Storage for Moving House: Costs, Sizes and Doorstep Collection
Storage for moving house costs from GBP 24 per month for up to ten boxes, or GBP 89 per month for a room of furniture, with collection and delivery included. You do not hire a van and you do not drive to a unit. A packing crew comes to your door, barcodes every item, and brings it back when your new place is ready.
That last part matters more than most moving guides admit. The hard part of a UK house move is rarely the space itself. It is the gap between the day you have to be out and the day you can get in, and the fact that nobody will tell you how long that gap will be.
What storage for moving house actually costs
Two prices cover almost every house move. Box Storage is GBP 24 per month and holds up to ten boxes, which suits a decluttered flat or a student move. Room Storage is GBP 89 per month and takes furniture plus boxes, which is what most families moving out of a two or three bedroom home need. Collection and delivery are included in both.
Nobody in the top search results for this question publishes a price. Big Yellow, Safestore and the removals guides all describe the service and then ask you to request a quote. Here is ours, in a table, before you give anyone your phone number.
| Plan | Price | What it holds | Typical mover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Box Storage | GBP 24 / month | Up to 10 boxes | Studio or one-bed, decluttered |
| Room Storage | GBP 89 / month | Furniture plus boxes | Two to three bedroom home |
| Business Storage | Custom | Unlimited volume | Office or stock relocation |
Every plan includes free collection, free delivery back, an online inventory and 24-hour retrieval. There are no hidden charges and no admin fee for ending the contract. If you want the wider picture on what storage costs per month in the UK, we have broken down the whole market separately.
The minimum period is one month. After that you give seven days' notice and stop paying. That is the number to check with any provider, because a cheap headline rate attached to a long minimum term is not cheap.
When you need storage when moving house
Most people book storage when moving house for one of four reasons, and only one of them is a shortage of space. The other three are timing problems. Recognising which one you have tells you how long to book for and whether you need everything out or only the things that make a house hard to show and hard to move.
Between exchange and completion
You have exchanged, you have a completion date, and there is a gap of days or weeks before you get keys. This is the cleanest case. You know the dates, so you book collection for the day before you vacate and delivery for the day after you get in. One month usually covers it.
When the chain breaks
Your buyer's buyer pulls out, or a searches issue delays everything by six weeks. You have already packed. This is where storage stops being a convenience and becomes the thing that lets you move out on schedule instead of losing the sale. Book month by month rather than guessing an end date.
Downsizing or selling
Estate agents will tell you a decluttered house shows better and sells faster. Clearing surplus furniture and boxed clutter before the photographs are taken is a commercial decision, not a tidy-up. Box Storage at GBP 24 a month is usually cheaper than the price reduction a cluttered listing invites.
Renovating the new place
You have the keys but the floors are coming up. Storing the contents of two rooms for eight weeks costs less than working around furniture, and your things stay out of the dust. Our storage for moving house service is built around exactly this pattern.
How doorstep collection works, step by step
This is the part that separates a collected service from a self-storage unit. With a unit you rent a space and the transport is your problem. With collection the transport is included and the inventory is ours to keep track of. Here is the sequence, from the first call to the day everything comes back.
- You tell us roughly what you have and which city you are in. We call back with a fixed monthly price.
- We book a collection slot. Same-day is often possible; most people book two to five days out.
- A packing crew arrives with double-walled cartons, bubble wrap and edge protectors. Furniture is wrapped in the house, not in the van.
- Every item is barcoded against your account before it leaves the property. You sign off the list on the doorstep.
- Items travel in closed, weather-proof vehicles to a managed warehouse and go onto elevated pallets, clear of floor moisture.
- Your inventory appears in an online portal. You can see what you have without opening a box.
- When you are ready, you request delivery. You can request the whole load or just the four boxes you actually need.
Step seven is the one people underestimate. Because each item carries a barcode, we can pull a single carton off a pallet without unloading the rest. That is why barcoding is worth the extra hour at collection, and why storage for moving house works differently from a locked room you visit yourself.
