When a mover asks "how many cubic metres?", it is not a trick question: that figure decides everything else. Too small a lorry means two trips. Too large a lorry means you pay for empty space. Here is how to reach a reliable estimate in twenty minutes.
Orders of magnitude
For a normally furnished home, without an overloaded cellar:
| Home | Usual volume |
|---|---|
| Student room or studio | 8 to 15 m³ |
| 1-bedroom flat | 18 to 25 m³ |
| 2-bedroom flat | 25 to 35 m³ |
| 3-bedroom house | 40 to 60 m³ |
| 4-bedroom house or larger | 60 to 90 m³ |
Those ranges are deliberately wide: two flats of the same floor area can differ twofold depending on whether they hold a library and a workshop, or three pieces of furniture and a sofa.
The room-by-room method
Add up the approximate volumes of your furniture. The most useful benchmarks:
- Standard box: 0.05 m³ (count 20 boxes per cubic metre)
- Chair: 0.1 m³
- Bedside table, small unit: 0.2 m³
- Double mattress: 0.5 m³
- Washing machine, oven, small fridge: 0.5 m³
- Armchair: 0.7 m³
- Desk, chest of drawers, dining table: 1 m³
- Two-seater sofa: 1.5 m³ ; three-seater: 2 m³
- Large American fridge: 1.5 m³
- Two-door wardrobe: 2 m³ ; three-door: 3 m³
- Full-height bookcase: 1.5 m³
Walk through each room with that list, write it down, add it up. Then add 10 % for everything you forgot: it happens every time, and it is normal.
Do not forget the invisible areas
They are what blows estimates apart on loading day:
- The cellar and the attic
- The garage, the workshop, the tools, the ladder
- What is in the garden: garden furniture, barbecue, mower, bikes, plants
- The contents of the wardrobes, if they are not boxed yet
One bike is 0.3 m³. Five bikes and a mower are already almost a cubic metre and a half.
How many boxes will you need?
A simple rule: about ten boxes per person for the kitchen, ten for the bathroom and the paperwork, then ten per living room. A couple in a two-bedroom flat typically fills 40 to 60 boxes, or 2 to 3 m³.
Do not put everything into large boxes: beyond 20 kg a box becomes dangerous to carry and tears at the bottom. Books go in the small ones, duvets in the large ones.
From volume to lorry
To place your estimate:
- 12 m³ van: a student room, a sparsely furnished studio
- 20 m³ lorry: a small flat
- 30 m³ lorry: a family flat
- 45 m³ lorry and above: a house
Volume is not the whole price. 25 m³ on the fourth floor without a lift, with the lorry parked 60 metres away, takes more hours than 40 m³ on the ground floor with direct access. That is why we always ask about the floor, the lift and the carrying distance as well as the volume.
Get it confirmed
Our quote form takes you through your home room by room and works out the volume for you. For large volumes or awkward access we offer a free survey, on site or by video: an estimate we have seen with our own eyes beats a rough figure, and it protects your price from surprises.
The right instinct: estimate generously rather than tightly. A volume declared too low is paid for on the day, in extra hours or a second trip.
