One pair of hands
One mover, and where he stops
The cheapest crew we run and the one most often booked by mistake. One person and a van handles a surprising amount of London work — and then hits a wall that has nothing to do with effort or willingness.
If a sofa, a mattress or a machine is on your list, read the second section before booking this.
What comes with a single mover
What one person genuinely covers
Boxes and cases, in any quantity that fits a van. Flat-pack furniture still in its packaging. A single mattress on the level. Office equipment and IT. A bicycle, a small appliance, a chest of drawers with the drawers out.
Collections are the other large category: something bought from a shop, a saleroom, a marketplace seller or a warehouse, where somebody at the far end can take one end of it. That last clause is doing most of the work in this sentence.
Where a single mover stops
It is not about strength. A three-seat sofa through a ninety-degree turn needs somebody reading the turn while somebody else takes the weight, and a sofa that pivots unaided takes the plaster with it. A pocket-sprung king mattress folds against you on a staircase rather than with you. A washing machine that has not been transit-bolted moves inside its own case while you are holding it.
Each of those is a two-person job by physics rather than by policy, and sending one person to it produces a damaged item, a damaged building or a damaged person.
- A three-seat or corner sofa — two, or three where it has to go over a bannister.
- A double or king mattress on stairs — two.
- A washing machine, dishwasher or tumble dryer on stairs — two.
- An American-style fridge-freezer on stairs — three, and never fewer.
- A glued wardrobe carcass through a standard doorway — two at minimum.
- A piano — nobody here, at any number. That is a specialist job.
The other end matters more than your end
A single mover works when there is help waiting, a lift that goes to the floor, or a door at street level. It stops working when the far address turns out to be a third-floor walk-up nobody mentioned.
This is why we ask about both ends with the same persistence. The cheap crew stays cheap only if both halves of the job are honestly described.
When one is the right answer
Student moves at the end of term. A flat-share room where the furniture belongs to the landlord. Storage runs where the unit is on the ground floor. Marketplace collections of anything one person can lift. Deliveries into a building with a working lift.
On all of those a single mover is not a compromise, it is simply the correct size of crew, and we would rather quote it than talk you into more people you do not need.
One mover
Questions about one mover
- 1Will the driver help me carry?
- The driver is the mover. On a single-mover booking there is one person and he does all of it, which is exactly why the limits above matter.
- 2Can I help carry to keep it to one person?
- People often offer and we understand why. We cannot rely on it for anything heavy or awkward, because our insurance covers our crew and not you, and a dropped item halfway down a staircase is nobody's good day.
- 3What if it turns out to need two once he arrives?
- Then some of it does not get moved, which is the outcome we are trying to avoid by being blunt in advance. Send photographs of the largest items and the staircase before booking.
- 4Is one person cheaper than two?
- For the right job, yes, and we will quote it that way. For the wrong job it is not cheaper at all, because the job does not finish.
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.