Do Removal Companies Dismantle Beds and Wardrobes? Prices and What to Expect

Ask five removal companies whether they dismantle beds and wardrobes and all five will probably say yes. Ask whether it is included in the price and the answers start to differ. A company can build it into the hourly rate, charge per item, rebuild only what it took apart, or leave anything with a mirror or a sliding door to you. The difference matters most in London, where so many homes have a stair turn or a lift that a wardrobe will not pass in one piece.

This guide sets out exactly what we charge for each item on our published price list, both for taking it apart and for taking it apart and rebuilding it at the other end. It works through six real-world bundles to show when the £90 minimum matters and when it does not, explains why a PAX or a sliding wardrobe costs so much more than a standard one, and says plainly what the price does not cover.

Not automatically, and it is worth checking with any company you ask. A bedroom count tells a mover how much there is to carry. It does not tell them that the king-size bed is an ottoman with gas struts, or that the wardrobe in the second bedroom is a three-section PAX that came up the stairs in boxes. Those details change the time on the day, which is why most companies either ask about them or price them separately.

We price it separately, item by item, so you can see what each piece costs and decide which ones you would rather do yourself. The work appears as its own line in your written quote, under the removal, with the items listed. Our quotation terms say so directly:

That wording does two things. It ties the price to a list, so a wardrobe that appears on the day is not covered until it is added. And it draws a line around what dismantling is: taking furniture apart and putting the same furniture back together, with the fixings it came with. Repairs, alterations and specialist joinery sit outside it.

One more rule applies to every booking: dismantling, reassembly and TV work are only offered with a removal. We do not send a crew to take a wardrobe apart and leave, or to rebuild flat-pack furniture you bought somewhere else. If what you need is assembly of new furniture, a retailer's own assembly service is the better fit. IKEA UK, for example, offers assembly of its products through Taskrabbit, from £33 when we checked.

Here is every item on our dismantling and reassembly price list. The lighter bar is the price to take the item apart at your old home. The darker bar is the price to take it apart and rebuild it at the new one. The dashed line is the £90 minimum booking.

Three things stand out. First, beds are the cheapest group and wardrobes the dearest: a five-door wardrobe has far more panels, hinges and doors than a bed frame, and the prices follow the work. Second, 14 items cost less than £90 to take apart and 3 cost less than £90 even with the rebuild, so on a small job the minimum, not the item, sets the price. Third, several prices start with "from": the figure is where the price begins, not a cap, and it is confirmed once the team has seen the item.

If you want a quick summary rather than the whole list, the same price lists give these starting points:

• Standard furniture dismantling / reassembly: from £40 per item
• Bed dismantling + reassembly: from £50 per bed
• Large wardrobe: from £60 each
• Complex / flat-pack wardrobe: from £80 each

The full table is on our pricing page, and the furniture disassembly service in London page explains how the work is booked alongside a move.

The rebuild costs more than the dismantling: between 67% and 89% more, across the items with fixed prices. That is not padding. Putting a wardrobe back together takes longer than taking it apart, because the carcass has to be squared up, the doors hung and aligned, and the drawers or rails refitted so that they run properly. Taking it apart is mostly a matter of reversing the screws in the right order.

When dismantle only makes sense

• You are happy to rebuild it yourself. A simple bed frame you put together once is often quick to rebuild with the original instructions
• The item is going into storage. There is no point paying for a rebuild that will be taken apart again
• The item will not be rebuilt at the new home. For example, a bed you plan to replace once you arrive
• Someone else is fitting it. A carpenter or a fitter booked for the new home

When to book the rebuild

• Wardrobes of three doors or more. Hanging and aligning doors is the part that goes wrong at home
• Anything you did not build yourself. If it arrived built, you do not have the instructions in your head
• Beds you need that night. The first night in a new home is a lot easier on an assembled bed
• Children's beds and cots. These should be rebuilt properly, with every fixing back in place

If the item went into storage, or was taken apart by someone else, our price lists also give a reassembly figure on its own: from £40 per item. That is a starting figure for a simple item, confirmed once the team knows what is in the boxes.

