How much does house clearance cost?
A full UK house clearance costs £300–£1,200 for most homes, with heavily loaded or hoarded properties running to £1,500–£2,500. Smaller jobs are priced by volume instead: a single item is £45–£90, a quarter van load £90–£150, and a full Luton load £380–£550.
A fair quote covers the crew, the vehicle, all loading and carrying, licensed disposal, and the waste transfer note. It should not treat "carrying it down the stairs" as an extra. Those are the terms behind every Hello Services clearance booking, and the numbers below are the ones we price against.
| Job | Typical price | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Single bulky item | £45–£90 | 30 minutes |
| Minimum / quarter van load | £90–£150 | 1 hour |
| Half van load | £180–£280 | 1–2 hours |
| Full Luton van load | £380–£550 | 2–4 hours |
| Full house clearance (3-bed) | £650–£1,000 | 5–8 hours |
| Hoarded or specialist clearance | £1,200–£2,500 | 1–3 days |
Not sure which load size you have? Send photos and we'll price it properly.
House clearance prices by property size
Bedroom count is a shorthand for volume, but the real variables are lofts, garages, sheds and how long the property has been occupied. A twenty-year family home routinely holds twice the volume of a recently let flat with the same floor plan.
| Property | Volume | Crew | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio / bedsit | 6–10 m³ | 2 people | £250–£400 |
| 1-bed flat | 10–16 m³ | 2 people | £300–£550 |
| 2-bed flat or house | 16–24 m³ | 2 people | £450–£750 |
| 3-bed house | 24–35 m³ | 2–3 people | £650–£1,000 |
| 4-bed house with loft & garage | 35–55 m³ | 3 people | £950–£1,500 |
| Garage, shed or loft only | 5–15 m³ | 2 people | £180–£450 |
Whole-property jobs are handled by our residential house clearance team; if you are clearing a rented flat between tenancies, the flat and apartment clearance service is priced for stair access and communal-area restrictions.
Single items, part loads and rubbish removal
Most people do not need a full clearance. They need a sofa, a mattress and a broken washing machine gone this week. That is priced by volume, not by the hour.
| Item | Typical price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mattress (single / double) | £30–£60 | Charged separately at most transfer stations |
| Two- or three-seat sofa | £55–£95 | Add £15–£25 above the first floor without a lift |
| Fridge or freezer | £50–£85 | Degassing is a regulated process and priced in |
| Washing machine or cooker | £45–£75 | Disconnection is usually extra |
| Wardrobe or bed frame | £40–£80 | Cheaper if dismantled before collection |
| Bagged household rubbish (10 bags) | £80–£130 | Same-day slots often available |
| Garden waste (half load) | £150–£240 | Soil and turf priced by weight |
Individual collections run through our rubbish removal service and furniture disposal service. Renovation debris, plasterboard and rubble are heavier than they look and are priced by weight through building waste clearance.
Council bulky waste vs private clearance
Councils and private carriers solve different problems. The council is a low-cost route for a small number of kerbside-ready items when time is not pressing. A private crew is the answer when the items are inside, numerous, mixed, or needed gone before a check-out inspection or a completion date.
| Council bulky waste | Private clearance | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | £0–£60 for up to 3 items | £45–£90 per item, £90+ per part load |
| Wait time | Often 2–4 weeks | Same or next day in most areas |
| Who carries it out | You, to the kerbside | The crew, from inside the property |
| Item limits | Strict, usually 3–5 items | None within the vehicle capacity |
| Accepted waste | Restricted; rubble and DIY waste often refused | Almost all non-hazardous waste |
| Paperwork | Council booking reference | Waste transfer note from a licensed carrier |
What changes a clearance price
Volume and weight
Volume sets the base price; weight overrides it for soil, rubble, tiles and plasterboard, because disposal sites charge by the tonne. A half load of bagged clothing and a half load of broken concrete are not the same job.
Access and floor level
Every floor above the ground without a lift adds roughly 20–30% to the labour on that property. Narrow communal stairways, restricted loading bays and no-parking frontages add time before a single item moves.
Waste type
Fridges, freezers, mattresses, tyres, paint and electricals attract specific disposal charges. Anything hazardous — asbestos, gas cylinders, clinical waste — needs a specialist and should never be quietly loaded onto a general clearance van.
Timing and location
Clearance demand spikes twice a year: spring, when garages and lofts get emptied, and late summer, when tenancy cycles turn over. Urban jobs cost more because of parking, emissions zones and transfer-station fees. Check availability in your area on our coverage map or compare fixed rates on the price list.
Loft, garage and shed included? Get one fixed price for the whole property.
Duty of care: why the cheapest van can cost you a fine
Under household waste duty of care in England and Wales, you are responsible for making sure your waste is passed to a licensed carrier. If a van driver takes £40 in cash and tips your sofa in a lane, the enforcement trail leads back to you — and unlicensed disposal can bring a fixed penalty running into the hundreds, with far larger fines available on prosecution.
- Ask for the waste carrier registration number and check it before the van is loaded.
- Get a waste transfer note listing what was taken, when and by whom, and keep it for two years.
- Be suspicious of cash-only quotes far below the ranges in this guide.
- Never let anyone take asbestos, gas bottles or chemicals on a general clearance run.
- Photograph the load and the emptied rooms if you are clearing on someone else's behalf.
Where your things actually go
A well-run clearance is a sorting operation, not a trip to landfill. Usable furniture, working appliances, books, clothing and bric-a-brac are separated for reuse and charity referral. Metals, WEEE electricals, wood, cardboard and green waste each go to their own recycling stream. Only genuinely unusable residue should be left for general disposal — and on a typical domestic job that is a minority of the load by volume.