How much space you need: sizing without guesswork
Self-storage companies size a move in square feet, which asks you to estimate the floor area of your own possessions. Most people get it wrong and pay for air. We price by volume and by what we actually collect, so the sizing question becomes simpler: which plan fits, and what falls outside it.
| Your home | Usual plan | Rough contents |
|---|---|---|
| Studio or bedsit, decluttered | Box Storage | Clothes, books, kitchenware, up to 10 cartons |
| One-bedroom flat | Box Storage or Room Storage | Cartons plus a sofa or bed frame |
| Two-bedroom home | Room Storage | Beds, sofa, table, wardrobe, 15-25 cartons |
| Three-bedroom home | Room Storage, often two months | Full furniture set plus garage overflow |
| Office or stock move | Business Storage | Desks, shelving, records, equipment |
If you are unsure, describe the rooms on the phone rather than measuring anything. Our team quotes hundreds of house moves a month and can size a two-bed flat from a two-minute conversation. Getting it wrong costs you nothing, because the price is confirmed before the van is booked.
Moving house self storage compared with doorstep collection
Searching for moving house self storage will show you two different products under one label. A self-storage unit is a rented room you drive to. A collected service is a managed warehouse you never visit. Both store your things. They differ on who does the lifting, and that difference dominates the real cost of a move.
| Consideration | Self-storage unit | SafeStorage collection |
|---|---|---|
| Getting items there | You hire a van or a removals firm | Included in the monthly price |
| Packing | You buy materials and pack | Crew packs and wraps at your door |
| Knowing what you stored | Your memory and your labels | Barcoded online inventory |
| Getting one item back | Drive over, open unit, search | Request that item for delivery |
| Access hours | Site opening hours | 24-hour retrieval request |
| What you pay for | Floor area, occupied or not | What we actually collected |
We are not going to quote a competitor's prices, because they change by site and by week and any figure we printed would be out of date. Compare the structure instead. A unit price plus two van hires plus your Saturday is the honest comparison, and it is rarely the one in the advert.
Moving house self storage makes sense if you genuinely need daily access and you already own a van. For everyone else, the collected model removes the two jobs people most regret taking on during a move.
Storage boxes for moving house: what we bring and what you buy
You do not need to buy storage boxes for moving house before we arrive. The collection crew brings double-walled cartons, bubble wrap, tape and edge protectors as part of the service. Buying flat-packed boxes from a supermarket a week early is one of the most common and most avoidable moving costs.
What is worth buying yourself is a marker pen and a roll of coloured tape for the things you are keeping with you. Those items should never enter the storage run at all, and colour-coding them stops a tired crew loading your passport folder into a carton at four in the afternoon.
- Double-walled cartons for books, crockery and anything with weight.
- Bubble wrap and edge protectors for mirrors, screens and glazed frames.
- Wardrobe cartons so hanging clothes travel on the rail rather than folded.
- Mattress and sofa covers, fitted at the property before anything moves.
If you have already bought storage boxes for moving house, use them. We will pack around what you have rather than charge you for materials you do not need.
What to pack first and what to keep with you
Decide this before collection day, not during it. The rule for storage for moving house is simple: anything you would struggle to replace in 48 hours stays with you, and anything that makes the house feel full goes early. Packing in that order also makes the property show better during viewings.
- Store early: out-of-season clothes, books, spare bedding, garage and loft contents, surplus furniture, hobby equipment.
- Store on the day: beds, sofas, tables, wardrobes, white goods you are taking.
- Keep with you: passports, deeds, birth certificates, medication, chargers, a week of clothes, tools, kettle and mugs.
- Do not store at all: perishables, aerosols, paint, fuel, anything flammable.
The kettle is not a joke. The first night in a house with no kitchen and no tea is the moment people remember whether they planned their move or improvised it.
Inside the warehouse: how your things are actually kept
A storage promise is only as good as the building behind it. Our facilities are climate controlled with 24/7 CCTV, and everything stored is fully insured. Those three phrases appear on every storage website in Britain, so here is what sits underneath them in practice.
Cartons go onto elevated pallets rather than the floor, which keeps them clear of moisture and makes them movable by pallet truck. The warehouse is treated for pests fortnightly. Items travel in closed, weather-proof vehicles rather than open loads.
On the compliance side we are ISO 27001 certified, GDPR compliant and ICO registered, and our document destruction meets BS EN 15713. Those matter most for business customers, but the same building and the same handling standards apply to a family's furniture.
