The pre-move survey, field by field

Why it happens at the addressField work

Three of the figures a removal is planned from cannot be obtained any other way. The first is volume: people describe a two-bedroom flat the same way whether it holds forty cubic metres or sixty, and the difference is a whole van class. The second is the carry: the distance from the front door to the nearest place a long body can legally stand, which in the terraces behind the seafront is a matter of which end of the street has the dropped kerb. The third is the awkward item — the corner sofa that went in before the stud wall did, the wardrobe that was built in the room, the chest freezer in a garage with a step.

So the survey is booked as an appointment at the address, and the whole address is opened: loft hatch, garage, shed, outside store, under the stairs. A room that is not opened is a room that gets guessed, and a guess on this sheet becomes a second trip later.

The fields on the sheetPer room

Each room gets one block. The block is the same every time, which is what makes two surveys comparable and lets the volume be added up without anybody reinterpreting anything.

Handled items is counted, not estimated, wherever the room is already packed, because it is the figure the crew-hours come out of. Where the room is not packed yet it is taken from the volume at seven items to the cubic metre and marked as such on the sheet, so nobody later mistakes the allowance for a count.

What the tape is forMeasured

Two measurements decide whether a thing leaves through a door or through a window. The first is the narrowest clear opening on the route out, measured between the stops with the door open, not the frame width written on the plan. The second is the smallest way the item can be presented to it, which for upholstery means turning it on its side and measuring the diagonal across the plan, back leading.

Also taped: the stair turn, measured as the clear length on the longest wall of the landing, because a long item has to pivot there; and the height under any boxed-in pipework at the head of the stairs, which is where wardrobes stop. Both go on the address block, with a note of the item they threaten.

Parking, permits and where the body standsAccess

The parking line is one number and one sentence: metres from the door to the nearest place a long body can legally stand with the tail lift down, and what makes that place legal. In a residents’ permit zone that means a visitor permit or a suspension applied for from the council in advance, which has to be requested days before the move and not on the morning. On a single yellow with loading permitted it means the loading hours, written out.

Where the nearest legal space is a long way from the door, that distance is multiplied by the item count and the result appears as crew-hours on the quotation rather than as a surprise. The access panel on the front sheet runs the same arithmetic so it can be seen before anybody visits.

What the survey settles and what it leaves openOutcome

Settled by the survey: the van class or classes, the crew size, the number of cartons and cases to deliver beforehand, the dismantle list, the parking arrangement that has to be applied for, and whether the job runs over one day or two. All of it goes in writing by email with the volume and the access it was worked out from printed at the top, so the figure can be checked against the rooms it came from.

Left open, deliberately: anything behind a locked door nobody had a key for on the day, anything the household has not decided about yet, and the clearance, which is surveyed as a separate list because waste is described on a different document. Those lines are marked open on the sheet and carry a note of what has to happen before they close.

Next: materials and labelling, which is what the carton counts on this sheet turn into.