The inspection reviews our insurance policies, our contracts and terms & conditions, the state of our vehicles including MOTs, our services, training and health & safety policy; as well as holding detailed discussions with our insurers, our bank and our accountant to check that we’re running everything above board.

We look forward to getting the report back from Kieron who was lovely and full of smiles despite a 130 mile journey from Nottingham to see us!

He sent us two signed copies of his books, which my wife is very excited about. She’s a teaching assistant and children’s literacy is one of her passions.

The Jimmy Coates series and Lifters are available online and all leading book stores.

The ‘Buy For Uni Mortgage Scheme’ allows parents of students at university to buy a property in their child’s name. The scheme requires the property to be let to other university students who pay rent during their stay. The combined rental income must be equal or greater than the monthly repayment required for the mortgage.

We think this is a fabulous idea as accommodation costs during university can be huge and this allows families to utilise that expense in a more effective way.

This is a great indication of buoyancy returning to the housing market which should fore-shadow a much needed boost for removals. We’re still in the quiet winter period for our industry, but all indications are there for a good spring/summer 2012.

To do our bit, all the sales we make on our packing tape during this period will be donated to CAFOD. So please don’t be afraid to use lots of tape on your move or make your own donation here.

Many customers ‘go into store’ (as we call it) intending to stay for a short amount of time, but we’ve seen it happen over and over again where they stay months, sometimes years, longer than they initially planned. And they just keep paying and paying to store the items they’re content to carry on without.

We understand that items may have sentimental value but do you really want to pay £78 a month to keep an easily-replaced wardrobe in store? Over a year that would be nearly a grand paid to hold on to a piece of furniture you’ve happily lived without.

Although we are happy to provide storage for our customers we don’t recommend them keeping their items in store for longer than needed.

Being technologically-competent, I had to teach Andrew how to work his new devices and stay on top of his social-networking assignment. For the next few days that followed he had scheduled in educational sessions where he learned how to use every facet of his device – which initially included half an hour of amazement at the screens adaptation from landscape to portrait mode and back again; and later asking, “If I send a photo using Twitter, will my embedded website link still work?”

The man was learning fast. By the end of the week he was tweeting every few days, and now he’s already got a slogan to go with his daily tweets: Saving the world from mediocre moving.

So follow @ambermoves and encourage Andrew’s Twitter habit.

Not only are we moving one of our favourite customers for the second time, but they have made a special purchase since their last move. They have bought a painting by Samuel van Hoogstraten, who was a student of Rembrandt, making this picture very valuable and about 370 years old. Christie’s have valued it at £30 000.

When transporting these types of artworks, we always use a porous acid-free paper to protect the oil-based paint. Then, we wrap it with two layers of export-grade bubble wrap as well as protecting the frame with a blue foam edging. The whole parcel is then packed into a specially-made box with filler put in to the gaps to compensate for any vibrations.

Samuel van Hoogstraten’s work can be seen in the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square.

When we were recently contracted to do a move for a big entertainment company, we also had to sign a confidentiality agreement which meant our men were not allowed to have any recording equipment on them – including their mobile phones.

The guys handed in their phones at base and left for the client’s location. Ten hours later, after a job well done, they ran into the office, desperate as an ice cube in hell, to get their phones back. It was really a bizarre sight.

So it made me think… how attached are you to your phone?

The first order of business is to ensure that we never ever let any of our customers down. Just this morning we are moving a customer who called us yesterday in a panic because the removal company that she had booked was incommunicado and she was now getting worried. Within an hour of her phonecall, she had a quote from us, a booking in the diary, a contract sent to her and the names of her removal team. The men have set off and we shall find out soon enough whether the other removal company will pitch up.

Christmas Lights on Oxford Circus

It’s that time of year again. As soon as halloween is out of the way Christmas rears it’s glittery head and suddenly everywhere is inundated with festive decorations. This time of year brings up extra considerations that we don’t have to contend with through the rest of the year, such as more pedestrians and traffic on the streets slowing down our progress. That doesn’t stop us from doing removals, especially in the city and on the high street; we just find a way to work around it.

