Pianos, antiques, safes and the items that decide the whole move, priced on a published hourly card from £200. Every specialist job is assessed from your measurements and photographs first, and confirmed in a written quote before the day.
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A specialist removal with us costs from £200, on the same published card as every other service: Driver Help £70 per hour, 2 Men £85, 3 Men £100, with a 2-hour minimum. An upright piano is £200 at the minimum; a heavy piece of furniture is usually £200 to £300; a small server room move is £600 of crew time. The item and its route are assessed from your measurements and photographs first, the crew is sized to the job, and the total is confirmed in a written quote before you book. What we will not do is stated just as plainly: no cranes, no window work, no concert grands. No deposit; free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
Each kind of specialist job has a home. Pianos, IT equipment, warehouse moves and commercial moves have their own pages, because their boundaries deserve a page each. Antiques, safes and oversized items are carried here, at full depth, further down this page.
Uprights and baby grands, on their own page
A piano is heavy, top-heavy and unforgiving on stairs. Uprights and baby grands are moved by a planned 3 Men crew, the route measured from your photographs first. Full-size grands and window hoists are not our work, and the piano page says exactly where that line sits.
Typical: Upright from £200; baby grand £300 to £400
Piano removals pageCarried here, at depth, below
Antique furniture, mirrors, artwork and inherited pieces that cannot be replaced. They travel as the priority items in the load: joints checked, condition noted with you first, surfaces wrapped, nothing stacked against them. The full handling method is set out on this page.
Typical: Heavy antique pieces usually £200 to £300 (3 Men)
How we handle antiquesCarried here, at depth, below
Safes, gym equipment, stone and marble pieces, and anything whose weight has to be planned before it is lifted. Weight, fixings and the route are confirmed in writing before the day; anything beyond safe manual carrying is refused early, with the reason.
Typical: Heavy pieces usually £200 to £300 (3 Men)
How we move heavy itemsCarried here, at depth, below
American fridge freezers, large corner sofas, and pieces that only got in by being dismantled sometimes cannot leave the way they arrived. Item and route are both measured; dismantling is agreed in the quote; the internal route is the only route we use.
Typical: Oversized pieces usually £170 to £340
How we handle difficult accessServers and workstations, on their own page
Office technology has its own boundary, and its own page: we pack, label, carry, transport and place equipment to your rack and desk plans, while your IT team disconnects, reconnects and tests. Nothing is plugged in by us, and nothing is wiped by us.
Typical: Server room move £600; ten workstations £340 to £400
IT equipment moves pagePlant, stock and racking, on their own page
Whole units, not single items: stock, equipment and racking moved between warehouses, phased around trading where the job needs it. Racking is dismantled and rebuilt as labour; its safety sign-off stays with a qualified inspector, as that page explains.
Typical: Small warehouse move with racking £700 to £800
Warehouse moves pageSpecialist business kit, on the commercial page
The awkward end of business moves: the heavy safe in the back office, the display units, the equipment that is worth more than the desks around it. Commercial moves carry the same careful handling, quoted on the same card.
Typical: Small office move £600 to £800 (6 to 10 desks)
Commercial services pageMarble tables, fridge freezers, solid wardrobes
A single heavy piece of furniture, without the rest of the house around it, usually sits on the furniture removals page: measured first, protected properly, carried by the crew the weight actually needs.
Typical: Heavy piece usually £200 to £300 (3 Men)
Furniture removals pageOne row from each specialist page’s own worked totals, on the one card they all share. Each page carries its full table; nothing here is a figure this hub has invented for itself.
