Removal costs

hogweed

Has anybody got recent experience of paying a removal company to move from England to N Ireland? I have to move in a couple of months, and am shocked by the costs I’ve been quoted (eg £4000).

I live alone now, so there’s only my possessions; I’ve got rid of non-essential furniture; 2 of my 4 bedrooms are completely empty – and none of the rooms are heavily “populated”. In fact, the guy from Advanced Removals just glanced around, said “This is only a small move”, then happily quoted me £4400 inc VAT!

Cheapest so far is about £3300 – and then they have the gall to say your stuff’s not insured, and it’ll be an extra £400+ if you want your possessions insured!!! Big, well-known company, too :eek:

PS I love the way the section on house moving on this site says “Unless you can pile your belongings into the back of a car, factor in the cost of a removal van. These start at £100 for small local moves, but can easily cost up to £1,000 for shifting a family's worldly goods long distances.

Up to £1000, eh… phone number please???

aneary

£100 for small local moves you are kidding? My next move will cost £145 for van hire then petrol I luckily have two free men ie dad and uncle but I'll still have to pay to feed them. I cannot see a company doing it for £100!!

JP08

I'm not too surprised by your quotes to be honest.

Two people driving - probably 3 especially if tachos are involved. 3 days labour at least (including all the company overheads etc) , and a lorry tied up for the same time. 2 x Overnight accomodation at least. Fuel. A hefty ferry fee or a very long drive (depending on your start point) - a quick websearch gives a return for a 7.5 tonner at around £700-£1000 for Liverpool Belfast, about half that after a hefty run up north to Stranraer.

All adds up to expensive.

hogweed

JP08 wrote: »

I'm not too surprised by your quotes to be honest.

Two people driving - probably 3 especially if tachos are involved. 3 days labour at least (including all the company overheads etc) , and a lorry tied up for the same time. 2 x Overnight accomodation at least. Fuel. A hefty ferry fee or a very long drive (depending on your start point) - a quick websearch gives a return for a 7.5 tonner at around £700-£1000 for Liverpool Belfast, about half that after a hefty run up north to Stranraer.

All adds up to expensive.

Yeahhh… sort of. I’m moving to near Larne at the other end of the Cairnryan ferry (½ hour drive); it’s about 400 miles on this side; and the ferry cost is around £360. So no accommodation needed etc.

AnotherJoe

Have you tried a NI based company ?

hogweed

Oh yes... one quoted me £1750 "and we'll forget about the VAT" - but had horrendous reviews. The other (McGimpsey) have a good reputation, but were about £3500... and wanted another £430 if I wanted my goods to be insured while they had them!!! Oh, and it would be a "shared load" - ie they'd go around the country picking people's stuff up till the lorry was full, then deliver mine when they could get around to it - about 4 days after I'd arrived in Ireland to an empty house...

pc10

Try www.vkremovals.com - they are based in NI and do lots of moves to/from England. Great company (I have used them within NI)

hogweed

pc10 wrote: »

Try www.vkremovals.com - they are based in NI and do lots of moves to/from England. Great company (I have used them within NI)

Thanks, will phone them later

JP08

So-o-o-o.

400 miles at 30mph average speed (and it won't be much more than that assuming a proper removal truck) x 2 as they've got to get back is 26 hours of driving plus two ferry trips (say 6 hrs in total allowing for a bit of waiting). Loading and unloading to be added. So 36 hours solid absolute minimum if you've got a bunch of cybermen doing the move.

They're not cybermen so they'll be stopping somewhere, I'd have thought. Though it's only a small part of the cost.

The big hit is the number of blokes and the number of days - I'm still guessing three blokes and three days. If they're getting £100 a day, say (can't be that far out), that's £900. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have total cost of an employee is about 2 x wage on average (for some reason I've got 2.5 in mind, but I'll live with 2).

So £1800 for labour, £300 for fuel, about the same for accommodation and food, £400 for the ferry. 20% vat and we're at £3k without paying for the lorry at this point.

Just my guess figures - but I don't reckon I'm that far adrift.

JP08

You have my sympathy by the way - I'm looking at a move from Cambridgeshire to North Yorkshire in the near future. A fair bit to shift (quite a bit garden, shed and garage related) and we're probably going to save our sanity by getting them to pack. I reckon I'll be pretty lucky to get out the good side of £2k :O(

trailingspouse

It's because it's over the water. We paid £2,000 to move to the Shetland Islands in 1983 (and had to use Pickford's International to do it), so £4,000 doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Slightly off the wall suggestion - you say you don't have much stuff. Why not get rid of the rest of it, hire a transit van for the stuff you can't bear to get rid of, and do it yourself. You could buy quite a lot of furniture for £4,000 if you shopped in the right places, once you were over there.