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Man with a van guide · Lewisham · 8 min read

What fits in a Luton van? A London load guide in Lewisham

A Luton van with a tail lift holds roughly the contents of a studio or a modest one-bedroom flat: a double bed, a three-seater sofa, a fridge freezer, a washing machine, a wardrobe and around twenty medium boxes. Beyond that you are looking at two runs or a small removal lorry.

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

Illustration of a Hello Services crew loading a wrapped wardrobe into a Luton van reversed onto the driveway of a 1930s London semi with the garage open — Lewisham

Local read

What changes in Lewisham before you book

Everything below applies across London — these are the parts a move in this borough turns on. Lewisham covers SE4, SE6, SE8, SE12, SE13, SE14, SE23, SE26 and 12 named areas, and the housing type, the stairs and the parking decide most of what an hourly van job here actually costs.

  • 122,393

    Households in Lewisham

  • 57.7%

    Homes that are flats

  • 2.46

    People per household

  • 12

    Areas covered, each with its own guide

Housing stock in Lewisham

Victorian and Edwardian terraces and conversions, 1960s Catford estates and new Lewisham town-centre towers. 57.7% of homes here are flats, so the variable that moves the price is the carry: lift or stairs, the floor you are on, and how far the van can legally stop from the entrance. That is what decides whether an hourly van booking is two hours or four.

Who moves here

Lewisham has 122,393 households across 300,553 residents on Census 2021 figures, with a median age of 35. 43.4% of households own their home, so moves here cluster around completion dates and chains rather than tenancy end dates. 30.4% of households are single-person, which is exactly the studio-and-one-bed profile an hourly van handles best.

Parking, permits and charges

Steep hills at Honor Oak and Forest Hill, narrow terraced streets and expanding CPZs across SE4 and SE14. Lewisham 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 Lewisham, usually around ten working days' notice.

Planning the day

With 29.2% of homes in social housing, a fair share of jobs here are estate blocks where the concierge or housing office wants notice and proof of insurance before the lift is held. We confirm the hourly rate and the likely hours for an hourly van job in Lewisham 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 Lewisham, Transport for London ULEZ and Congestion Charge zones.

The guide

What Fits in a Luton Van? A London Load Guide in full

The dimensions that matter

A standard Luton body is about 4 metres long, 2 metres wide and 2.2 metres high, with a tail lift rated for white goods and a Luton peak above the cab for mattresses and soft items. That is roughly 20 cubic metres of usable space.

Height is the part people underestimate. Loaded properly — boxes stacked to the roof against the bulkhead, furniture standing on end, mattresses in the peak — a Luton takes far more than the same items piled loosely to waist height.

A room-by-room load check

Rather than guess at cubic metres, count furniture. This is the load a single Luton comfortably takes in one run with two movers.

  • Bedroom: double bed and mattress, two-door wardrobe, chest of drawers, bedside tables
  • Living room: three-seater sofa, armchair, TV unit, coffee table, bookcase
  • Kitchen: fridge freezer, washing machine, small table and two chairs, six boxes
  • Everywhere else: around twenty medium boxes, a bike, a suitcase or three

When one van is genuinely enough

Studio and one-bed flat moves fit a single Luton in the overwhelming majority of London jobs. So do student moves, marketplace collections, self-storage runs and the classic 'we bought a sofa and cannot get it home'.

Two-bed flats are the boundary. A minimal two-bed fits; a two-bed with a home office, a full kitchen and a loft's worth of storage does not. We ask for photos precisely so nobody discovers this at 4pm with half the flat still on the pavement.

Need the Lewisham 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.

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When to stop booking vans and book a lorry

Once you are moving a house rather than a flat, hourly pricing works against you. Three van runs across London is a full day of driving that a 7.5-tonne lorry does in one load, at a fixed price set after a survey.

The switching point is roughly a three-bed home, or any move with a loft, a garage and a completion date attached to it. That is house removals, and it will cost less than the van bill would have.

Loading a van so it holds more

Heavy and square first, against the bulkhead. Appliances upright and strapped. Sofas on end down one side. Mattresses flat in the Luton peak. Boxes stacked in columns with the heaviest at the bottom, and soft bags wedged into gaps at the end.

Loose items are what waste space and time. Twenty properly packed boxes take less room than fifteen carrier bags, and they can be stacked — which is the whole point.

Verified Trustpilot reviews

What Lewisham customers say

★★★★★
Sardar was great and did a fantastic job cleaning the house. Would thoroughly recommend
Anthony ·
★★★★★
Sardar has left the property well cleaned and we have used him 10 times in the area we are in and have been happy with how each house/flat has been left. A asset to the company.
Andrew ·

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

By area

This guide, localized across Lewisham 12 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 Lewisham 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 Lewisham, 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.

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Questions

Quick answers for Lewisham

Yes. The prices, timings and packing advice in this guide are what we work to across Lewisham, including SE4, SE6, SE8, SE12. What varies locally is access — stairs versus lift, a bay suspension with London Borough of Lewisham and ULEZ — and every one of those is inside the written quote before you book.