Wardrobes are the single most awkward item in most houses. They are tall, deep, heavy, usually built in a room they cannot leave in one piece, and they always live upstairs. Wardrobe van hire comes up constantly, both for new fitted furniture arriving and for old units leaving, and the two jobs frequently happen on the same day. Anyone booking van hire in Warrington for this should think about the staircase long before thinking about the vehicle.
Most Wardrobes Cannot Leave a Room Assembled
A double wardrobe is frequently taller than the ceiling height of the landing it has to cross once it is tipped to get through the door, and deeper than the turn at the top of the stairs will allow. That means it comes apart, and whether it survives coming apart depends entirely on how it was built. Solid timber units with proper joints usually dismantle and rebuild happily. Particle board carcasses assembled with cam locks and glued dowels often do not, and forcing one apart destroys it. Be honest about which you have before you start, because a wardrobe that will not survive the journey is a wardrobe worth disposing of rather than moving.
Dismantling in a Way You Can Reverse
Take doors off first, then shelves and rails, then the back panel, then the carcass. Photograph each stage, because a wardrobe apart looks nothing like a wardrobe about to go back together. Bag and label every fixing as it comes out and tape the bag to a panel rather than putting it in a general box. Keep the cam locks with the panel they came from. Mirrors on doors should come off if they can, and if they cannot, the door travels as a glazed item with tape across the glass and padding on both faces.
Loading Flat Panels and New Carcasses
Dismantled panels are large, flat and slippery against each other, and they behave exactly like flat pack furniture in transit. Stand the big panels on edge against a side wall where they take almost no floor space and cannot slide forward, and strap them so they cannot fall inwards. Doors travel the same way with padding between them. New fitted furniture arriving from a supplier comes in the same shape, and the Luton low loader van suits both directions well, because the lower load floor makes repeated lifting of heavy panel boxes far less punishing across a long day.
Protecting Faces, Edges and Veneers
The visible faces are what you are moving, and they mark easily. Laminate and veneered panels chip along the edges and scuff across the face, and neither is repairable in any way that does not show. Keep something soft between every panel, never let a panel rest directly on a corrugated van floor, and avoid dragging anything across a deck. Wrap the corners of finished carcasses. If you are moving old and new furniture on the same day, do the new items first while the load space is clean and the old ones afterwards.
Stairs, Landings and Two People Minimum
Even dismantled, wardrobe panels are large and heavy and cannot be steered round a stair turn by one person. Two people, one at each end, is the minimum, with the panel kept as vertical as the space allows. Take the bedroom door off its hinges if the landing is tight, and think about light fittings and the ceiling on the turn. Customers moving furniture in the older properties around Urmston van hire bookings and the terraced streets nearer town frequently find the staircase, not the van, is what decides whether an item can move at all.
Booking the Van and Planning the Day
Allow more time than seems necessary, because dismantling and rebuilding are both slower than carrying. Our depot on Tilley Street at the main entrance to Cockhedge Shopping Centre beside Asda is open Monday to Saturday from 8am until 4pm and closed on Sunday, with free secure parking on site for your own car. Bring your photocard licence and a DVLA check code generated beforehand, and there is no deposit on most of our vehicles. If you want to talk the job through first, the team can be reached through our contact us page.
Dealing With the Old Units Afterwards
A new wardrobe arriving almost always means an old one leaving, and that is a separate load with different rules. Old particle board furniture is bulky, heavy and cannot go in a household bin, and most household waste sites treat it as bulky waste with its own arrangements. Break it down as far as it will go before it leaves the bedroom, since flat panels take a fraction of the space of a carcass and are far easier to carry down a staircase. If a unit is solid timber and in reasonable order, a charity or a local reuse scheme may take it, which is worth a phone call before it goes in a skip. Do the disposal run last so the clean new furniture never shares a load space with the old, and sweep the van out in between if anything has shed sawdust or broken laminate along the way.
Tell us whether the wardrobes are coming apart or arriving flat packed and we will match the body to the lifting. Call the depot on 01925 396 222 to book your date.
