We ask about the return leg first

Why directionality

Because a surprising share of van work in London involves something coming back. An old bed leaving as a new one arrives. A wrong purchase going back to a seller. A hire item at the end of its period. A market stall delivered on Friday that has to be gone by Sunday. A studio and a store swapping stock every week.

None of that is A to B, all of it is priced differently, and almost nobody books it as what it is. The single commonest avoidable problem we see is a delivery arranged with no collection.

Whether the van can wait is the real question

A two-leg job where the van waits is one visit and a modest amount of extra time. The same job as two separate visits is two bookings, two journeys and two standing points.

Which of those you get depends mostly on where you are. In the outer boroughs a van can usually stand somewhere while an old item is collected and a new one arrives. In central London there is nowhere legal to do that, so the job splits in two.

The line on waste, which we will not blur

We hold no waste carrier licence and we do not dispose of anything. We will take an old item to a charity that has accepted it, to a buyer, to a family member or to another address. All of that is transport.

Carrying waste for disposal requires registration, which exists so that improperly disposed material can be traced back to whoever carried it — and the liability attaches to the householder as well as the carrier. A van offering to take away whatever you do not want without that registration is offering something it is not entitled to do, with a risk that partly lands on you.

What we publish about charities

Because charity acceptance rules decide most swap-outs and hardly anybody knows them before they need to. An intact fire label on upholstered furniture is effectively the whole test. Most charities will not take a used mattress at all. Tables and chairs are among the easiest things to rehome.

It is all on the home page, item by item, including the one we will not touch at any price.

Always two crew

On anything involving furniture or stairs. One person and a sofa is how walls get marked, furniture gets scraped and backs get hurt, and it is not a service we offer at any price.

The long runs, and the empty half

On a long one-way job the return leg is ours rather than yours, and an empty run home is dead cost. Where somebody is travelling the other way on similar dates we pair the two loads and both parties pay less.

What we will not do is price as though a pairing is certain. If one appears you benefit; if it does not, the figure you accepted stands. A quotation that depends on a coincidence is a quotation that gets revised.

And when a van is the wrong answer

A whole house needs a removals lorry and a full crew. A piano needs a piano specialist. On the longest overland corridors a shared container usually beats a van comfortably, and we say so on the page rather than after the enquiry.

The names on this site

Retailers, charities, auction houses, hire companies and venues appear here as categories. None is named, no relationship with any is claimed, and nothing here is a complaint about a specific business.