What we do, and which of it you need

Three ways to do it: we pack everything, we pack the half nobody enjoys — kitchen, glass, pictures, the cabinet full of awkward shapes — or we drop materials off in advance so you can work through it at your own pace.

Protection on a heavy job is a separate thing from packing, and it is not optional. Stair treads boarded, newel posts padded, jambs covered and floors run before anything comes down. More damage happens to houses on heavy moves than to the items being moved, and almost all of it is preventable in the first ten minutes.

If you are packing yourself: fill boxes to the top so they do not crush, and keep them liftable. Half-full boxes collapse under the ones above and overloaded ones split, and both happen in the van rather than in your hallway.

Completion dates rarely line up neatly. Containerised storage bridges the gap — your things go into their own container, inventoried as they go in, and stay there until you are ready.

It also solves a specifically heavy problem. If a floor needs reinforcing before a safe can go in, or a room is not finished, the item waits here rather than sitting somewhere unsuitable at the destination.

Tell us roughly how long, and whether anything needs to come back out before the rest. That changes how the container is loaded and it is nearly impossible to fix afterwards.

A room out of a shared house with a bed, a desk, a bike and a dozen boxes is a genuine job with a genuine staircase attached. It gets quoted rather than treated as a favour squeezed between two real bookings.

These are usually man-and-van bookings. Where the load has grown past that — and by the third year it often has — it becomes a small removal instead, and we will tell you which yours is when you describe it.