As a worked example, a 2-bed flat's king bed, double bed, 3-door and 2-door wardrobe cost £245 to take apart before going into storage. Rebuilding them on a later removal starts from £160, depending on the items. Taking them apart and rebuilding them in one move is £450. The split costs more in total, but you only pay for the rebuild when you need it.

The minimum is the least a dismantling booking costs, however few items are on it. In practice it only affects small bookings: one bed, or a table and a desk. The six bundles below are priced from the list in the chart above, with each item's price added up and the minimum applied where the total falls short.

What the bundles show

• One small item is charged at the minimum. Taking a single bed apart is £50 on the list, but on its own it is charged at £90. Adding the dining table, at £40, brings the total to £90 and costs nothing extra over the minimum. If you are paying the minimum anyway, put every small item on the list

• One bed, rebuilt, lands exactly on it. A standard bed taken apart and rebuilt is £90, the same as the minimum, so it is charged at its list price

• Above that, the minimum disappears. A 2-bed flat's two beds and two wardrobes come to £450, far above the minimum, and each item is simply charged at its list price

• A PAX changes the figure and the process. Swapping the 3-door wardrobe for a two- or three-section PAX adds £40 and means the price is confirmed from photos before it is fixed

• Family homes add up quickly. Four beds including a bunk bed, a cot, two wardrobes and a large dining table come to £800 to take apart and rebuild

These totals are the dismantling line only. The removal itself, the van, the crew's hours and any stairs are priced separately in the same quote. If you are not sure how many people or which van a move needs, how much a man and van costs per hour in London works through the rest of the arithmetic.

Of the 23 items on our list, these are priced from photos rather than straight off the list: electric / complex bed, ikea pax — 2–3 sections, large pax / modular system, 2-door sliding wardrobe, 3-door sliding wardrobe, large mirrored sliding wardrobe. One, the fitted / bespoke wardrobe, is priced only after a survey. 8 items carry a further condition: their reassembly depends on the item's condition, fittings, floor level, room space and wall clearance.

IKEA PAX and modular systems

A PAX is not one wardrobe but a set of tall frames, each with its own back panel, doors, hinges and interior fittings, joined together and fixed to the wall. IKEA's own installation guidance explains why that takes time. On its installation advice page, IKEA says assembling and lifting the frame must be done by at least two adults, recommends assembling it lying down, fitting the back panel and then lifting it upright, and says the frame must be secured to a wall to stop it tipping.

Each of those steps runs in reverse when the wardrobe comes apart, and then forwards again at the new home. A frame built lying down needs floor space to lie on and room to swing upright, which is why our price list makes room space and wall clearance part of the condition for reassembly. A bedroom full of boxes on moving day can leave no space to stand a frame up until the boxes move.

Wall fixing is the other reason. IKEA UK says a PAX can be fixed to the wall with the fittings included in the box, and urges customers to check their furniture is securely anchored to the wall using the fittings provided. That anchor has to come off the old wall before the frames can move. Our price list does not say that reassembly includes drilling and fixing to the new wall, and our terms exclude making good walls unless expressly agreed. If you want the anchor refitted, ask for it to be written into your quote, and if you rent, check with your landlord before anyone drills.

Sliding and mirrored wardrobes

A freestanding sliding wardrobe looks simpler than a PAX but is often harder to move. The doors run on tracks top and bottom, and they only slide properly once the carcass is level and square again. Mirrored doors are large, heavy sheets of glass on a frame and need careful handling and protection in the van. That is why a 2-door sliding wardrobe is £220 taken apart and rebuilt, against £110 for an ordinary 2-door wardrobe, and why a large mirrored one starts at From £320.

