Four and upwards
A full crew, and two vehicles
Four people and up, normally across two vehicles. This is the crew for a whole house, a small office, or anything where keys change hands on the same day and the load has to leave one property and enter another without a gap in between.
On a completion day the plan has to survive somebody else being late, because the chain is not in our control and neither are the keys.
What comes with a full crew
Whole houses
A three-bedroom house is not a large flat with more boxes. It is a loft, a garage, a shed, a garden, a kitchen that has to be packed last and unpacked first, and usually two floors of furniture that has been in place long enough to have been built where it stands.
Four people split that properly: two working the property, two working the vehicles, swapping as the load changes shape.
Small offices and studios
Office moves fail on paperwork rather than lifting. Building management wants a method statement, a lift booking, proof of insurance and floor protection, and every one of those has a lead time that is nothing to do with us.
We do that part first and the physical move second, which is the opposite order from how it usually gets planned.
- Service lift booking and window, at both buildings.
- Floor and lift protection to the building's specification.
- Insurance documentation supplied to building management in advance.
- IT taken down and rebuilt by whoever normally maintains it, not by us.
- Desks and storage dismantled, labelled and rebuilt to a floor plan.
- An out-of-hours window where the building requires one.
Completion days
Keys are not in our control, the chain is not in our control, and solicitors do not release on a timetable anyone can rely on. So the plan is built the other way round: everything loaded and on the vehicle before anything is expected to happen, and the crew waiting rather than the house waiting.
Where the second address is genuinely not available, the load stays on the vehicle overnight under our care rather than being tipped into a garage — and we agree that in advance rather than improvising it.
When five or six is the right number
Large houses with poor access. Two properties combining into one on the same day. Anything where a lift window is short enough that the whole load has to be staged beside it before the window opens.
We quote the number the job needs. If that number is uncomfortable, the honest answer is usually that the access is the problem rather than the crew.
A full crew
Questions about a full crew
- 1Do I get the same crew at both ends?
- Yes. The people who loaded your house are the people who unload it, which matters more than it sounds — they know what is under what and why it was packed that way.
- 2Can you store the load if completion slips?
- The load can stay on the vehicle under our care, and that is agreed in advance rather than decided on the pavement. Longer storage is a separate arrangement.
- 3Who talks to building management?
- We do, for the practical parts — lift windows, protection, access routes, insurance documents. Anything contractual between you and the building stays with you.
- 4Do you clear lofts?
- We will empty a boarded loft with a fixed ladder. An unboarded loft with a drop-down ladder is a different and more dangerous job, and we will say so before the day rather than on it.
Tell us the stairs, not the boxes
Both addresses, what floor each one is on, where a vehicle can legally stand at either end, and the widest thing you own. That is what sets the crew — and the crew is what sets the price.