The formula
total = volume × price/m³ + km × price/km + movers × hours × price/hour + extras
Where it comes from
The first thing a removal firm asks is not how much furniture you have but how many cubic metres, and that is exactly what almost nobody can answer. The rule of thumb the trade uses is between 0.25 and 0.35 cubic metres per square metre of furnished home: an eighty square metre flat is around twenty-four cubic metres, which already will not fit in a van. Volume gives you the truck, and from there the price is three blocks charged separately: transport, distance and the movers’ hours. The prices on this page are fields because they change by city and by company; what the calculation gives you is the structure and the volume.
How to work it out by hand
- Estimate the volume: square metres of the home times the coefficient, or measure it if you have an inventory
- Multiply the volume by the price per cubic metre
- Add the kilometres at their price
- Add each mover’s hours at their hourly rate
- Add packing, insurance and a hoist if you need one
What is worth knowing
The 0.3 m³ per square metre coefficient is for a normally furnished home. It drops to 0.2 in a sparsely furnished flat and rises past 0.4 with a library, a workshop or a full storage room. Insurance deserves a look too: the basic cover is usually per kilo carried, which for a valuable item covers almost nothing; declared-value cover is a different product and is bought separately.