Students are happy with their A-Level results

Thousands of A-Level students will receive their results today, which will confirm whether or not they have a place at university. Over the next two months we will be inundated with phone calls from students trying to arrange for their personal belongings to be moved to their new residence. We are quite happy to help these students, however, we find that they generally are keen to keep costs down to a minimum. As we have larger vans that are used to move big family homes and offices, we find that we don’t necessarily fit within their budget. However, Amber Moves will always find a way and so we have teamed up with a courier company who can always help these young people. Greg Jenks of A2B Deliveries manages a fleet of smaller vehicles who specialise in transporting small loads over long distances and he would always be happy to help. You can contact him on 020 8424 999.

Of course, many businesses and home owners will be looking toward their insurance policies to see them through this difficult time. I would like to suggest the services of Bond Insurance who are experts in business premises and public liability insurance.

Selling a home can take some time and I’ve got a solution to getting it sold in no time. I present to you home-staging: styling your home for potential home buyers. This sounds simple enough but it’s more than tidying up your home and making it look presentable. It’s about dressing your home in order to give prospective buyers a better idea of the potential of each room, and the home as a whole.

My associate, Julia Alexander, who was trained by Anne Maurice of Channel 5’s House Doctor series, specialises in home-staging. Visit her website for more advice on selling your home.

“Benefit from a trained eye and someone who understands both the market and buyer motivations.”

In the UK, any property being let or sold requires an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) – and you’ll need this before you market your property too. An EPC tells you how energy-efficient a home is on a scale of A-G (A being most efficient and G being least). The average UK property is between D and E.

So, obviously having a more energy-efficient home helps, but it’s not only about financial gain here. An EPC is absolutely necessary and my colleague Monique Simons would love to help you book a survey and answer any other questions you may have concerning this.

Although home-staging and EPCs are important for selling a home, if you’re buying a home you’ll probably need a mortgage. I can highly-recommend Mark Sykes, who has over 20 years of experience, for mortgage advice and other property needs. Mark is very good at assisting first-time buyers and helping clients release equity from their property.

“Part of the service that Mark offers includes speaking to the estate agents, solicitors and accountants on his clients’ behalf, thus ensuring that the whole mortgage/remortgage process goes through smoothly.”

To read the full article in the Daily Mail, follow the link below:

Daily Mirror: Have A Heavenly House Move

J.T. moved within Hampstead

“Very helpful, responsive, professional, good team.”

M.S. moved from Islington to Kensington

“Excellent, we would use you again, as we have in the past.”

L.H. moved from Cambridge to Acton

“Very good as usual. Many Thanks”

L.C. moved from West Hampstead to Finchley

Unfortunately getting a quote for a removal service is not like searching for car insurance or buying a CD on the internet. You can’t simply input a few details on some website and then sit back and sip your tea while a cleverly written program trawls through various databases to compile a myriad of quotes for you to peruse. The truth is that the amount of information that would be required to be entered is quite extensive and as the business of moving is very much a matter of geography, the algorithms required to compute these things would be too complex.

However, the internet can be a very useful tool in obtaining quotes. The first thing most people would do is go on to Google and enter a search for something like “moving home” or “removals”, then go through the websites produced by this search to find a few that suit them. The main thing you’re looking for is the feasible region that a company works in. It’s no use approaching a Cornwall based removals company when you’re planning to move from Edinburgh to Stirling. The second thing you’re looking for is the completeness of the service that they offer. Some companies offer a very basic removal service – a van and one or two men to move a few items. Whereas other companies may offer the full gambit of move related services, such as packing, storage, disposal, dismantling/reassembly. If you’re a student, with just a few too many boxes than can be fit into a car, then the first company will probably suffice. If you’ve got a large family with too much to pack up and no time to do it in, lots of furniture and possibly boxes of unused items in the loft that need to be disposed of, then the second company is obviously the better choice.

