Guides
Moving within the village
Unit to townhouse, townhouse to house, three streets over or across the valley: the local hop is Lane Cove's signature move. Done well it is the cheapest move you will ever pay for. Here is how to do it well.
The maths of a short move
Our partner removalist charges by the hour: a 2-mover truck crew at $250, a 3-mover crew at $350, or the 4-mover two-truck crew at $500. On a local hop the driving is minutes, so nearly every dollar of your bill is loading and unloading time. That is good news, because loading time is the one part of a move you can genuinely shrink yourself.
Preparation that pays by the hour
- Finish packing before the crew arrives. Sealed, labelled boxes move at triple the speed of open ones. On an hourly job, an unfinished kitchen is the most expensive room in the house.
- Stage everything toward the door. Boxes stacked in the hall or garage cut the inside-the-house walking to almost nothing.
- Sort the parking at both ends before the day. A truck parked at the door loads twice as fast as one parked around the corner. If you are leaving a unit block, book the lift; arriving at a townhouse, warn the complex about the truck.
- Move the small fragile things yourself, if you want to. On a short hop, a car load of plants and lamps ferried over the day before is genuinely efficient, and the crew's hours go into the furniture that needs them.
Both doors, again
The trap in a short move is assuming short means simple. The distance is trivial; the doors are not. A two-street hop from a walk-up unit into a house below street level still has a stair carry at one end and a slope carry at the other, and the day is planned around those, not the 500 metres between them. Run your pairing through the Two Doors planner and you will see what each end asks.
When a second small trip beats one big one
Local hops give you an option long moves do not: the shuttle. Where access is tight at one end, a smaller truck doing two short runs can beat a bigger truck parked badly doing one. It is not always the answer, but it is always worth asking, and the removalist will tell you honestly which way the maths falls for your move.
The next step
Tell us about both doors
Five minutes of form beats a week of phone tag. Two addresses, the size of the place, the access story at each end: from that our partner removalist sizes the crew, names the hourly rate and rings you back with the day already sketched.