Removal costs

Loomcgoo

I have a 3 bed 2 reception house and am moving from Dundee to Kent - approx 500 miles. I am packing the contents myself as I have all the boxes and packaging from a previous move. I had a local firm up today and they have quoted me £2695 plus £220 for insurance for the move using 3 men. Can someone tell me if this is reasonable. Thanks

shonzyd

Sounds absolutely extortionate!!! Have you worked out how much it would cost for you to hire a van and drive down your self? Minus that from the figure they have quoted and see what that comes out at.

I suspect most of the cost is paying the wages of the 3 men and the time it will take them to do a 1000mile round trip.

phoebe1989seb

We've previously paid in excess of £4k to move 150 miles, packing ourselves but that was for the contents of a six-bed 3500 sq ft house (2007) including antique furniture plus a very heavy hot tub This was a large nationwide co, btw.

More recently we were quoted around £2500 to move a little less stuff (not including the hot tub) 200 miles by a smaller local firm, again doing the packing ourselves.

Instead, to *save money* we elected to hire the largest van we could and do it ourselves. I must say it turned out to be a false economy.......seven trips over the course of a week, van hire costs, tons of diesel and back-breaking work - never again, we'd use a small local co next time

Loomcgoo

I'm struggling getting my head around this price. I too think this is extortionate. I have called another firm to come tomorrow and will compare what they say to see if this is basically the going rate. I had thought about getting a van and doing it ourselves but also feel this would be too much hassle back and forth considering the distance

murrayfan_2

I think it's too much. We paid about the same for our last proper house move, but that was from Orkney to Cornwall 3 years ago (packing ourselves, 3 bed, 1 reception room bungalow).

dacouch

Fuel = Between £300 - £500
Wages = £600
Hotel = £70
Profit = ?
Incidentals - £50

VAT = 20%

shonzyd

Get a few quotes and ask they for a breakdown of costs i,e as stated above - wages, petrol, hotel etc. Then do a comparison. It will do no harm to shop around.

If they come back and say £1500 for petrol then you know they're having a laugh

Loomcgoo

I have just emailed the company and asked for a breakdown so it will be interesting to see what they come back with. The guy told me they have bunks in the cab of the lorry and the guys would sleep there overnight so this price doesn't even include a hotel.

dacouch

Loomcgoo wrote: »

I have just emailed the company and asked for a breakdown so it will be interesting to see what they come back with. The guy told me they have bunks in the cab of the lorry and the guys would sleep there overnight so this price doesn't even include a hotel.

In that case it's a truck, it might take them three days there and back due to the driver being limited in hours he can drive

murrayfan_2

dacouch wrote: »

In that case it's a truck, it might take them three days there and back due to the driver being limited in hours he can drive

When we moved from Orkney to Cornwall they arrived in Orkney the night before, slept in the cab, and we all drove down to Cornwall the next morning. There were three of them and the drivers swapped over to get round the hours limitations. It took us about 20 hours to drive down after the initial ferry crossing. I did all the driving for our family in the car, we stopped for 3 hours and that was it. So although I don't think the quote given here is WAY out of line given the distance, I think it might be beatable.

tim123456789

You need to get lots of quotes for such a move.

The cost will depend upon whether they use local guys to load and different local guy to unload, or whether they have to send all the men down in the van to do the unload.

You have to pay the wages of the men whilst they are sitting in the van doing nothing so the fewer of these that there are, the better. National firms will be better for this even though they are usually much more expensive for local moves

I wouldn't recommend a self move of a full house, but what you could do, if you can find a man with large enough van, have him employ his mates to load up and you help him unload.