Packing Service
Packing is the part of a move that always takes longer than anyone plans for, and the kitchen alone can eat half a day. A TowManVan packing service puts trained packers in your home at £25 an hour each, working room by room with the right box for each thing, so the van arrives to a house that is genuinely ready to load rather than half-done.
What professional packing actually involves
Most people picture packers as extra pairs of hands putting things into boxes faster. That is part of it, but the real difference is decisions. A packer is constantly judging which box size a thing belongs in, how much weight is already in that box, what has to travel upright, what needs paper between it and its neighbour, and what should not be going in the van at all. Those judgements are why a professionally packed load survives a motorway journey and a rushed self-pack sometimes does not.
The method is room by room and container by container, never a sweep of the whole house at once. One room gets emptied, boxed, labelled with both the contents and the room it is going to in the new place, and taped shut before the next room is opened. That matters more than it sounds: mixed boxes are the reason people spend the following fortnight opening cartons looking for the tin opener. Labelling for the destination room rather than the origin room also means the man and van crew can put each box where it needs to end up instead of dumping everything in the hall.
Packing is booked as an add-on to the move itself rather than as a standalone service, because the two are the same job. The van rate runs from £35 an hour for a small van to £45 for a medium and £60 for a Luton, each packer is £25 an hour on top, and a second helper for carrying is £12 an hour. A third person is charged as an additional helper. Everything is totalled and locked in the app before the booking is confirmed, so there is no bidding, no revised quote, and no conversation on the doorstep about how the job turned out bigger than expected. Full rates are on the man and van prices page.
Room by room: what gets packed, and how long it takes
Every room has its own trap. Here is where the hours actually go in a typical UK home, and what a packer does differently in each one.
If you only buy packing for one room, buy it for the kitchen. It is the room with the most fragile items per square metre and the one people are still doing at midnight the night before completion.
How long packing takes by property size
Packing labour only, at £25 per hour per packer. The van, the carrying and any mileage beyond the first 15 miles are separate.
| Property | Packers | Time on site | Boxes | Packing cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio / 1-bed flat | 1 packer | 3-4 hours | 25-35 boxes | £75-£100 |
| 2-bed flat | 2 packers | 3-4 hours each | 40-55 boxes | £150-£200 |
| 3-bed house | 2 packers | 5-7 hours each | 60-80 boxes | £250-£350 |
| 4-bed house + loft/garage | 2-3 packers | 8-10 hours each | 90-120 boxes | £400-£600 |
Two packers working in the same house are not twice as fast as one in every room, because a small kitchen only fits one person at the counter. They are close to twice as fast across a whole property. Weekend and evening bookings are charged at 1.3x, so a Tuesday pack with a Saturday move is usually the cheapest split.
Should you pay for packing, or do it yourself?
Plenty of people are talked into packing they did not need. Here is the honest split, and we would rather you booked the van only than paid us for hours that were not worth it.
You are moving a studio, a room in a shared house or a one-bed flat. That is 6-10 hours of your own time and about £100 saved.
You have two clear weekends before the move and no small children in the house.
You are decluttering as you go, which is genuinely easier when you handle every object yourself.
Your stuff is mostly clothes, books and soft furnishings rather than glassware and electronics.
A small removals or student move almost never needs paid packing.
You are moving a three-bed or bigger. Self-packing that is 25-35 hours, which is most of two weeks of evenings after work.
You got your completion or tenancy date at short notice and have days rather than weeks.
You have a newborn, a family member who needs care, or a job you cannot take time off from.
The house has a lot of glass, china, art or audio equipment where one bad box costs more than the packing did.
Same logic applies to an office move, where the real cost is staff downtime rather than the van.
There is a sensible middle option people forget: book one packer for three hours to do the kitchen and the fragile items, and do the clothes, books and bedding yourself. That is around £75 and it removes the two jobs most likely to go wrong.
What not to pack, and the box to keep out
The most useful thing a packer will tell you on the day is what to take out of their way. Carry this lot yourself, in your own car or in a bag that never touches the van.
