Flat clearance
in Bristol
Clearing a flat is not a smaller version of clearing a house. The contents are rarely the difficulty; the staircase, the shared hallway, the lift that is out and the parking bay you cannot book are. Tell us which floor and what the way in looks like.
Free, no obligation • You can get in touch before you have everything worked out
The stairs are the job
A two-seater sofa that walked into a Clifton conversion flat in 2011 does not necessarily walk out of it. We dismantle what has to come apart, take doors off where that is what it takes, and plan the route before anyone lifts anything. Tell us the floor and whether there is a lift, and the estimate will hold.
Your neighbours keep their hallway
Shared stairs and landings belong to everybody in the building. We protect the route, keep it clear rather than staging a flat's contents across it, and work to whatever the block's rules say about times, lifts and the bin store. If the management company needs telling in advance, tell us and we will work to their slot.
How a flat clearance comes together
Bristol's flats are not one thing, and the differences are all in the access rather than the contents.
Floor, lift, doorway
Which floor, whether there is a lift and whether it works, how tight the turn at the top of the stairs is, and how wide the front door actually is.
Parking and the building's rules
Permit zones, loading restrictions, a gated car park, a concierge, or a management company with booking requirements for the service lift.
Agree what stays
Including the things that are not inside the flat: the allocated storage cupboard, the bike in the rack, whatever is on the balcony.
Clear and hand back
Flat emptied to the agreed scope, communal areas left as we found them, keys returned the way you asked.
Three kinds of flat, three kinds of problem
The Victorian and Edwardian conversions of Clifton, Redland and Cotham have the finest rooms and the worst staircases: narrow, turning, often with an original banister nobody wants marked. The purpose-built blocks around the Harbourside and the city centre have lifts and loading bays, but also concierges, booking systems and time windows. The post-war blocks have wide stairs, generous doorways and, frequently, a lift that has been out of service for a fortnight.
None of these is harder than the others. They are simply different jobs, and a price quoted without knowing which one it is will be wrong.
What slows a flat clearance down
Carrying distance, mostly. A third-floor flat is not three times the work of a ground-floor one, but it is not the same work either. After that: parking that is not outside the building, a lift that cannot take a wardrobe, a communal door that has to stay shut, and a neighbour who needs to get past.
Say what you know about all of those when you enquire. Anything you cannot check — the lift, the permit rules, whether the management company cares — say that too. We would rather plan for it than find out.
What a flat clearance costs
Minimum load
A few bags, or one large single item
£50
Quarter van load
A small room, or a garden tidy
£120
Half van load
One or two rooms, or a large garden
£200
Three-quarter van load
Several rooms, or a small office
£320
Full van load
A whole property, or a large job
£400
More than one van load
Quoted properly once we have seen it
Firm quote
Guide prices carry a 15% range either way until we have seen the contents.
Questions before arranging a clearance
It is on the third floor and there is no lift. Is that a problem?
It is a normal Bristol flat, and it is why we ask about the floor before quoting rather than after. Everything comes down by hand, the stairs and banisters get protected, and the job simply takes longer than the same contents at street level. What matters is that the extra time is in the price from the beginning.
Can you clear it if I am not in Bristol?
Yes — a good proportion of flat clearances are arranged by somebody who lives elsewhere. Tell us who holds the keys, whether there is a lockbox or an agent to collect from, who else may need to authorise access, and how you want completion confirmed. Settle that before the booking, not on the morning.
What about parking and permits?
Tell us the street. Much of Clifton, Redland, Cotham and Kingsdown is permit-controlled, and the difference between a bay outside the door and a hundred-metre carry is real work. Where a permit or a suspension is needed, it is easier to arrange in advance than to improvise on the day.
Does the storage cupboard and the bike store count?
Only if you tell us about them. Allocated storage in a communal area, a bike in the rack, a parking space with somebody's old furniture stacked in it — they are easy to forget when you are describing a flat from memory, and they are a van load's worth of surprise on the day.
Will the furniture even fit back out of the door?
Sometimes not in one piece. Converted Victorian flats in Clifton and Redland have doorways and turns that furniture was carried through before a partition wall went in. We dismantle beds, wardrobes and flat-pack as part of the job, and where something genuinely cannot come out whole, we will tell you before we start, not halfway down a staircase.
Tell us the floor first
The floor, the lift and where the van can stand. With those three, the price holds.
