keys off.

Our vendors, on the other hand, were doing the removals themselves and were still loading up when our removals van arrived. This meant that we had to wait a bit longer for them to get out and they eventually missed the deadline to vacate - we could have made a fuss, but we just wanted to get them out!

My advice:

Get several quotes - with the firm we chose, the owner came round and made a note of absolutely everything
Confirm what their insurance covers and how delicates (eg TVs etc) will be packed
When you exchange, let them know the date asap and make sure everything is packed.
Give them a map of the area and which is your house.
Also draw a map of your house with the rooms marked, and label all the boxes and furniture so they can get the right stuff in the right rooms.

Hope all goes well!