House removals
A borough that has doubled in a generation has an unusual spread of housing. A Chilmington new-build and a cottage at Wye are not the same job in any respect, and the bedroom count will not tell you which yours is.
Most firms will quote an Ashford house move over the phone. We would rather come and look, because the difference between the borough's housing types is larger than almost anywhere in Kent and it changes the crew, the vehicle and the day.
The survey costs nothing, takes very little of your morning, and produces the access notes the crew works from. Everything after that is execution.
Chilmington, Finberry, Repton, Park Farm
The easiest houses in the borough to move into — wide doorways, modern layouts, a drive to load from. Two catches: estate roads on a part-finished phase can be rough or closed, and first-time buyers underestimate the garage by a wide margin.
Beaver Road, Newtown, the streets off Victoria Road
Victorian, narrow-halled, steep-staired, and on streets where the one-way system decides where a vehicle can stop. Loading is a shuttle rather than a reverse-up. The turn at the half-landing gets measured at survey, not on the day.
Kennington, Willesborough, Bybrook
The bulk of the borough’s housing and mostly straightforward. A drive, a side gate, a hall you can turn in. Where it gets interesting is the loft, which in houses of this age is usually fuller than anyone admits at survey.
Charing, Westwell, Wye, Brook, Great Chart
Low beams, stairs built for smaller furniture, sometimes a listed frontage, and lanes that need deciding on in advance. Oast houses in particular deserve a proper look — round rooms are charming and deeply unhelpful for a wardrobe.
Worth its own section because Ashford does so many of them. The move itself is usually easy; the complications are elsewhere.
Completion dates on a new build slip more often than on a chain, and they slip late. Developers hand over when the property is signed off, not when your removal is booked. So we build flex into a new-build move as a matter of course, and we raise storage early — not to sell it, but because a household with nowhere to go on a Friday afternoon is a genuinely bad position and it is entirely avoidable.
The practical things: check whether the estate road to your plot is finished and open, find out where visitor parking actually is, and be honest with yourself about the garage. The number of first-time buyers who discover on the day that a garage held more than the spare room is remarkable.
Volume, measured properly rather than inferred — lofts, garages and sheds are where Ashford estimates go wrong. Access at both ends, which swings hardest between a drive and a terrace. Distance. And how much packing you want us to take on.
If you are comparing quotes, compare what each includes rather than the number at the bottom. A cheaper quote that assumes easy parking, excludes materials and sends one fewer person is a different job, not a better price.
This is where being a storage-led firm actually helps you. A gap between moving out and moving in is not an emergency here — it is the thing we are set up for. Goods go into sealed storage and the delivery becomes a scheduled job.
Raise it at survey even if you only think it might happen. It costs nothing to plan for and a great deal of stress to arrange at short notice. How the storage works.
A single room, a studio or a handful of pieces is usually better as man and van. Describe the load and we will tell you honestly which you need — there is nothing in it for us in sending a full crew to move a bedroom.
Good to know
It depends enormously on which Ashford. A Chilmington or Finberry new-build with a drive is about as easy as moving gets. A Victorian terrace off Beaver Road, or a cottage down a lane near Charing, is a different day entirely — narrow halls, steep stairs and a vehicle that cannot get close.
Two things. Estate roads on a part-finished development can be rough or partly closed, so we check the access route rather than trusting a map. And first-time buyers routinely underestimate how much a garage and loft hold, which is where volume estimates go wrong.
Yes, and they deserve a proper survey. Round rooms, low beams, stairs built for smaller furniture and sometimes conservation protection on the fabric itself. Most things make it with the feet off; where something genuinely will not, you hear that before the day rather than with it wedged on a landing.
Yes — beds, wardrobes, dining tables and desks, with the fixings bagged and taped to the piece they came off. Fitted furniture with its own manufacturer fitters is the exception; better they take it down.
Then you are in the right place, because that gap is what this firm is built around. Goods go into sealed storage and the delivery becomes a scheduled job rather than an emergency. It is worth raising at survey even if you only think it might happen.
No. Waste clearance needs a carrier licence, which is a different business with different obligations. We will point you at the council service or a licensed clearance firm, but we will not quietly put it on the van.
A survey, then a written quote with the access notes in it — and an honest word about whether you should be planning for a storage gap.