Service 02
Semi & detached moves
Most of Pinner was built between the wars, and those houses have two characteristics that decide a removal: more contents than they look like they hold, and fabric that is worth protecting properly.
A bay-fronted semi on a Pinner Green road looks, from the kerb, like a modest job. Then you count the loft, the garage, the side return, the shed and the converted room at the top, and the volume is half as much again as the bedrooms suggested.
That is not a criticism of the house; it is why these moves are surveyed rather than estimated. Under-crewing a four-bedroom semi is the most reliable way to finish a move in the dark.
The converted loft
Loft conversions almost always arrive with a narrower staircase and a tighter turn than the rest of the house. Sometimes a piece went up there before the balustrade was fitted and simply will not come down the same way.
We measure that staircase specifically. Where a piece will not pass, the options — dismantling, a window route, or leaving it with the house — are all available a fortnight early and none of them are available at nine on the morning.
Fabric, and how it is protected
- Leaded lights
- Original glazing is the least forgiving thing in the house. It is protected before a route is used, not after a scrape.
- Parquet & original floors
- Covered end to end. Grit under a boot does more damage than a dropped box, and it is entirely preventable.
- Newel posts & banisters
- The pinch point of every interwar staircase. Padded before the first wardrobe goes near it.
- Tiled paths
- Common on the older Pinner frontages, and easy to crack under a loaded trolley. We carry rather than roll across them.
- Door leaves
- Taken off where the extra inches decide whether a piece passes, and rehung before we leave.
In listed and genuinely old fabric we work without fixings of any kind, and where a route out cannot be taken without risk to the building we say so rather than trying it carefully.
Drives, gateposts and the slope
On the Pinner Green and Eastcote roads a vehicle generally reaches the door. On Pinner Hill and parts of Hatch End the gateposts, the gravel and the gradient decide whether it can get in at all, and whether it can turn once it has.
Both answers go on the quotation, with the reason. A shuttle from the kerb is a cost; a vehicle that cannot turn at the top of a private drive on the morning is a considerably larger one.
The garage nobody has been into
Bikes, tools, tins of paint, a mower, garden furniture and several things that have been there since the previous owners. Some of it travels and some of it cannot — anything with fuel in it has to be drained, and solvents and gas bottles do not go on the vehicle at all.
Open the garage before the survey. It is a very short job that changes the quotation from a guess into a measurement.
Related
Home removals covers the general shape of a household move. Packing is worth reading if the house holds pictures, china or a serious kitchen, and storage deals with the gap when dates refuse to meet.
Questions
Semis and detached houses, in HA5
01 Why does a semi need more thought than a flat?
Because the contents are spread over more places. A flat is what you can see. An interwar semi has a loft, a garage, a shed, a side return and frequently a converted room at the top of a staircase that was never designed for furniture. The volume is genuinely harder to guess.
02 Our loft was converted. Does that change anything?
Usually the staircase does. Loft conversions tend to arrive with a narrower stair and a tighter turn than the rest of the house, and anything that went up there before the balustrade went on may not come down the same way. It is measured at survey.
03 We have leaded lights and original doors.
Then the route out gets protected before anything moves: thresholds, door edges, the newel post and the glazing. We work without fixings of any kind in period fabric, and where a route cannot be taken without risk to the house, we say so rather than trying it carefully.
04 Is the drive wide enough?
On the Pinner Green and Eastcote roads, almost always. On Pinner Hill and parts of Hatch End it depends on the gateposts and the slope, and the answer changes whether we bring one vehicle to the door or shuttle from the kerb. It is a survey question every time.
05 Can you move a garden room or a shed?
The contents, certainly. The structures only where they are already dismantled and can be handled safely. Tell us what is out there so it appears on the inventory rather than in a conversation on the day.
Next step
Open the loft hatch before we visit. It changes the quotation more than anything else.
Volume is the single biggest variable in a house like this, and it is the one thing a photograph cannot tell us.