What people ask before booking a date

Earlier than you think, particularly on a long tenure. A survey costs nothing and it converts a vague worry about "all the stuff" into a measured number and a list of what actually needs deciding.

Every room, then the loft, the garage, the shed and the garden. Then the access — stairs, doorways, the approach and the parking at both ends. On a long tenure the four outbuildings take longer than the rooms do.

For a flat or a short tenancy, yes, and they work well. For a house somebody has lived in for twenty years, no — a camera cannot get into a loft hatch properly and that is precisely where the answer is.

We will tell you what the measured volume is and what it means for the vehicle and the crew. What to do about it is your decision, and we are not going to lecture anybody about their own belongings.

Two reasons. The volume is higher, mostly in places nobody looks. And a much larger share of it needs a decision rather than a carry — keep, pass on, sell, dispose — which is work of a completely different kind and it cannot be rushed.

Well ahead of the move, and in short sessions rather than a marathon. One cupboard, one loft corner at a time is the pace that works. A single weekend of it is the pace that produces exhaustion and regret in roughly equal measure.

In our experience: suitcases inside suitcases, a cot or a pram, Christmas decorations, boxes belonging to grown children, paperwork, and at least one thing whose owner nobody can identify. It is almost always more than the household remembers.

Put it in the undecided pile and store it rather than deciding in the week of a move. If it might be worth something, get somebody qualified to look before it leaves the house — we do not value contents and will not pretend to.

Often, and on a long tenure it usually goes better. Non-essentials collected and held ahead of the move, the rest on the day. It makes the house easier to live in during the last weeks as well.

Yes. Room moves and part-loads are a large part of what happens around the town centre and the campus, and a van with two crew handles most of them.

Storage, listed at collection. It is the ordinary answer to the ordinary gap and it is one of the commonest bookings we take from UB8.

The state of the room once the furniture has gone. Leave a gap between the move and the inventory appointment, photograph each room the moment it is clear, and book the clean into that gap rather than around the furniture.

Often, and tenancy handovers frequently need it. Ask early — weekend slots go first, and a block with restricted move hours narrows it further.

Hillingdon village, Long Lane and Ickenham, by a distance. The interwar stock there has a very high share of households who have been in the same house for decades, which is a large part of why this site is organised the way it is.

Different rather than difficult. Flats, purpose-built blocks and a lot of short tenancies, so the work is lift bookings and loading bays rather than lofts and garages.

Yes. Larger properties, longer private drives, and lanes that get looked at before a full-size vehicle is sent rather than assumed from a map.

We serve and cross both. A job beginning and ending inside one of them is often better placed with a firm from there, and we will say so rather than take it.

Controlled parking applies across much of the town and the canal-side streets. Where a suspension is needed we apply in advance — it cannot be arranged on the day, and that has changed since a lot of our customers last moved.

The measured volume, the access at both ends, how much packing you want, and whether anything is being held. Tenure is not a line on the quotation — it is the reason the measured volume is what it is.

Goods in transit and in store are covered to the level stated on your quotation and storage agreement, subject to the exclusions written there. On a long tenure, declare inherited or unusual items before the day rather than after.

Yes, and it lowers the cost. Cartons you pack are covered for damage arising from our handling but not for damage caused by the packing itself. Use proper cartons rather than supermarket boxes — they collapse when stacked.

As long as the decisions take. Everything is inventoried at collection, and the storage agreement sets out access and the notice we need to bring things back out.

We will move things to a family member, a buyer or a charity. Licensed waste disposal is somebody else's permission rather than ours, and we will say so plainly rather than folding it quietly into a quote.