Flats & mansion flats
More of SW6 lives in a flat than a house, and the flat move is the one where the building has as much say as you do. Whoever controls the lift, the lobby and the loading bay controls the day. We talk to them first.
A Fulham flat removal has two halves. There is the ordinary work of wrapping, carrying and loading, which is the same anywhere. And there is the building, which is not. Get the building wrong and the rest of it does not matter — you can have the best crew in London standing on the pavement because nobody told the porter and the communal door is on a fob you do not have.
So we start at that end. Who manages the block. Whether there is a goods lift and what it actually measures inside, not what the notice says. Whether the building restricts moving hours. What the managing agent wants from us before they will let us through the door — usually a copy of our goods-in-transit and public liability cover, sometimes a method statement as well.
Hurlingham, Fulham Road, Vanston Place
Grand communal entrances, a service lift that often will not take a three-seater, and a managing agent who wants paperwork before anyone touches the front door. Expect part of the load to go down the stairs regardless of what the lift claims to hold.
Munster Road, Bishops Road, Walham Green
A house split into two or three flats, so one shared front door, one staircase and no lift at all. Usually a straightforward move with more trips and more crew than people expect.
Imperial Wharf, Fulham Reach, Townmead Road
Concierge buildings. The goods lift is booked into a window, the loading bay has a height restriction, and the building manager wants the move in the diary. Good access once arranged — but it has to be arranged.
Around the Broadway and the Sands End side
Usually the easiest of the four. A lift that takes furniture, a bin store you can reverse past, and a resident parking bay you can suspend. Still worth checking the lift dimensions rather than assuming.
The red-brick mansion blocks are the signature Fulham building and they are worth their own paragraph. High ceilings and generous rooms, which is lovely to live in and means the furniture inside them tends to be large. Communal halls with tiled floors and painted cornices that mark easily. Lifts that were retrofitted into a stairwell and are therefore exactly the wrong shape.
What that means in practice: the boxes and the smaller items go in the lift, the sofa and the wardrobe come down the stairs, and we bring enough people that neither of those things takes all morning. Runners go down in the lobby and on every landing before a single item moves. The lift car gets lined where the building allows it. And we tell the porter what time we are starting so the front door is not being propped open with a fire extinguisher.
Half-landings are the enemy. A Victorian conversion staircase turns through ninety degrees twice on the way down and the diagonal you need for a long sofa simply is not there. Most upholstery will make it with the feet off and the back removed if it is that kind of frame. Some will not.
Where it will not, we say so at survey rather than on the day. Sometimes the answer is a window and a strop, which needs the right kit and the right conditions. Sometimes the honest answer is that the piece does not come out in one and you need to decide whether it is worth taking apart. Either way you hear it early enough to do something about it.
Imperial Wharf, Fulham Reach and the newer blocks off Townmead Road work on bookings. You get a loading-bay slot and a goods-lift slot, and the move is built around them. The bays have height restrictions, so we check the clearance and send a vehicle that fits under it — turning up in something too tall is an afternoon wasted.
These buildings are generally good to move out of once the admin is done. The frustration is always the admin, which is why we would rather hold that conversation with the building manager than hand it to you while you are also dealing with solicitors.
Not every flat move needs a full crew. A studio near the Broadway, a room in a share on Dawes Road, a one-bed with not much in it — those are often better and cheaper as a man and van booking. We will tell you which you need when you describe the load. There is no sense selling you a five-man crew for a bedroom.
If the new place is not ready, containerised storage bridges the gap, and if the flat is being emptied because you are leaving the country, the European moves page explains how that runs.
Straight answers
Three things: the lift, the porter and the paperwork. The goods lift may not take your sofa, so part of the load goes down the stairs. The porter needs to know you are coming so the communal door is held and the lobby is protected. And the managing agent usually wants our insurance certificate before they will let us start.
Always. Floor runners in the lobby and on the landings, corner and frame protection on the way out, and the lift car lined where the building allows it. Blocks in Fulham are quick to notice a scuffed cornice, and we would rather not be the reason.
Yes — Imperial Wharf, Fulham Reach and the Townmead Road blocks all work that way. We take the building manager's booking window, check the height restriction on the bay so we bring a vehicle that fits under it, and plan the load around the slot we have been given.
That is a stairs job and we crew it accordingly — more hands, more trips, and a shuttle from the door to the van if the vehicle cannot get close. We would rather put an extra person on it than have two people struggling up three flights.
Yes, though that is usually better as a man-and-van job than a full removal. Have a look at the man and van page — it is the same crew, a smaller vehicle and a shorter booking.
Send the address and we will find out who manages it, what the lift takes and what the agent needs from us. Then we quote.