I recently had an enquiry from a potential customer who had requested a quotation from me a few weeks ago and came back to ask a few more questions. She said to me that she had done some research on the internet and had prices from various sites for sourcing her own materials and hiring her own van, with the intention of moving her home by herself, with the help of a few friends. She then asked why my price was more than the costs that she had calculated.

I explained to her that the greatest cost involved in a removal is the cost of labour and so the easiest way to save some money is to employ friends who are happy to do a day’s labour without getting paid. If cost is your greatest concern, then of course, this is the way to go and I say good luck to you and I hope the future brings you prosperity so that next time you move you can afford a removal company.

However, this “free” labour doesn’t come without hard work.

Let’s start with the packing materials. I have seen many helpful box packages from various retailers with sets of packing materials aimed at 1, 2 or 3 bedroomed properties. At first glance these look quite cheap and likely to provide all your packing material requirements, however, from our experience you generally need about 3 of these packs to supply your actual needs. So in the end, you pay more for your packing materials than we would charge. Besides, if this option was so terribly cheap, then we would be sourcing our boxes from there too.

Next we look at the van hire. The biggest vehicle you can hire with a standard driving licence is a 3.5t van. Our vans are purpose built with a bigger body so that we can fit more into them, so we know that any standard 3.5t van that you can hire yourself will not be as big. We also have to remember that it takes skill to pack a van efficiently. You need to fit as much as possible into the van, whilst ensuring that once you close the back and start driving, the furniture and boxes won’t move around and consequently break. So you’re looking at doing a few runs because you won’t be able to pack the van as tightly or safely as men who have years of experience.

Finally, let us consider the man power. Our men are young and fit and can keep going for 10 hours straight. Even people who are regular gym-goers find a whole day of walking up and down stairs quite tough going. Also, you need to know the best way to lift things without hurting yourself and for two and four man lifts, you need to have a team of people who can work together well. There are also various techniques that make the job easier and safer to do and a myriad of equipment that is expensive to purchase or hire that we already have and your team of enthusiastic amateurs won’t have.

So in the end, if we’re quoting 3 men for 8 hours to do a job, you would probably need 6 people for 12 hours to do the same job as you won’t have a big enough van, the right equipment or a team who are as skilled and as fit as our men.

Some say to do a job right, do it yourself. We say, to do a job right, get an expert to do it.

Regular sized boxes are best for moving home.

Boxes are a fundamental part of moving home. You have to be able to pack all your small things into a container that will keep them safe and make it easy to stack up.

When potential customers are making enquiries regarding the costs involved in removals, we always ask whether or not they have boxes. Most people haven’t arranged their own boxes yet and so we offer our boxes, which are a reasonable £1.20 per box, including tape to make up the boxes and paper to line them. We also offer that any boxes that are left unused at the end of the move will not be charged for.

Some customers have chosen not to pay for boxes at all, instead opting for used boxes from shops. The upside is that if they needed, say, 50 boxes for their move; they’ve now saved £60 with this strategy.

However, the boxes are different sizes and some actually have quite weak walls. The result of this is that the men need to spend a good while longer loading up the van because the boxes are not only difficult to stack because of their different sizes, but some cannot be stacked at all because they cannot take the weight of any boxes on top of them. Now, the bill has just increased by £80 because of the extra labour. As you can see, using lots of ill-fitting free boxes is a false economy and it is better to stump up the cash for the boxes first as it saves a lot of effort later.

One of the most important issues to address when conducting a removal is the access to to the properties. When you have men loading up a whole van of your belongings, you want to reduce the distance from the entrance to the van as much as possible. You don’t want them to have to dodge passing pedestrians on a long walk down the block to the van. London, however, has some of the most finicky parking regulations you will ever find. Each council has different rules regarding pay & display bays, resident bays and yellow lines. For example, a yellow line dispensation in London is fairly easy to arrange and costs nothing. However, there are many rules that need to be stuck to while making use of the service. You have to give the council 24 hours notice, be specific about location, time and the vehicle to be used. Then once you’ve arrived, you have to ensure that someone is constantly at the van and that you are not causing any obstructions. This results in vans being driven round the block to ease congestion even though all steps have been taken to ensure that they are allowed to wait on the yellow line. This is just the nature of managing transport in a city that was not designed around the needs of tradesmen using vans. That was just one example of one of the easier parking situations to resolve in London. Most customers move from one borough to another – new parking situation, new regulations. This all needs to be taken into consideration when moving home or business in London and most customers don’t even realise that all these considerations are being dealt with while we are moving their property.

LC3 Crates are used for transporting paperwork

When moving office, there are many things to consider, but one thing we could absolutely not do without is the good old crate. So here is the info you need to better understand the requirements for your office when relocating.

LC3 crates are used to transport paperwork and other miscellaneous items such as stationery and personal effects. They measure 600 x 415 x 330 mm which is equivalent to 3 cubic feet and they are lidded. They can also be provided with security seals and labels to ensure confidentiality of records during the relocation and clarity regarding their contents. These crates also have runners along the sides that allow suspension files to be transported in the same manner that they are housed in the filing cabinet.You can fit approximately 6 arch lever files or the contents of 1 suspension drawer into an LC3 crate.

IT Crates are used to transport computer systems, i.e. a computer box, screen, keyboard & mouse; as well as fax machines and desktop printers. They are larger than LC3 crates in order to accommodate a full computer system, keeping the components of each workstation together. They measure 590 x 550 x 600 mm which is equivalent to 7 cubic feet and are also lidded.

Most companies prefer to have their staff pack the files and personal effects into the LC3 crates as they know best which files should be kept together and if any particular order is relevant. It often falls to us to pack the IT crates as this requires greater skill and care. The computer systems must first be switched off and disconnected from the main power supply and the local area network. The various components are then disconnected from each other. The computer box and monitor are wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in the crate in such a way that these pieces will not move once they start to be transported. The mouse, keyboard and all associated cables are the last to be placed.

Our vans can hold up to 140 crates. Even though LC3 crates are about half the size of IT crates, they tend to weigh twice as much. We have to take this into consideration when loading the van.  Crates are generally delivered about 2 working days before the move and collected about 2 working days after the move, to give staff time to pack and unpack their crates. More often than not there is also a weekend in there as well, meaning most companies need to hire crates for at least a week.