How to quote a house move, start to finish

Every house move starts with one question: how many van loads is it? Get that right and the crew, the time and the price mostly fall out of it. Get it wrong and nothing else you do on the quote will save the day.

Start with the house size, because that’s what the customer knows. Then go through the list in the same order every time: the big furniture, the white goods, the boxes, then the loft, the shed and the garage. The last three are where a second trip hides.

Think in fractions of the van, not a tape measure. A corner sofa is about a sixth of a Luton, a double bed about a twelfth, and fifty boxes about a sixth before a stick of furniture goes in. What fits in a Luton has the full list, item by item.

If it comes out at more than one load, decide now whether that’s two runs or a bigger van, and put it in the price. Finding out at three o’clock on the day is how you end up doing the second run for diesel money.

A house move is a two-person job. A double wardrobe, a sofa bed or a washing machine down a flight of stairs is not something you do on your own, and the customer won’t be much help on the other end.

So price your house moves as two of you from the start. Your house-size prices and your day rate should already pay for your mate’s day. If they don’t, every house move you do is quietly costing you his wages.

If a customer wants to load the van themselves and just needs you and the van, that’s a different, cheaper price. Have one ready, but be clear on the quote that the lifting is theirs.

A third pair of hands earns its keep on the big days. It doesn’t make the van any bigger, but it can turn a ten-hour day into a seven-hour one, and that’s a day you can actually finish.

A house move is three lots of time: loading, driving and unloading. Loading and unloading go with the size of the load. The drive goes with the miles and the number of runs.

Add it up before you price it, and check it against what your price pays for. If your full day out is £680 for ten hours, that’s £68 an hour, so a £550 price pays for just over eight hours. A job that adds up to ten hasn’t got room in it.

Stairs, a long carry from the van and a tight street all add time the table doesn’t know about. That’s what the extras further down are for.

There’s a hard ceiling too. On the GB rules for vans, a driver can be on duty for 11 hours in a working day and at the wheel for 10, and loading counts as duty. A job that won’t fit inside that is a two-day job, not a long day.

Your house-size price should cover a move down the road. Five miles is a fair line to draw. Past that, charge for the miles, because a 2-bed that’s twenty miles away is not the same job as one that’s two.

The bit most people forget is the run home. On a local job it doesn’t matter much. On a forty-mile job you drive forty miles back with an empty van, and that’s your diesel and your time. Charging for the empty miles past fifteen keeps a long job from eating its own profit.

Watch the second run. Nipping back for the rest is fine across town. Over about sixty miles, a second run is a whole extra journey, and you’re better off pricing two trips properly, hiring a bigger van, or bringing a second one.

Once a job won’t fit in one legal day, stop pricing it by the house and price it by the day: your day rate for each day, a night away for the crew, and the diesel there and back. At 30p a mile, a 150-mile job is about £90 of diesel there and back.

Stairs are the big one. A second-floor flat with no lift is two flights, and every box, every chair and the wardrobe goes up or down both of them. Charge per flight, at both ends, every time.

Taking furniture apart is the one people give away. A wardrobe down and back up can be the best part of an hour. Either price it, or say on the quote that beds and wardrobes go as they are.

Anything you pay out on the day (a parking suspension, a city charge, a toll) goes on the quote at cost, on its own line. Customers accept a charge they can see. They argue about one that turns up after.

The long carry is the sneaky one. If the van has to park fifty yards from the door, that’s fifty yards every trip, both ways, all day. Ask where you can park before you price it, and add the time. Man and van prices has the going rates for most of these.

Here’s the 3-bed from the top. A 3-bed semi going twenty miles to another house, two of you, one Luton, with a parking suspension needed at the new end. Your 1-bed is £280, so your 3-bed is £550, about twice it.

First the size. A typical 3-bed is two Luton loads, so it’s two runs. Then the time. Loading and unloading come to about 4 hours 40 minutes all in. Four drives at about 40 minutes each is 2 hours 40. Add half an hour setting up and it’s 7 hours 50 minutes.

Now check the day fits the price. At £680 for a ten-hour day, £550 pays for just over eight hours, so 7 hours 50 is inside it. If the clock had come out at ten, you’d add the hours past what £550 pays for at £68 each, or tell the customer it’s a bigger job than she thinks.

Then the miles and the extras, each on its own line, and it comes to £665. That sits inside the usual £500 to £800 for a 3-bed twenty miles away, so it isn’t miles off the market either.

Before you send it, hold it up against the going rate. Not to copy it, just to spot a sum that’s gone wrong. Most bad quotes aren’t a bit off, they’re a long way off, and it’s usually something left out.

The small one works the same way. A bedsit three miles away, second floor, no lift: your bedsit price of £180, no miles because it’s inside your first five, and two flights at £25. That’s £230, right where it should be.

If a local bedsit comes out at £400, something’s been counted twice. If a 3-bed twenty miles away comes out at £350, you’ve forgotten something, and it’s usually the loft or the run home.

Anything past about £2,000 is high for a man and van unless it’s a big house a long way off. Man and van prices has the bands in full.

With Kwotly, you put your own prices in once: your 1-bed, and it suggests the rest from it for you to change, plus your day rate, your price a mile and your price a flight. That’s the sum on this page, set up once instead of done every night.

An enquiry comes in through your own quote page already worked out: the load added up from the customer’s list or the photos they add, the van and the number of runs, the miles off the real route, the stairs from the floor and lift answers, and the city charges and tolls at cost when the route goes through them.

If the clock says the day runs past what your price pays for, it shows you the extra time as one tap. It never adds it behind your back. Photos are read up to your plan’s photo scanner allowance; after that, they land with the quote for you to price.

You check it, change what you want, and send it. Nothing goes out until you press send.

Send it as a fixed price with the list written into it: the rooms, the big items, the loft, the number of boxes. If she rings on Friday to say the shed’s full too, that’s a new line, not a favour.

Put every extra on its own line. A quote that shows the stairs, the parking and the wardrobe taken apart reads as fair. One number with nothing under it reads as a guess, and it gets haggled.

Send it fast. A customer moving house messages three or four vans, and whoever sends a proper price back first usually gets the work. Not the cheapest, the first.

And take a deposit when she says yes, so the Saturday is actually booked. Want it on paper first? The free man and van quote template lays every one of these lines out, in PDF and Word.