Every shuttle move is priced and planned in pieces, so the two questions that matter most are what counts as a piece and how many of them your home turns into. This guide covers both, plus the reasoning behind the 30 kg limit and the box sizes that actually survive a van.
What counts as a piece
A piece is one closed, liftable unit: a taped box, a zipped suitcase, a fastened holdall or trunk. If one person can pick it up and carry it, and it weighs 30 kg or less, it is a piece. Furniture and bikes are different categories, priced at £45 and £59 respectively, and both bring a two person crew.
Why the limit is 30 kg
There is no legal maximum weight for lifting in the UK. What exists instead is Health and Safety Executive guidance, which gives 25 kg for men and 16 kg for women as the guideline for an ideal lift held close to the body at around waist height, with those figures dropping sharply when the load is higher, lower or held away from the body.
Now count the lifts in a shuttle journey. Each piece is picked up at your door, loaded, unloaded at our Oxfordshire hub, sorted onto the right outbound run, loaded again, and carried off at the destination. Six handlings minimum, hundreds of times a day, by real backs. A 30 kg ceiling keeps the heaviest piece just about manageable for a strong adult in good conditions, and it is a ceiling, not a target. A well packed box usually sits between 10 and 20 kg, and that is where you should aim.
The practical test is simple: carry the packed box down a flight of stairs yourself. If you have to put it down halfway, repack it.
The three box sizes that work
Double wall cardboard is non negotiable for anything heavy or breakable. Single wall supermarket boxes are fine for duvets and soft toys, and for nothing else.
Small, roughly 45 x 30 x 30 cm, often sold as a book box. This is the only box books, tools, tins or paperwork should ever go in, because dense things fill weight long before they fill space.
Medium, roughly 45 x 45 x 30 cm. The workhorse. Kitchen items, shoes, files, small appliances, the contents of a desk. Most of your boxes should be this size.
Large, roughly 45 x 45 x 60 cm, the old tea chest shape. Bedding, coats, cushions, lampshades. Light, bulky things only. A large box filled with anything dense becomes unliftable, and a large box of books can pass 50 kg without looking full.
The pattern to remember: the heavier the contents, the smaller the box.
Bags, cases and soft luggage
Suitcases are excellent pieces. They are rigid, they close securely, and a big case of clothes rarely troubles the weight limit. Zipped holdalls work well for soft items. Avoid bin bags entirely: they tear, they cannot be stacked, they cannot be labelled properly, and whatever is inside them ends up at the bottom of someone else's box pile. If it would survive an airport baggage belt, it will survive the shuttle.
How many pieces is a room, honestly
People guess low, usually by about a third. Realistic ranges from thousands of moves of this size:
A student halls room: 8 to 12 pieces.
A double bedroom in a shared flat: 12 to 18 pieces, including suitcases.
A one bedroom flat: 25 to 40 pieces, before any furniture.
The kitchen is where estimates collapse. A modest London kitchen fills 6 to 10 medium boxes on its own once you wrap everything properly, and books are the other serial offender, because a single packed bookcase is easily 8 small boxes.
A better method than guessing: walk each room and count containers, not categories. Every shelf of books is a small box. Every drawer of clothes is half a medium box. Every cupboard of kitchenware is one to two medium boxes. Write the numbers down per room and add ten percent for the things you forgot, because there are always things you forgot.
What the count means for your booking
Pricing follows the piece count. Kerbside collections start at £199 and Assisted at £349. Pieces five to ten are £15 each, and from piece eleven the rate drops to £12, so a bigger send gets cheaper per piece rather than dearer. It is better to book a slightly generous count and come in under it than to be stood at the door on a Wednesday with four pieces the booking never mentioned.
Over 30 kg or just awkward
Some things fail the piece test no matter how you pack them. A box that cannot get under 30 kg should be split into two smaller boxes, and that is almost always the right answer. Things that cannot be split, like a chest of drawers, an armchair or a packed toolbox trunk, travel as furniture at £45 with a two person crew on the Assisted tier.
Label every piece on two sides with your name, mobile number and destination postcode, number them so you can count them in at the far end, and keep the total somewhere you can see it. A move you can count is a move you can control.