“How long will it take?” is the first question most people ask when they ring us about a house move, and it is a fair one. If you are paying an hourly rate, hours are money. The honest answer is that it depends on a handful of things — and most of them are things you can influence before the truck arrives.
This guide explains what actually drives the length of a move in Melbourne, so you can work out a realistic window for your own, and keep the clock as short as possible.
The short answer
For a straightforward local move within Melbourne, most jobs land somewhere between half a day and a full day. A one-bedroom unit with lift access and a parking bay out the front sits at the quick end. A four-bedroom house with a shed, a long driveway and a few awkward pieces sits at the slow end. Add a tight inner-city street, a second pick-up or a long drive between addresses and you can be looking at a full day or more.
Those are planning windows, not promises — every home is different. It is also why we quote on an upfront hourly rate rather than a flat guess you would have to trust blindly: a van and man from $40 per half hour, a 4.5 tonne truck and two movers from $55 per half hour, or a 6.5 tonne truck and two movers from $60 per half hour. The full breakdown is on our removalist prices page.
What actually drives the hours
1. How much there is to move
Volume is the obvious one, but it is not just about the number of bedrooms. Garages, sheds, studies and anything stored under the house are what usually blow out an estimate, because they rarely get counted when people picture their own move. Walk through every space before you ask for a quote, including the ones you have not opened in a while.
2. Access at both ends
This is the factor that most often turns a four-hour job into a six-hour one. Ground-floor to ground-floor with a wide path is fast. Stairs are slower, and each extra flight costs real time. A lift sounds like the easy option, but a single small lift shared with other residents can be slower than one flight of stairs — if your building has a service lift, it is worth booking it for your moving window. Our apartment removalists page goes into the lift, loading dock and building-booking side of things in more detail.
3. Parking
Where the truck can legally stop decides how far every single item has to be carried, and that distance gets paid for twice — once at each end. If you can reserve space directly out the front, do it. Many Melbourne councils will issue a temporary parking permit or let you reserve a bay for a move if you apply a week or two ahead; it is worth a phone call to the council for both addresses.
4. How ready you are when we arrive
This is the biggest variable within your control. A home where everything is boxed, taped, labelled and stacked near the door loads far faster than one where the kitchen is still half unpacked. To be clear about what we do and do not do: we are a removals company, not a packing service — we do not pack your boxes for you. What we do bring is furniture blankets, trolleys and straps, and we wrap and protect your furniture as we load it. If you need boxes, tape and packing materials, you can get them from our shop.
5. The distance between the two addresses
Drive time is part of the job. A move from Preston to Reservoir is a different proposition to a move from Werribee to Doncaster in Friday peak hour. If your two addresses are far apart, a mid-morning start often beats an early one, because you miss the worst of the traffic on the leg between them.
6. Awkward and specialty items
A piano, a full-size fridge, a slate pool table, a sofa that will only come out through a window — any one of these can add an hour on its own, and they need the right gear and the right number of people. Tell us about them when you book rather than on the day. We move pianos and heavy single items regularly, but only if we know they are coming.
Planning windows by home size
Use these as a starting point for your own planning, then adjust for the access and parking at both ends. They assume you are fully packed before we arrive and the two addresses are a reasonable distance apart.
- Studio or one-bedroom unit — typically a half-day job. Often a van and man is enough.
- Two-bedroom unit or small house — usually a half day to most of a day, depending on stairs and lifts.
- Three-bedroom house — commonly most of a day with a truck and two movers.
- Four bedrooms or more — plan for a full day, and longer again if there is a shed, a garage or difficult access.
If you are only shifting a few items rather than a whole home, that is a much shorter job — see man with a van or furniture removals.
Six ways to take time off the day
- Finish packing the night before, not on the morning. Nothing eats hours like a kitchen that is still being wrapped while the truck waits.
- Label boxes by room, on the side as well as the top. Stacked boxes hide their lids, and a labelled box goes straight to the right room instead of the hallway.
- Sort out parking at both ends in advance. Reserve the bay, book the lift, check the loading dock hours.
- Empty the wardrobes, drawers and the shed. Full furniture is heavier, slower and riskier to carry.
- Clear a path. Move pot plants, bikes and bins off the route between the door and where the truck will park.
- Get rid of what you are not taking before moving day. Paying to move something you intend to throw out is the most avoidable cost there is. If there is a pile of it, our rubbish removal service can take it away.
How the day usually runs
We arrive, walk through the house with you and agree what is going and what is staying. Furniture gets blanket-wrapped and strapped, the heavy and awkward items are loaded first, and boxes fill in around them. At the other end it comes off in reverse, and furniture goes into the room you point at rather than being stacked in the hallway. The clock stops when the last item is in place.
We work seven days a week, we are fully insured, and the hourly rate we quote is the rate you pay — there is no surprise added at the end.
Moving interstate?
Interstate timing works differently, because the drive itself is the bulk of it rather than the loading. We run moves from Melbourne to New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia — see interstate removals for how those are scheduled.
Get a realistic estimate for your move
The quickest way to a useful answer is to tell us four things: how many bedrooms, what the access is like at both ends, where the truck can park, and anything heavy or awkward that needs special handling. With that we can give you a sensible window rather than a number plucked out of the air.
Movers4Melbourne has been moving homes across Melbourne since 2014, from our base in Campbellfield, and we are rated 4.9 on Google. Call 0452 490 078, message us on WhatsApp, or request a free quote. You can read more about how we handle a full home move on our house removals page, and if you are moving within the northern suburbs we also have pages for Preston and Reservoir.