Man with a van · Guide
What can (and can't) a man with a van carry?
Most answers to this stop at "furniture and boxes", which is no help at all when the thing in your hallway is a hot tub, an Aga or a garage door. So here is the honest range, taken from the list Porta actually prices, plus the short list of things no driver will put in a van and the reasons behind each one.
The honest answer: if it fits and it is legal, it goes
There is no secret list of approved furniture. A man and van is a load space and a pair of hands, so the real questions are whether your thing fits through the door, fits in the van, and can be lifted safely by the number of people booked. Almost everything in a normal home clears all three without anyone breaking a sweat.
Where it gets interesting is the stuff people assume is impossible. Hot tubs move. Agas move. Arcade machines, garage doors, gym racks and full-size bars move. They need the right van, usually a tail lift and always two people, but "too big" is rarely the answer. "Not enough notice" is a far more common one.
What a man with a van actually carries
Most guides wave vaguely at "furniture and boxes". Porta prices 1,048 named items, sorted into six size bands, and the band decides the price rather than a guess on the day. That list is the clearest answer to this question anyone can give you, so here it is, with real local prices attached:
| Size band | Real items from the list | Local price (~30 miles) |
|---|---|---|
| Small | Cables and adapters, a camera kit, gaffer tape, headphones | £27 to £48 |
| Medium | An adult bicycle, an acoustic guitar, a camping tent | £30 to £53 |
| Large | An armchair, a chest of drawers, dining chairs, a bedside table | £32 to £56 |
| Huge | A double bed and mattress, a corner sofa, a washing machine, a double wardrobe, a desk | £35 to £61 |
| Extra Huge | An American fridge freezer, an arcade machine, a bar unit | £41 to £72 |
| XX Huge | A hot tub, an Aga oven, a gym machine, a garage door | £48 to £84 |
The lower figure is the shared-trip price, where your item rides on a run a driver is already making. Prices climb with distance, not with drama: the same bands at longer distances are broken down in how much a man with a van costs.
The short list of things no driver will take
Every refusal below has a reason behind it, and none of them are about being difficult. It is worth knowing them before the van arrives rather than on the doorstep.
- Anything flammable. Petrol, gas bottles, kerosene, lighter fluid, charcoal. It is not the object, it is the fumes building in a sealed load space on a warm day.
- Chemicals and pressurised cans. Paint and thinners, aerosols, fire extinguishers, garden chemicals. They leak, they burst, and they ruin everything they are packed next to.
- Explosives and ammunition. Including propellants and black powder. Obvious, but it does come up with house clearances.
- Pets and people. Never in the load space. There are no seatbelts, no airflow and no windows back there.
- Perishable and frozen food. A freezer full of food is a defrosted mess and a smell nobody wants to own by the second hour.
- Living plants, on longer runs. They are not covered the way your furniture is, they fall over, and heat does the rest.
Weight is the quiet limit, not size
People worry about whether a thing will fit. Drivers worry about whether it can be lifted. A double wardrobe is enormous and two people move it happily; a small safe, a granite worktop offcut or a box of records is compact and genuinely dangerous to shift alone. Back injuries in this trade come from the small heavy things, not the big obvious ones.
Which is why the useful thing to say when you book is not just what an item is, but roughly what it weighs and whether it comes apart. Anything over about 50kg wants two people. Booking a second pair of hands costs less than a bannister, a doorframe or a week off work. If you are weighing up van capacity as well, what size van you need covers how space and weight limits differ.
The stuff couriers flatly refuse
This is the gap a man and van exists to fill. Parcel networks are built for things that fit on a conveyor: box it, label it, sort it, done. A headboard, a mirror, a marble table, a sofa or a bike does not survive that system and mostly is not accepted into it in the first place.
A man and van skips all of it. One van, one driver, your item strapped and blanketed, collected from a door and delivered to a door with nothing in between. That is why eBay, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace pickups are such standard work, and why a single heavy item can also go through Porta's large item courier service. Weighing the two up? See man with a van vs a courier.
One item, or the whole flat
None of this is only about single pieces. The same van does part-loads and small moves: a studio, a student room, the contents of a bedroom, the half of a flat that is actually yours. Priced as a job rather than per item, and typically from around £120 for a small move, though that figure moves with what is going and how far.