Flats and apartments
Apartment moves are a building-access job before they are a lifting job. Tell us the block and we will deal with the concierge, the lift and the loading bay while you get on with packing.
Manchester and Salford have built upwards for two decades now, and a large share of the county's moves are in and out of managed blocks. That changes the work. On a house move the main variables are volume and access at street level. In an apartment, the variables belong to somebody else: the building manager controls the lift, the bay, the service entrance and sometimes the hours during which any of it can be used.
So the useful work happens before moving day. We find out which entrance actually opens, whether the goods lift needs a key or a booking, how long a slot the building will give, and whether they want documentation from us first. Get those four answers and an apartment move is straightforward. Miss one and you spend the morning in a lobby.
Ancoats, NOMA, Deansgate, Salford Quays, MediaCity
Managed blocks with a concierge, a goods lift and a loading bay that has to be booked. Some want proof of insurance lodged before they will let a crew in. None of that is difficult — it just has to happen in advance, and it is the part people forget until moving week.
Ancoats, Castlefield, Stockport town centre, Rochdale canal side
Beautiful, and awkward. Original openings, industrial staircases, lifts that were retrofitted into a building that never planned for one. Measure the sofa. We will measure the lift.
Sale, Urmston, Prestwich, Cheadle, Didsbury
Usually two or three storeys, often no lift, and a shared stairwell that other residents still need to use. We work it in stages so the landing is never fully blocked.
Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Oldham, Wigan town centres
Narrow street-level doors, a straight run of stairs, and often no legal parking outside without arranging a suspension. These take longer per item and we price them honestly rather than pretending otherwise.
Before the day
None of this is glamorous. All of it is the difference between a move that runs and a move that stalls in a service corridor.
Get a quoteFAQ
Usually us, once you have given us the building name and the managing agent. Some blocks will only take the booking from the resident, in which case we tell you exactly what to ask for so the slot is long enough and lands on the right day.
Yes. Managed buildings in Manchester and Salford ask for this routinely. Give us the building manager's details and we will send it over directly rather than routing it through you.
We establish that at survey and deal with it. Depending on the street that means a loading bay booking, a council bay suspension, or working from the nearest legal point with a shuttle. What it never means is the crew arriving and improvising.
Often the question is whether it fits through the flat door, not the lift. We check both at survey. Where something genuinely will not go, the options are dismantling it further, taking it down the stairs, or in rare cases accepting it does not come with you.
Yes, and for a lot of city-centre flats the man-and-van service is the right call. It is the same people and the same care, scaled to a load that does not need a box lorry.
Give us the building name along with both addresses. We will start on the access arrangements while your quote is being put together.