| Specialist job | From the page | Crew | Typical time | Typical total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upright piano between addresses | Piano removals | 3 Men | 2 hours (minimum) | £200 |
| Baby grand, legs and pedal lyre removed and refitted | Piano removals | 3 Men | 3 to 4 hours | £300 to £400 |
| A heavy piece: marble-top table or American fridge freezer, tight stairs | Furniture removals | 3 Men | 2 to 3 hours | £200 to £300 |
| Two rooms of furniture in one load, placed room by room | Furniture removals | 3 Men | 3 to 4 hours | £300 to £400 |
| Ten workstations inside a tight evening window | IT equipment moves | 3 Men | 4 hours | £400 |
| A small server room: devices from two racks, placed to the rack plan | IT equipment moves | 3 Men | 6 hours | £600 |
| Small office move, about 6 to 10 desks, one long day | Commercial services | 3 Men | 6 to 8 hours | £600 to £800 |
| Small warehouse move, stock plus 4 to 6 bays of racking | Warehouse moves | 3 Men | 7 to 8 hours | £700 to £800 |
Illustrations, each taken from the named service page’s own worked totals and worked from the same published hourly card (Driver Help £70, 2 Men £85, 3 Men £100 per hour, 2-hour minimum), checked October 2026. Your written quote confirms the total for your item before you book. Add £5 per floor where the carry is by stairs; lift-served floors are not charged. Items needing more crew or a second vehicle because of their weight or size are priced in the written quote after assessment, before the day, never during it.
An antique is not valuable because it is heavy. It is valuable because it cannot be replaced: the veneer that lifts if it is grabbed wrongly, the joint that was loose before we arrived, the mirror plate that has survived a century and should survive one more afternoon. So antiques travel as the priority items in the load, with a method built around their weaknesses rather than their weight.
Before anything is lifted, the piece is looked over with you: loose joints, lifting veneer, cracked glass, wobbling legs, old repairs. Anything already wrong is noted, in your presence, so there is never an argument afterwards about what the move found and what it caused. Parts that travel better apart come apart carefully (mirrors off dressers, a longcase clock’s movement, pendulum and weights out and packed separately, drawers and shelves removed and labelled), and the piece is wrapped so the protection touches the finish, not the dirt of the street.
In the van, an antique is never filler. It is strapped in its own space, nothing is stacked on it or against it, and it comes off first at the other end and is placed in its room, away from the unloading traffic, before the ordinary pieces start moving around it. Two honesty points. First, value: tell us what a piece is worth so it is planned for properly, and arrange cover for it with your own insurer, because carrying something carefully is our job and insuring it is yours. Second, restoration: we are movers, not restorers. If a piece needs a French polisher or a clock specialist after the move, that is their trade, and we will say so rather than touch a finish we are not qualified to repair.
A single heavy antique (a marble-topped commode, a solid bookcase) is usually 3 Men crew time at £200 to £300; pieces moving as part of a larger home are quoted inside the furniture removals or house removals totals, on the same card.
A safe concentrates a house’s worth of weight into a wardrobe’s worth of space, and that changes everything about the move: the crew size, whether the floors and stairs on the route can sensibly take it, and whether the job is ours at all. Weight is a planning problem before it is a lifting problem, and it is solved from your details, in writing, before the day.
What we need: the safe’s make and model if you know them (manufacturers publish weights), or its dimensions; whether it is bolted to the floor or wall, because fixings are dealt with as part of the agreed scope, not discovered under load; and the floors, stairs and door widths at both addresses, with photographs of the turns. What we do not need is the combination: empty the safe yourself before we arrive. We move the empty safe, never its contents, and a safe whose owner cannot open it is a locksmith’s job before it is a removals job.
The same planning covers the other dense single items: gym equipment, stone and marble pieces, cast-iron baths, large machinery in a home workshop. Most are 3 Men jobs at £200 to £300 of crew time. And the limit is stated as plainly as the offer: an item beyond safe manual carrying weight, or one whose route cannot take it, is refused at quote stage with the measurements explained, so you can go to a safe or lifting specialist with the facts already in hand. No crew should learn a safe’s true weight halfway down a staircase.
Some pieces are not especially heavy or fragile; they are simply bigger than the building they are in. The American fridge freezer that is taller than the kitchen door, the corner sofa that came in through a doorway that has since been replastered narrower, the wardrobe that was built in the room. These jobs are decided by measurement, and the measurement happens before the day.
Send the item’s dimensions and the route’s: door widths and heights, the turn at the top and bottom of the stairs, ceiling height on the half-landing, lift dimensions in blocks. The answers are usually ordinary, in this order: doors, feet or handles off the piece; the piece turned on end or on its side; the piece dismantled further than it has ever been dismantled, with fixings bagged and kept with it; a different route through the building. Dismantling and reassembly are agreed in the written quote, not improvised at the door with the piece wedged in the frame.
