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Man with a van guide · Ealing · 7 min read

Moving a single item in London: sofas, mattresses and marketplace buys in Ealing

A single item collected and delivered locally in London is £69, or £75 for a marketplace or IKEA collection where we deal with the seller or the trade counter. Measure the item, the narrowest doorway and the stairwell turn before you buy — that is the check that decides whether it can come in at all.

By The Hello Services moving team · Published 2026-08-20 · Updated 2026-08-20

Illustration of Hello Services movers using a London apartment tower loading bay and goods lift, with the concierge desk and a branded van in the bay behind them — Ealing

Local read

What changes in Ealing before you book

The guide below is the London-wide version. This panel is what changes once the move is inside this borough. Ealing covers W3, W5, W7, W13, UB1, UB2, UB5, UB6, NW10 and 9 named areas, and the housing type, the stairs and the parking decide most of what an hourly van job here actually costs.

  • 133,657

    Households in Ealing

  • 49.5%

    Homes that are flats

  • 2.75

    People per household

  • 9

    Areas covered, each with its own guide

Housing stock in Ealing

Edwardian villas, 1930s semis, Victorian terraces in Acton and new Crossrail-era blocks at Southall and Ealing Broadway. 50.3% of homes here are houses, so most jobs load off a driveway or straight off the kerb and the crew size matters more than the carry distance. That is what decides whether an hourly van booking is two hours or four.

Who moves here

Ealing has 133,657 households across 367,115 residents on Census 2021 figures, with a median age of 36.5. 34% of households rent privately, so Ealing moves in tenancy cycles — end-of-month and end-of-quarter Saturdays book out first. 26.7% of households are single-person, which is exactly the studio-and-one-bed profile an hourly van handles best.

Parking, permits and charges

Mixed — driveways in Ealing and Greenford, but Acton and Southall have tight CPZs and busy narrow shopping streets. Ealing sits outside the Congestion Charge zone and inside ULEZ, so the access cost that matters is a parking bay suspension booked with London Borough of Ealing, usually around ten working days' notice.

Planning the day

With 17.5% of homes in social housing, most bookings here are private addresses where the only permission needed is the parking bay. We confirm the hourly rate and the likely hours for an hourly van job in Ealing in writing, so nothing about the bill is a surprise on the day.

Household, housing-mix and tenure figures: ONS Census 2021, borough level — the smallest geography publishing all three series. Access and permit notes: London Borough of Ealing, Transport for London ULEZ and Congestion Charge zones.

The guide

Moving a Single Item in London: Sofas, Mattresses and Marketplace Buys in full

How a single-item booking works

You send us the item, the collection address and the delivery address. We quote a fixed price rather than an hourly rate, because the job has a known shape: load, drive, carry in.

For marketplace buys we can collect from the seller directly, including paying them on collection by prior arrangement. You get a message when the item is in the van and again when it is on its way to you.

Measure three things before you buy

The item is the easy measurement. The two that catch people out are the narrowest doorway on the route and the turn at the top or bottom of the stairs — particularly in Victorian conversions, where the return is often narrower than the door.

Write down width, height and depth for the item, then the door width, the hallway width and the stairwell turn. If the item's smallest dimension is bigger than the narrowest point, it does not go in, and no amount of angling changes that.

  • Item: width, height, depth — and diagonal depth for a sofa
  • Narrowest doorway on the route, including the communal front door
  • Stairwell: width and the turn radius at each half-landing
  • Lift: internal depth and door width, if there is one

What we move most often

Sofas and armchairs, mattresses and bed frames, wardrobes and chests of drawers, fridge freezers and washing machines, desks, bookcases, pianos on request, bikes, and the enormous mirror that will not fit in a taxi.

Everything travels blanket-wrapped and strapped. Flat-pack collected from a store stays boxed; second-hand furniture is wrapped before it goes in the van, not after it has rubbed against something.

Need the Ealing hourly rate confirmed before you book?

Send the item list, both addresses and the floor at each end — a fixed hourly quote comes back the same day.

Get QuoteCall Now

When a sofa genuinely will not fit

It happens, and the honest answer matters more than the optimistic one. Most sofas can be brought in with the feet off and the item on its end. Some cannot, and then the choices are a specialist hoist, a window removal, or returning the item.

Send us photos of the item and the entrance before you commit to buying. Two minutes of measuring at that stage is worth more than any amount of problem-solving on the doorstep.

Dismantling, disposal and the old sofa

We can dismantle and reassemble beds, wardrobes and flat-pack at £25 an item, added to a single-item booking without changing it into an hourly job.

What we cannot do on a van booking is take the old item away as waste — that needs a licensed waste carrier. Our clearance team handles it and can often attend the same day, so the new sofa arrives and the old one leaves within a couple of hours of each other.

Verified Trustpilot reviews

What Ealing customers say

★★★★★

Best service as always!

I had a very positive experience with HelloService. I first used their service two years ago for the end of tenancy cleaning of my flat in Edinburgh, where I had lived for six years. I was quite nervous, as the property had been occupied for a long time, but HelloService delivered a very high standard of cleaning. The end of tenancy inspection was passed at the first attempt, and both my landlord and I were very satisfied with the result. I was genuinely impressed. More recently, when I needed an end of tenancy clean for my flat in Cambridge, I did not hesitate to contact HelloService again. I was pleased that they still had my records and even offered a returning customer discount. Although the price was slightly higher than before, I was happy to proceed given my previous experience, especially as they provide a seven-day guarantee, which not many companies offer. While the first team did not fully meet the expected standard, the company responded quickly and arranged a re-clean the very next day. I really appreciated this prompt response. Denisse and her team in Cambridge delivered an excellent service. They carefully followed the checkout report, addressed all the issues in detail and carried out a thorough clean across the entire flat. The overall standard was very high and the property is now in very good condition. I truly appreciate the professionalism, responsiveness and reliability of the company. I also enquired about a regular monthly cleaning service and, although this is not something they currently offer, I would certainly have considered using them for this as well. This is not the first time I have used HelloService and my experience has consistently been positive. I would highly recommend their services and would happily use them again in the future.
Eva ·
★★★★★
Booked the Gloucestershire team last minute to clean most of a 3-bedroom house left in a state by a flatmate. The 2-man team did an incredible job getting both bathrooms, the hallways, the living room & the kitchen + appliances clean, alongside the doors and windows. Would absolutely have again!
Jack Cooper ·

Reviews are quoted verbatim from our public Trustpilot profile, where the full rating history is open to check.

By area

This guide, localized across Ealing 9 areas

Every area below has its own version of this guide with local housing mix, access and parking notes.

Who wrote this page

Reviewed by Sarbaz Hassan, Operations Director — .

We run van jobs across Ealing most days, from single-item collections to full studio and one-bed moves.

  • Company no. 11855405
  • VAT no. GB 331 4560 12
  • Goods-in-transit & public liability insured
  • DBS-checked crews
  • Licensed waste carrier

Hourly van rates for Ealing, confirmed in writing

What is moving, both postcodes, the floor at each end and your preferred slot — that is all we need to price it.

Get QuoteCall Now

Questions

Quick answers for Ealing

Yes. The prices, timings and packing advice in this guide are what we work to across Ealing, including W3, W5, W7, W13. What varies locally is access — stairs versus lift, a bay suspension with London Borough of Ealing and ULEZ — and every one of those is inside the written quote before you book.