The terms, plainly stated
The awkward questions are the ones worth answering before you book, because they are where storage contracts usually hurt. Minimum period, notice period and what insurance covers are the three that decide whether a cheap monthly rate is actually cheap. Here are ours, without the small print.
- Minimum period: one month.
- Notice to end: seven days, with no exit fee.
- Collection and delivery: included, not billed separately.
- Retrieval: 24-hour request, part or full load.
- Insurance: everything stored is covered while in our care.
If your move slips, you extend month by month. You are not locked into a term you chose while guessing at a completion date, which is the single most common regret we hear from people who booked a unit before the chain settled.
What our customers say about moving with SafeStorage
SafeStorage holds a 4.9 Google rating and has operated since 2015. Ratings are easy to publish, so the reviews below are reproduced word for word from our own site, with the names and roles as the customers gave them. The first is a house move of exactly the kind this page describes.
We were moving house and needed somewhere to store our furniture for 6 weeks. SafeStorage collected everything, kept it safe, and delivered it all back perfectly. Absolute lifesavers!
— Emma Hartley, Homeowner, Manchester
Our office was overflowing with stock and old equipment. SafeStorage cleared it all within a day. We gained 40% more workspace and save over GBP 2,000 a month. Incredible service.
— Daniel Osei, Operations Director, London
For a law firm, document compliance is everything. SafeStorage's GDPR-compliant system with 24-hour retrieval is exactly what we need. Faultless service for 3 years now.
— Rachel Singh, Partner, Singh & Co Solicitors
The pattern across all three is the same operational fact: the customer never transported anything and never lost track of it. Emma's furniture came back as a complete load, Daniel's office cleared in a day, and Rachel's firm retrieves single files on request. That is what barcoding an inventory at the door is for.
Where we collect
We collect and deliver across eleven UK cities, with Leicester opening soon. Collection slots are booked by postcode rather than by branch, so you are not tied to whichever industrial estate happens to be nearest. Same-day collection is often available if you call early enough in the day.
- London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh
- Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield
- Nottingham, Cardiff, and Leicester coming soon
City-level detail on access, parking and typical move patterns sits on our location pages, including storing in London. If you are moving an office rather than a home, SafeStorage business storage handles stock, equipment and records.
Storage for moving house: the questions behind the question
These are the questions people actually ask on the phone, rather than the ones storage websites like to answer. Each one below is answered in full, so you can decide whether to book without calling. If your situation is not here, the number and the quote form are at the end of this page.
How much do storage units for moving house cost?
Storage units for moving house are usually priced by square footage, so a three-bedroom home often needs 100 sq ft or more, plus van hire at each end. Our collected alternative is GBP 24 per month for up to ten boxes or GBP 89 per month for a room of furniture, with transport included in both.
What are the best moving house storage solutions for a delayed chain?
For a delayed chain, the best moving house storage solutions are month-to-month with a short notice period. Book a single month, then extend as the date moves. With a one-month minimum and seven days' notice, you are never paying for weeks past the day your keys arrive.
Is moving house self storage worth it for a short gap?
For a gap of a week or two, moving house self storage often costs more than it looks, because you pay for the unit and for getting everything there and back. A collected service includes both journeys in the monthly price, which usually makes it the cheaper option for short gaps.
How do I arrange storage when moving house at short notice?
Call or WhatsApp us with your postcode and a rough room count. Arranging storage when moving house at short notice is routine for us, and same-day collection is often available if you call before midday. The price is confirmed before we book the van, so there are no surprises.
Where do I get storage boxes for moving house?
You do not need to source storage boxes for moving house separately. Our packing crew arrives with double-walled cartons, bubble wrap, tape and edge protectors included in the service. If you have already bought your own boxes, we will pack around them rather than charging you for materials twice.
Can I get some of my items back before the rest?
Yes. Every item is barcoded against your account at collection, so we can pull individual cartons from a pallet without unloading your whole load. Request the items you need and we deliver those, leaving the rest in storage until your completion date finally lands.
Booking storage for moving house
Tell us the city, the rough size of the property and the date you have to be out. We will confirm a fixed monthly price and a collection slot, and you can change the delivery date as often as your chain forces you to. Nothing is charged until collection happens.
Call +44 7575 580879, message us on WhatsApp at +44 7423 615900, or get a free quote online. You can also compare moving house storage solutions across all our plans before you commit to anything.