- Passports, birth certificates, tenancy or completion paperwork
- Prescription medication and anything you need daily
- Jewellery, cash, and small irreplaceable items
- House keys, car keys and the estate agent key pack
- Phone and laptop chargers, plus the laptop itself
- Aerosols, paint, petrol, gas canisters and fireworks
- Kettle, mugs, tea, coffee, milk and a couple of spoons
- Loo roll, hand soap, a towel each and a shower gel
- Bedding for every bed you plan to sleep in that night
- Phone chargers, a screwdriver and an adjustable spanner
- Bin bags, cleaning spray and a roll of kitchen paper
- Anything a child or a pet will look for at bedtime
Aerosols, paint, petrol, gas canisters, fireworks and open food are refused rather than discouraged. Goods-in-transit insurance does not cover hazardous goods, and a leaking paint tin in a full van ruins other people's belongings as well as your own. Take paint and chemicals to a household waste site yourself before the move.
Two other honest points. Anything you decide not to take is a clearance job, not a packing job: unwanted furniture and general waste has to go to a licensed waste carrier rather than onto a kerbside pile, which is why house clearance is booked separately. And packing does not include storage. If you have a gap between moving out and moving in, that is a separate storage provider you arrange directly, and the van drops to their facility rather than to a TowManVan warehouse.
Materials: which box for which thing
Box choice is the difference between a load that arrives intact and one that does not. Whether we supply the materials or you buy your own, this is the guide the packers work to.
| Material | What goes in it | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Small box (book carton) | Books, DVDs, tools, tinned food, records | Keep it under about 15kg. If you cannot lift it comfortably with a straight back, neither can the driver. |
| Medium box | Kitchenware, toys, small appliances, shoes | The default box for most of the house. Fill any gap with paper so nothing rattles or shifts in transit. |
| Large box | Bedding, duvets, cushions, lampshades, coats | Light and bulky only. A large box packed with heavy items is the most common cause of a burst base. |
| Wardrobe box | Hanging clothes, straight from the rail | The one item worth buying even for a DIY pack. Saves hours of folding and a whole evening of ironing. |
| Picture / mirror carton | Framed art, mirrors, glass shelves, TVs | Always loaded upright. Mark both faces so nothing gets stacked on top of it in the van. |
| Paper and bubble wrap | Paper for crockery, bubble for glass and electronics | Newspaper ink transfers onto white china and plastic. Use plain packing paper for anything light-coloured. |
Two practical rules that cover most of it: tape the base of every box across the seam and then across it again at right angles, and never leave a gap inside a box. Empty space is what lets contents move, and movement is what breaks things. If a box rattles when you tilt it, it needs more paper.
Dismantling and reassembly, £30 per item
Packing and furniture dismantling are usually bought together, because the same things block a move: a double bed that will not go down the stairs assembled, a wardrobe that is wider than the front door, a desk with legs that unbolt in four minutes and save twenty of shuffling. Dismantling at the old address and rebuilding at the new one is £30 per item, and fixings are bagged and taped to the piece they came from so nothing is hunted for at the other end.
Worth knowing before you pay for it: flat-pack wardrobes and chipboard units do not always survive a second dismantle. Cam locks chew out the board a little more each time, and a unit that has already moved once can come apart fine and then never sit square again. If a wardrobe is on its third house, it is often cheaper to sell it locally and rebuy than to pay to dismantle, move and rebuild it. Solid wood, metal bed frames and decent desks are a different story and are almost always worth taking.
Some items are their own job rather than a £30 dismantle. Upright and grand pianos need specialist handling, covered on the piano removals page. American fridge freezers, safes and large gym equipment need a stair count and sometimes a third person, charged as an additional helper at £12 an hour. Tell us at booking rather than on the day, so the right crew and the right van turn up first time. Full service list is on house removals.
Booking packing with your van
Every driver is DBS-checked and carries goods-in-transit insurance of at least £10,000 plus public liability cover, verified before they can accept a job, which matters more than usual when someone else is handling your possessions. Same-day availability, no membership and no joining fee. See the full pricing breakdown, or compare van sizes on removal van hire.
Packing service FAQs
Get your packing priced
Packers at £25 an hour each, van from £35 an hour, dismantling at £30 per item. Booked in about 60 seconds and fixed before you confirm.
Get a fixed priceMel Carrington - Head of Removals Operations
Mel ran national removal fleets at Pickfords for 15 years before joining TowManVan. She signs off every van-size recommendation, hourly rate and handling standard on this page. Questions? Email mel@towmanvan.co.uk. All figures reviewed August 2026.
Last updated August 2026. Prices verified August 2026 by Mel Carrington.