Everything we get asked

You do not have to, and you absolutely should. The business underneath is the one person who can make your day straightforward or difficult, and blocking their frontage during trading is a real cost to them.

A conversation beforehand usually turns them into somebody keeping an eye on your boxes. We are happy to speak to them ourselves if that is easier.

Earlier rather than later, almost always. A kitchen is quiet in the morning and extremely busy in the evening, when the pavement fills with people waiting and the back fills with deliveries.

The timing is the opposite of a flat above a shop, where the middle of the day is the difficult part.

Sometimes, and it is worth establishing rather than assuming. Behind a kitchen in particular, the rear is a working area — bins, extraction, gas, delivery crates — rather than a convenient second entrance.

We will look at it at the survey and tell you whether it is genuinely usable.

The street door is rarely the problem. The turn at the bottom of the stair is, and in a flat above a shop that turn is usually immediate and tight.

We measure it — the width at the narrowest point, the depth at the turn, the ceiling height above it, and the diagonal of the item. Then we tell you before the day rather than on it.

Common, and much better known in advance. Plenty of estate lifts will not take a mattress upright or a sofa at all, and where that is true everything comes down a stair with a turn on every landing.

It changes the crew and the plan rather than the possibility. We establish the lift dimensions before the day.

No. It is the obvious shortcut in a shared building and it is the one thing we will not do, whatever it costs us in trips.

In an HMO or a block above commercial premises this is a serious matter for the building rather than a technicality, and a firm that props them is telling you what they think of the place.

Not in a resident’s bay, which is where it will end up unless somebody has asked. We find out from the housing office or the managing agent which bay or which stretch we can actually use.

It is a quick question beforehand and a genuinely unpleasant argument if it is left.

Almost never outside the door, and the honest answer is to plan on the basis that you cannot. Bus lanes, loading restrictions and a street busy with people rather than only traffic all work against it.

What we do is establish where the vehicle can legally stand for your specific address, and price the carrying distance properly rather than discovering it.

Frequently, and it has to be arranged with Southwark in advance rather than on the morning. It applies to houses as well as flats — a frontage makes it easier to arrange, not unnecessary.

We will tell you at the survey whether you need one and what it involves.

Peckham, Peckham Rye, Nunhead, Queens Road and Bellenden first, then Camberwell, East Dulwich, Honor Oak, New Cross, Brockley, Denmark Hill, Herne Hill, Bermondsey and Deptford.

The delivery end can be anywhere. A great many moves out of SE15 are not going far, and a fair number are going a very long way.

Because in this postcode it predicts the job better than anything else. Two identical one-bed flats, one above a shop on Rye Lane and one in a terraced conversion in Nunhead, are completely different days.

It decides when we can work, where the van stands, whose door you share and who has to be asked.

Yes, and they are a large part of SE15 work. One room out of a shared house, a single piece up a stair above a shop, a studio into a conversion.

They are quoted as what they are rather than as a small house move.

A full pack, a part pack of the fragile and awkward things, or materials dropped off. Above a shop with a tight stair, a part pack is usually the sensible one, because fewer loose items means fewer trips down.

Yes, and they are quoted the same as any other day. What we will do is tell you honestly whether a weekend is actually better for your building — above a shop it often is, and on a residential deck it often is not.

Cash, jewellery, deeds and passports; controlled drugs; firearms and ammunition; fuels, gas bottles, fireworks and other hazardous goods; perishable food; plants that may carry pests; and living animals.