Another internet gem is www.helpiammoving.com. It has a lot of helpful hints and tips as well as a handy search feature. You enter some basic details about your move and your contact details and then your information is sent to five removal companies who work in the areas that you are moving from and to and they contact you with a quote.

When we talk to customers who are looking for a quote, we ask a lot of questions, so that we can be as accurate and comprehensive as possible. If you are telephoning more than two or three removal companies, you may find it useful to type up a description of your move that you can email out so that you don’t have to answer the same questions over and over again. The following list is a guideline of the kind of questions removal companies ask to help them provide a quote:

* What date do you plan to move?
* Where are you moving from and to?
* Are you planning any additional drop-offs or collections?
* What floor is each property on and how many floors does it span?
* Is there parking within 10 metres from the front door? If not, how far do you have to walk?
* How big is the property you’re moving from?
* What is the contents of the property? (A list of the large items is preferable)
* Are there any items that needed special attention when you moved in? ie. Items that need to be dismantled, taken through windows or over gardens fences, etc.
* Are there any items that are especially fragile or need extra protection?
* Are there any items that are especially valuable? ie. worth more than £3000.
* Do you want packing assistance?
* Do you require any storage?
* Do you require any disposal?
* Are there any associated services that you may need that we can put you in touch with? ie. cleaners, lettings agents, builders, pest controllers, electricians, plumbers, painter/decorators?

When do you plan on moving?

When we take an enquiry for moving home, the first thing we ask is the planned date. This is important for us as we may already be fully booked that day and not able to render the service at all. In this case, we do not want to take you through the whole process of describing your move and raising an estimate, just to find out that we couldn’t be of service any way.

However, we understand that you have already done a lot of work by the time you can answer the question: “When do you plan on moving?”

If you rent your home, you have given notice on your current property and have found a new property to move in to. Ideally, you’ll be moving out a day or two before you need to vacate your current abode, to allow time for end of tenancy cleaning and estate agent inventories on either side.

If you are buying your new home, then you’ve had countless discussions with your solicitor and your estate agent. There have also been numerous messages whizzing back and forth along your buying chain to try to establish a move date. Some chains are more difficult than others to work with in terms of establishing a date and most people do not book their move until they have exchanged.

Some customers do not find a new property in time. They could be looking for the perfect place or the property they were planning to move to falls through and they can’t back out of moving out of their current home. These customers might be lucky and have family or friends who might host their belongings in a garage while they get things sorted out. This is fine and well if you know anyone who has space in their garage and even if you do know someone with a completely empty garage, a full family home probably won’t fit in it. We can offer these customers the use of our storage facility, which has various security and environmental management features that will keep your furniture safe and ensure that it returns in the same condition as it went in.

Very often, we get asked by customers who have some flexibility with their move date, whether we charge any more or less over the weekend. We don’t charge more because we feel that your move has not suddenly become more difficult because we’re moving you on Saturday rather than a Friday.

However, in certain boroughs, parking availability may affect this decision. Many areas have no restrictions over the weekend and if the customer is able to secure parking spaces for the vans, then we can save the costs that we might have had to pay to the council for dispensations or suspensions.

So while it may seem a very simple question, “When do plan on moving?” is littered with a myriad of considerations and is very often one of the most difficult things to pin down. No wonder it’s the first thing we ask.

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.

J.F. moved from Watford to Welwyn Garden City

“Excellent, excellent, excellent. I have never seen a team of people work so hard and so effieciently and with such care and good humour. Amber Moves have been BRILLIANT – I would wholeheartedly recommend them.”

T.P. moved from Chalk Farm to Highgate

“Absolutely fabulous service. Lovely people to work with. Timely, good-mannered, helpful. Highly recommended. Brilliant service!!”

S.R. moved from Barnet to Finchley

At least our crews are at home, tucked up tight

We never shun work, always in the zone

But just for today, we’re glad we’re at home