Flat & apartment removals
Five situations, and yours is one of them
Flat moves are decided by the way out, not by how much furniture there is. Find the row that matches your building and you will know most of what your quote depends on.
The single most useful thing you can tell us about a flat is the floor and whether there is a lift. Almost everything else follows from those two facts — crew size, how long the day runs, and whether a heavy item is straightforward or a proper piece of planning.
Lift, and it takes your furniture
The easy one
Book the slot, check the internal dimensions rather than assuming, and load the order so the lift runs full instead of often. Distance from bay to door is the only real cost.
Lift, but it will not take the long items
Split job
Sofas, mattresses, bed frames and anything over the diagonal go by stairs while everything else goes by lift. Both happen at once with the crew split, which is why crew size matters here.
No lift, second floor or above
The expensive variable
Every item is carried, one at a time, by people who then walk back down. This is the single biggest thing that changes a flat quote, and it is why we ask about the floor before anything else.
A heavy item above ground level
Assess first
A safe, an upright piano or a multi-gym on a third floor is a heavy-item job that happens to be in a flat. Route, treads and what the floor sits on all get looked at before a price exists.
A managed building with rules
Paperwork first
Insurance documents to the managing agent, a booked move window, sometimes a deposit and sometimes restricted hours. We deal with that correspondence so the day is a move, not a negotiation.
What a flat move includes
The same standard as a house, sized down. Furniture blanketed in the room, boxes labelled for where they are going, beds and flat-pack dismantled and rebuilt, and runners on communal hallways — shared carpet is somebody else's problem right up until it is yours and your deposit's.
Packaging goes away with us at the end, which matters more than it sounds when a check-out inspection is booked for the same week.
If there is something heavy in it
Then read heavy item removals as well, and pianos if that is what it is. A heavy item above ground level is the part of a flat move that most needs looking at rather than describing.
Smaller than a flat?
A single room or a part load is a man-and-van job and costs less because it is less work. A whole house is house removals.
Flat moves — straight answers
Does the floor really change the price that much?
Without a lift, yes — more than almost anything else. Every item makes a round trip on foot, and that is time rather than effort. With a working lift that takes your furniture, the floor barely matters.
Will my sofa get down the stairs?
We measure the turn at survey. Many sofas come apart at the back and go through flat. A few genuinely will not go, usually because they were carried in before a bannister or a wall changed, and knowing that in advance beats discovering it on a half-landing.
Can you move a piano out of a flat?
Often. It is a heavy-item job with a flat attached rather than a flat move with a piano in it, and it gets the full route assessment — treads, turn, headroom, and whether the building permits a window lift if the staircase will not do it.
Do I need to tell the building?
In most managed blocks, yes. Agents commonly want notice, insurance details and a booked lift slot, and some restrict moving hours outright. Ask as soon as you have a date — it is the most common cause of a late start.
What if the lift is out of service on the day?
We carry, which takes longer. We would rather know in advance and rebook than convert a booked slot into an improvised one, so we ring the building the day before to check.
Do you do student and single-room moves?
Yes, and they are quoted as real jobs. A room out of a shared flat still has a staircase, a street door and a parking problem attached.
Floor, lift or no lift, and anything heavy
Three facts and we can get most of the way to a quote. Send them through and we will arrange the rest.