From the crew arriving on your driveway to the lorry pulling away from the new house, here is the entire day broken down into the calls and the milestones.
Most of our customers have only ever done one or two house moves in their adult lives. Each time, the entire day is unfamiliar — what time does the lorry arrive, how long does loading take, when do we hand keys over, where do we sit during the load, what happens if the chain slips. This guide walks through the entire day from the moment the crew turns onto your driveway to the moment the lorry pulls away from the new house.
The structure follows a typical single-day single-crew move — the most common pattern we run. Multi-day or two-crew moves follow the same logic with extended timings. If you have a specific timing question about your own upcoming move, talk to us at survey stage and we’ll plot the actual hour-by-hour schedule.
Standard move-day start is 8am at the property. The crew leaves our Lower Dicker depot at 7am to be on your driveway 10 minutes before the stated start time. They’ll knock at 7:50–7:55, introduce themselves by name, and walk through with you to confirm the inventory and access plan.
What to have ready: a clear path through every room (small items packed, breakables packed, larger items in their final positions), a kettle and mugs available, and the keys to anything they’ll need access to. The crew lead will ask whether anything is fragile or particularly valuable, and which items go in the lorry first vs. last (often the ‘first-night carton’ — see what-to-pack-first guide — is loaded last so it comes off first).
The walkthrough takes 10–15 minutes. By 8:10 the crew is back at the lorry collecting their kit (blankets, straps, dollies, corner-board) and bringing it into the property. From 8:15 the pad-wrapping starts in the room with the most furniture — usually the master bedroom or the living room.
Pad-wrapping happens in your home before any piece leaves the room. The crew works through one room at a time, wrapping the freestanding furniture in heavy quilted blankets and webbing straps. The wrapped pieces are carried out, into the lorry, and loaded in a stack-safe sequence. Cartons follow in a planned order — heavy at the bottom, fragile near the top. See how our pad-wrap service works for the detail.
The customer’s job during loading is to stay out of the way and answer questions when asked. The biggest mistake customers make on move-day is trying to direct the loading sequence — the crew knows what they’re doing, and well-meaning supervision typically slows things down by 20–30%. Make tea, photograph the empty rooms as they finish, take the dog for a walk.
For a 3-bedroom house the loading typically completes by 11:30–12:30. Larger 4–5 bed properties run to 1–2pm. The lorry is fully strapped down and ready to roll once loading completes; the final sweep with the customer takes 10–15 minutes. By the time you’re ready to lock the front door for the last time, the lorry is engine-running on the driveway.
The chain-day completion timing shapes everything from this point. Most UK sales complete at noon or 1pm — meaning your solicitor confirms funds transferred, and the estate agent releases the keys to the buyer. The same happens in reverse at the new property — your solicitor confirms funds out, the seller’s agent releases keys to you. The whole sequence usually plays out between 11am and 1pm.
If the chain runs to time, the lorry leaves your old property at 12:30, you follow in your own car, and we’re both at the new property by 1pm. If the chain slips — which happens, often by 30–90 minutes — the lorry sits on the road outside your old property while everyone waits for the funds to release. We don’t charge for these waits; they’re built into the day’s schedule.
For longer chain slips (over 3 hours) we’ll move the lorry to a holding spot rather than block your old neighbours’ road. For overnight chain failures (rare but it does happen), the load goes into our Lower Dicker depot overnight and we redeliver the next day. There’s no extra charge for the overnight; the inconvenience is enough.
The lorry arrives at the new property 10 minutes before you do (we leave ahead so we’re there ready). The crew walks the new property with you to confirm the room layout, where each piece of furniture goes, and any access constraints (lift bookings, narrow doorways, stairs). This takes 5–10 minutes and matters because once the unloading starts, mistakes are slow to undo.
For new-build properties, the crew will check whether any doorways are too narrow for the wrapped furniture — sometimes furniture that fitted into the old property doesn’t fit into the new. We’ve usually spotted this at survey but occasionally a piece needs additional disassembly on the day. Talk to the crew lead about anything questionable.
Unloading then runs in reverse to loading. Lightest items off first (the boxes from the top of the load); furniture in the middle of the sequence; heaviest base-load items off last. Each piece of pad-wrapped furniture is carried in still wrapped, placed in its final position in the room, and unwrapped there. By 3–4pm the lorry is empty and the crew is doing the end-of-day sweep with you.
The end-of-day sweep is the last formal phase of the move. The crew lead walks through the new property with you, checking every room against the inventory list, confirming each piece is in the right room and in the right position. Any concerns — a scratch you spotted, a piece in the wrong room — get noted on the sheet and resolved before the crew leaves.
This is the moment to flag anything that doesn’t look right. Standard goods-in-transit insurance covers transit damage but claims work much better when they’re flagged on the day rather than discovered a week later. The crew will photograph anything questionable and we’ll start the process right then.
If you’ve booked the unpacking service, the crew stays for an additional 2–4 hours to unpack the cartons and remove the empty boxes. Otherwise they leave you with the cartons in place; we come back later in the week (free of charge if you’re within range) to collect empty boxes once you’ve unpacked.
Once the crew leaves, the property is yours. Whatever organisational state you’ve left it in — total chaos or surprisingly orderly — the priority for the first evening is the same: working kitchen, made bed, functioning bathroom. The packing-order guide covers the ‘first-night carton’ concept; if you packed one, this is where it pays off.
Take meter readings (gas, electric, water) and photograph them. Walk the perimeter to check security — windows closed, doors locked, alarm code working if there’s an alarm. If the previous owners left any keys (often a spare set in a kitchen drawer), gather them. Put a forwarding-address note on the inside of the front door for any post that arrives in the first week.
And then — most importantly — sit down. Make a cup of tea. Order a takeaway. The move is done. The unpacking can wait until morning. The survival kit guide covers what to have on hand to make the first night calm rather than chaotic.
We've been a family-run Sussex remover since 1982 — the same name on the lorry as the name on the paperwork. Mark personally surveys the high-value and overseas moves; our crews are directly employed (not casual day labour) and trained at our own staff training centre, one of only a handful of UK removers with that facility on site.
Standard inclusions on every full removal: pad-wrap protection for every freestanding piece of furniture, removal-grade cartons, a written and itemised fixed-price quote with no surprises on the day, and the British Association of Removers' Advance Payment Guarantee protecting every deposit. The result, over forty years and tens of thousands of moves, is a 4.9/5 review average across 120+ independent Google reviews.
Booking the survey takes ten minutes. Whether it's a one-bedroom flat across Eastbourne or a country house to overseas, the process is the same: in-home or video survey, written quote within 48 hours, deposit-protected booking, and a calm move day.
Free in-home or video survey, written fixed-price quote, BAR-protected deposit. Sussex’s family-run remover since 1982.
Standard start is 8am, with the crew on your driveway by 7:50. The lorry leaves Lower Dicker at 7am to be at your property in time.
A typical 3-bed home loads in 4–4.5 hours including pad-wrapping. Larger 4–5 bed properties run 5–7 hours. Smaller moves (1–2 bed) often complete in 2–3 hours.
We wait. There's no extra charge for chain delays up to several hours. For longer slips (3+ hours) we move the lorry to a holding spot; for overnight failures, the load goes into our climate-stable depot and we redeliver the next day.
No — let the crew lead the sequence. They know what's going in first vs. last and how to stack pieces stack-safe. The biggest move-day mistake customers make is over-supervising the load.
Flag it before the crew leaves so we can photograph it and start the goods-in-transit insurance claim immediately. Day-of claims process much faster than week-later ones.