Ask any company what proportion of the load they divert from landfill and how they handle reusable items. A clear answer is a reliable sign of a properly run operation; vagueness usually means everything goes to the same skip.
Probate, end-of-tenancy and landlord clearances
Probate and bereavement clearances
These are handled slowly and in stages: documents, photographs and jewellery are set aside for the family before anything is loaded, and the property is usually cleared over one to two days. Expect a small premium over a standard clearance for the sorting time, sometimes offset where resaleable furniture or antiques are present.
End-of-tenancy and void clearances
Landlords and letting agents typically need the property cleared and cleaned inside the void window between tenancies. Sequencing matters: clear first, clean second. A check-out clean over a half-empty flat has to be repeated, so book the end of tenancy cleaning for the day after the clearance, not the same morning. If the property needs more than a standard check-out clean, a one-off deep clean is the usual follow-on.
Business and office clearances
Commercial jobs are priced around out-of-hours access, lift bookings and data-bearing equipment. Our business clearance service covers offices, retail units and end-of-lease strip-outs.
House clearance in Greater Manchester: local costs and rules
Greater Manchester is one of the few English regions with a single co-ordinated waste authority covering nine of its ten boroughs, and that changes the maths on a clearance. Household waste recycling centres across Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford are run under one recycling service, and access is controlled — vans, pickups and trailers usually need a permit, and several sites operate booking systems. If you are hiring a van to do it yourself, check the permit rules before you load, because being turned away at the gate with a full van is the classic wasted Saturday.
What the property type does to the price
The same volume of furniture costs different amounts to remove depending on where in the county it sits:
| Property type | Typical areas | Effect on price |
|---|---|---|
| City-centre apartment, lift access | Manchester M1–M4, Salford Quays, Ancoats | Add for lift bookings, loading-bay permits and out-of-hours access |
| Mill or warehouse conversion, stairs only | Ancoats, Northern Quarter, Castlefield | Add for long carries and narrow stairwells; no vehicle access to the door |
| Victorian terrace with rear alley | Chorlton, Levenshulme, Gorton, Prestwich | Usually neutral; loft and cellar contents add hours disproportionately |
| Semi with garage and garden | Sale, Cheadle, Heaton Moor, Urmston | Add for garage, shed and garden-waste volume, often a second load |
| Post-war estate house | Wythenshawe, Middleton, Little Hulton | Usually the cheapest — parking at the door and level access |
Parking, permits and access
Access is the biggest local variable. In the city centre, Ancoats and the Northern Quarter, loading bays are time-limited and enforced, so crews work to a booked window. Trafford and Stockport terraces in residents' parking zones may need a suspension or a visitor permit from the council if the van cannot get within carrying distance. Salford Quays and MediaCity apartment blocks almost always require a goods lift booked with the building manager, usually 24–48 hours ahead. Any of these can add an hour of standing time to a job that would take two, so mention them when you ask for a quote and the price stays fixed.
Council bulky collection vs a private van, locally
Every Greater Manchester council runs a bulky waste collection, and for one sofa or a single mattress it is usually the cheapest route — the trade-offs are the wait, which is commonly one to three weeks in peak periods, and the requirement to get items to the kerb or an agreed collection point yourself. That last condition rules it out for a lot of people: a wardrobe on the second floor of a Didsbury terrace is not a kerbside item. Councils also refuse categories a private clearance takes routinely, including rubble, paint, large volumes of garden waste and full-property loads. For anything beyond three items, or anything that has to come from inside, private clearance is both faster and cheaper per cubic metre.
When demand spikes here
Two local patterns are worth planning around. Student areas — Fallowfield, Withington, Rusholme, Hulme and parts of Salford — clear out in a compressed window through late June to early September, and both clearance and van availability tighten sharply. Landlord void periods across the county follow the same curve. If your clearance is flexible, booking outside those weeks is worth real money, and pairing it with an end of tenancy clean the following day is the sequence that gets a property re-let fastest.
Whatever the property, use a licensed carrier and keep the waste transfer note; fly-tipping enforcement is active across the county and the duty of care sits with you, not the person who dumped it. You can see local coverage, pricing and the sub-services on our Greater Manchester clearance hub, which covers 115 areas from the city centre out to Wigan, Bolton, Oldham and Stockport.
Seven ways to pay less for a clearance
- Sell or give away resaleable furniture first — every item removed is volume you don't pay for.
- Consolidate into one visit; two half loads always cost more than one full load.
- Dismantle beds, wardrobes and flat-pack units before the crew arrives.
- Separate garden waste and rubble from general household items so each is priced correctly.
- Book mid-week; weekend and same-day slots carry a premium in most areas.
- Reserve parking outside the property so nothing is carried further than it needs to be.
- Send photos with your enquiry so the quote is right first time and doesn't get revised on the day.
If the clearance is happening because you are moving out, do it before removal day rather than after. Paying moving-day rates to transport items you intend to throw away is the most common avoidable cost in a UK house move — our man with a van price guide explains how the volume maths works, and the house removals team can sequence both jobs on consecutive days.
Frequently asked questions
Related services
- House clearanceWhole-property clearances with licensed disposal and a waste transfer note.
- Rubbish removalSingle items, bagged waste and part loads — often same or next day.
- Furniture disposalSofas, beds, wardrobes and appliances taken from inside the property.
- End of tenancy cleaningThe check-out clean that follows a void-period clearance.
You might also find useful
Get a fixed clearance price today
Send a few photos or a room list and you'll get one upfront number covering labour, the van, loading and licensed disposal — with the paperwork included.