And when the measurements say the internal route genuinely cannot take the piece, you will be told before you book, with the figures, so a window or hoist specialist can be arranged if you choose: we do not use cranes or hoists, and we do not take items out through windows or over balconies. Most oversized pieces are 2 Men or 3 Men crew time, £170 to £340 depending on the route; where the piece is furniture, the full treatment is on the furniture removals page.
What makes a job specialist for us, and what sits outside our scope entirely. Both halves are printed here so neither has to be discovered on the day.
Four steps, all of them before anyone lifts anything heavy.
What it is, its dimensions, its weight if you know it, and photographs: of the item, and of the route it has to travel at both addresses. Mention any existing damage or weakness.
Doorways, stair turns, lift size, floors and parking are checked against the item before a price is given. If the route cannot take it, or the job sits outside our scope, you hear that now, in writing, not on the day.
Crew size, method, price and terms are confirmed in writing, valid for 7 days. A specialist item is charged on the hourly card; anything unusual is priced in the quote after assessment, never invented during the move.
The crew follows the plan: the item protected before it moves, carried at walking pace, travelled strapped and padded, and placed where you want it at the destination. Payment is at the time of service.
| Point of comparison | The typical way | With Vano Removals |
|---|---|---|
| The assessment | A price from a one-line description, with the item’s weight and route discovered on the day | Item and route assessed from your measurements and photographs first; a job outside our scope is declined in writing before the day |
| The crew | Whoever is on the van, with the customer expected to help with the heavy end | The crew sized to the item in the quote (3 Men for most specialist pieces). You are never asked to carry |
| Protection | A blanket if you are lucky, and a disagreement afterwards about a mark nobody noted | Condition noted with you before the move; the item wrapped before it travels and never stacked against in the van |
| The price | A "from" price per item, with stairs, weight and dismantling surfacing later | A published hourly card, the stairs charge stated with the price, and worked totals in writing before the day |
| The limits | Anything attempted: windows, balconies, weights no crew should carry | Printed on this page: internal routes only, no concert grands, nothing beyond safe manual carrying |
| Deposit and cancellation | A deposit to book is common, and cancellation windows vary widely at the budget end | No deposit to book; free cancellation up to 24 hours before |
Based on the published prices and terms of London man and van and specialist item moving offers, checked October 2026. The full four-way comparison of every way of moving is on our compare page.
Content updated October 2026. Prices from our published hourly card, checked October 2026; the worked totals are taken from each specialist service page’s own table, not estimated here. Waste carrier status can be checked on the Environment Agency public register.
Send the item, its dimensions and weight if you know it, both postcodes, and photographs of the item and its route. The quote comes back in writing with the crew, the method and the total. No deposit, and free cancellation up to 24 hours before the move.
Or email info@vanoremovals.co.uk
“Best house removal company around. The team at Vano Removals was punctual, hard-working, and handled our furniture with great care. If you need reliable, stress-free local movers or packing services, I highly recommend them.”
“Vano Removals moved our 2-bed flat from Croydon to Sutton last week…”
Common questions about specialist removals, cost first. If you do not see yours, call us. We are happy to help.
Published rates, a written quote, and no deposit. The fastest way to price a specialist item is to send its dimensions, its weight if you know it, and photographs of its route.
07459 180023Specialist work is priced on the same published card as everything else we do: Driver Help £70 per hour, 2 Men £85 per hour, 3 Men £100 per hour, with a 2-hour minimum on every booking. An upright piano starts at £200 with the 3 Men crew it needs; a heavy piece of furniture such as a marble table is usually £200 to £300; a small server room move runs to £600 of crew time. Stairs add £5 per floor where the carry is by stairs. Anything whose weight or size needs more crew or a second vehicle is priced in the written quote after assessment, agreed before the day and never during it. No deposit, and the total is confirmed in writing before you book.
