The question I get asked more than any other is whether a man with a van will do the job. Sometimes the honest answer is yes, and I say so even though the bigger job pays me better. Sometimes the answer is no, and the person asking has badly underestimated what is in their loft. Getting this wrong in either direction costs money, so here is how my crew and I actually work it out.
There is no official line between the two services. Every firm draws it slightly differently, which is part of why quotes for what sounds like the same move come back so far apart. What follows is where I draw it.
What a man with a van actually gets you
One van, one driver who also does the lifting, and usually a set number of hours. You are generally expected to have packed everything yourself, into boxes, sealed and labelled, before the van turns up. The driver loads, drives, unloads, and that is the job. Most of us will help with a wardrobe or a sofa, but anything heavy needs two people, and if only one of us is booked then the second pair of hands is you.
It suits a studio or a one bedroom flat, a single room of furniture, a student move, or one item too big for a car. Around Milton Keynes most of what my crew and I do at this end is flats and single pieces. If that is your move, booking a full crew is paying for capacity you will not use.
What a full removals job looks like
Two or more people, a bigger van or more than one load, and the assumption that we are handling the awkward parts. Taking beds and wardrobes apart and building them again, protecting doorways and bannisters, getting the piano or the American fridge out without taking a chunk out of the wall, and putting it all back together so you can sleep in your own bed that night.
It comes with more planning too. Someone looks at the job properly beforehand, in person or over video, and prices the whole move rather than quoting an hourly rate and hoping. For a three bedroom house in Luton or Dunstable that is nearly always what you want, because running out of daylight with half a house on the pavement is a real way for a day to go wrong.
The rough dividing line
If I had to reduce it to one rule: up to a large one bedroom flat, already packed, a man with a van is usually right. Two bedrooms is the grey area and depends almost entirely on access. Three bedrooms and up, book a crew.
Beds and wardrobes are the other test. If they need dismantling, you want people who do it every day and who will reassemble them properly at the other end, because a flat pack wardrobe taken apart badly does not always go back up.
Access matters more than the number of bedrooms
This is the one that catches people out. A two bedroom ground floor flat you can park directly outside is a smaller job than a one bedroom third floor flat with no lift and a shared stairwell. I have watched a modest amount of furniture take most of a day purely because every piece went down four flights.
Before you decide, look at both ends honestly. How close can the van get to the door. Is there a lift, and does it need booking. Is a permit or a bay suspension needed. The house moving checklist has the long version of this, and it is worth going through before you ask anyone for a price, because those answers move the number far more than the box count does.
Nobody minds a fourth floor walk up if they know before they load the van. What causes arguments on the day is finding out on arrival, because the job that was priced is no longer the job in front of us.
How the two are usually priced
Man and van work is normally hourly with a minimum charge, so the clock runs while you finish taping the last box. Full removals are more often a fixed price for the whole job, agreed in advance. Hourly looks cheaper on the quote and sometimes is not, because everything that goes slightly wrong on the day gets billed to you.
Whichever you go for, get it in writing with the hours, the crew size and what happens if the job overruns all stated on it. A price without those three things is not really a quote. Send my crew and I the two postcodes and a rough inventory and you will get all of it in writing before anything is booked.
Insurance is not a detail
Goods in transit cover and public liability are the two that matter, and the limits vary a lot between one person with a van and an established firm. Ask for the figure rather than accepting the word insured on its own. If something you are moving is genuinely valuable, check whether it is covered for what it is worth or capped at a standard amount per item.
When the answer is both
Plenty of moves are not one or the other. A pattern I see often is a full crew for the furniture on the main day, then a man with a van a few days later for the shed, the garage and whatever did not fit. Offices split the same way, and the office relocation checklist goes through how to phase one without shutting the business. Nothing says it has to happen in a single day.
Not sure which one your move needs?
My crew and I cover both across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, so there is nothing in it for me to talk you into the bigger option when the smaller one would do. Tell me the two postcodes, which floor you are on at each end, and roughly what is coming, and I will tell you straight which one it is.
Want this priced properly?
Send us the two postcodes and a rough idea of what is coming, and we will give you a fixed price in writing. No obligation, and no follow-up pestering if you decide to go elsewhere.