A removal where one item decides the whole plan: a piano, an antique that cannot be replaced, a safe, a rack of servers, or anything too heavy, fragile or awkward for standard loading. If the item needs its own assessment, its own crew plan and a route check before the day, it is specialist. Tell us about the item first, and the rest of the move is planned around it. Ordinary furniture, however big the load, is usually a standard removals job on the same card; this hub exists for the items that are not ordinary.
By measurement, not guesswork. Tell us whether it is an upright or a baby grand, the floors at both addresses, and the route: doorways, stair turns and lift dimensions, with photographs if you can. The instrument is prepared and wrapped before it moves, carried by a 3 Men crew at walking pace, and placed where you want it. Uprights and baby grands are our regular piano work; full-size concert grands belong with a specialist piano firm, and tuning afterwards is a piano tuner’s job, planned for about two weeks after the move. The full method is on our piano removals page.
Yes, and they are handled as the priority items in the load, never as filler around everything else. Joints and loose parts are checked before lifting, existing marks or weakness are noted with you before the piece moves, surfaces are wrapped, and nothing is stacked against the piece in the van. At the other end it is placed first, in its room, away from the unloading traffic. Pieces that come apart for travel (a longcase clock’s movement and weights, a mirror off its dresser) are separated carefully and put back as they were, where that is booked.
Usually, yes, if the weight and the route allow it, and that is decided from your details before the day, not at your door. Tell us the safe’s approximate weight and dimensions, whether it is bolted down, and the floors and stairs at both ends. We do not need the combination: empty the safe yourself before we arrive, because we move the empty safe, not its contents. A safe beyond safe manual carrying weight, or one whose route cannot take it, will be refused in writing with the reason, so you can go to a safe specialist with the measurements already in hand.
Weight is a planning problem before it is a lifting problem. The crew is sized to the item (3 Men covers most heavy single pieces), the floors and stairs it crosses are checked for the load, and the carry is planned step by step rather than improvised. Marble and stone tops travel protected, separated from their bases where they come apart. If an item is simply beyond what a crew can carry safely by the building’s internal route, we will say so before you book: no crew should discover that with the item halfway down a staircase.
No. We do not use cranes, hoists or external lifting platforms, and we do not take items out through windows or over balconies. Everything we move travels by the building’s internal route: stairs, lifts and doorways, with careful carrying and dismantling where that is booked. If an item genuinely cannot travel that route safely, we will tell you before you book, with the measurements from the assessment, so you can arrange a lifting specialist if you choose to.
Tell us what the item is and what it is worth when you enquire, so the crew size, protection and route are planned for it properly, and any existing damage or weakness is noted with you before it moves. Cover for the item itself is the owner’s side of the arrangement: for anything valuable, check whether your household or business policy covers it in transit, or speak to your own insurer about the move before the day. Nothing on this page should be read as us covering the item.
Insurance is as stated in your written quote: ask us to confirm in writing.
Yes, as transport. You book a storage unit in your own name with the operator you choose; we collect the item, load and place it in the unit, and bring it back out when you are ready. The runs are charged on the hourly card, and the unit’s rent, access and terms stay between you and the operator. We do not hold items ourselves, so your piece sits in a unit under your own contract, with your own access. For business stock and equipment, the same transport model is set out on our business storage page.
The item itself (what it is, its dimensions, and its weight if you know it), both postcodes, and photographs: of the item, and of the route at both addresses, meaning the doorways, stairs, turns and any lift it has to pass. Mention any existing damage, loose joints or known weakness. The more accurate the brief, the more accurate the crew plan and the written quote; a specialist quote built on a guess helps nobody.
Ask for a quote with the item details, both postcodes and the route photographs. The quote comes back in writing and is valid for 7 days. There is no deposit to book. Changing your date is free up to 24 hours before the move; inside 24 hours, a cancellation charge of up to 25 percent of the quoted price applies. Payment is at the time of service.
Moving somewhere specific? Send both postcodes with your quote request and the route is confirmed in writing.
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“Best house removal company around. The team at Vano Removals was punctual, hard-working, and handled our furniture with great care. If you need reliable, stress-free local movers or packing services, I highly recommend them.”
Muhammad Saad
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