Fitted and bespoke wardrobes

A fitted wardrobe is built into the room: scribed to the walls, fixed to the floor or ceiling, sometimes glued. Taking it out can damage the room and the furniture, and it may never fit another room. That is why it is priced only after a survey, at survey / from £300 for the rebuild. Specialist joinery is excluded from our standard dismantling under term 10, so if a fitted piece needs a carpenter to adapt it, that is a job for a carpenter.

Beds are the most common item on any dismantling list and the cheapest group on ours, but the range is still wide: from £90 to rebuild a standard bed to from £180 for an electric or complex one.

• Standard single and double beds (£50 apart, £90 rebuilt). A headboard, two sides, a foot end and slats. Usually the quickest item on the list
• King and super king beds (£60, £110). The same parts, larger and heavier, often with a centre rail and legs
• Ottoman and storage beds (£75, £140). A lifting base on gas struts or a mechanism, a heavier frame and more fixings
• Bunk beds and high sleepers (£80, £150). Tall frames with ladders and guard rails that must go back exactly as designed
• Electric and complex beds (from £100, from £180). Motors, wiring and remote controls; confirmed from photos

Mattresses are not part of the dismantling price; they are carried as part of the removal. If a bed has a divan base in two halves, it usually separates without tools and does not need dismantling at all. Say what kind of bed it is when you ask for a quote, or send a photo of the frame without the mattress.

A dismantled bed is also easier on the stairs. On a London flat above the ground floor, the parts go down the stairs in several light carries instead of one awkward one. The stair charge, £10 per person, per flight, per hour at that address, still applies to the time spent carrying, and the stairs charge explained shows how it is worked out.

The rest of the list is cheaper and quicker. A standard dining table is £40 to take apart and £70 to rebuild; a large or heavy one £60 and £100. Taking the legs or arms off a sofa is £30, or £50 with them refitted. Modular sofas are £60 and £100, and sofa beds £70 and £120. A desk or a TV stand is £40 to take apart and from £70 to rebuild.

Most of these items cost less than the minimum on their own, so they are the ones to add when you are already booking a bed or wardrobe. If a sofa may not fit through a door or up a stair at all, what to do when a sofa won't fit covers measuring and the route.

Wall-mounted TVs

A TV on a wall bracket is its own list, because it involves the wall as well as the furniture. Taking a TV off an existing bracket is £40–£60. Removing it and remounting it professionally at the new home starts from £120, and a large or difficult installation is £150–£250+. Packing a TV for the van is quoted by its size and the protection it needs. The TV price list adds these conditions:

• Wall mounting is carried out only where AFS staff are appropriately trained and the wall, fixings and bracket are suitable.
• Prices assume an existing suitable bracket unless otherwise quoted. AFS cannot guarantee reuse of unsuitable, damaged or incompatible brackets or fixings.
• Concealed cable work, electrical work, new sockets, specialist masonry work and supply of new brackets are not included unless specifically quoted.
• For high-value, very large, OLED, curved, fragile or unusually heavy televisions, photographs or a survey are needed before the price is confirmed. Where specialist installation is required, AFS may provide removal, protection and transport only.

Like the furniture, TV work is only booked with a removal.

Our price list is clear about where dismantling stops, and it is worth reading before you book, because these are the things that cause arguments on the day with any company.

• Minimum dismantling/reassembly booking: £90.
• Guide prices assume furniture is structurally suitable for dismantling and reassembly and that original fixings can be reused.
• Fitted, bespoke, glued, damaged, mirrored, glass, antique or complex furniture is subject to photographs or a survey and quotation.
• Additional work caused by missing fixings, previous damage, restricted access or non-standard construction may be charged separately.
• Prices are guide/from prices and are confirmed as part of the removal quotation. Dismantling and reassembly does not include repairs, carpentry alterations, electrical work, plumbing or making good walls unless expressly agreed.

In practice, that means the price assumes the furniture comes apart the way it was designed to. If a previous owner glued the joints, a cam lock has stripped, or a bag of bolts went missing on the last move, the work may take longer or the item may not go back together as it was. Additional work caused by missing fixings, previous damage, restricted access or non-standard construction may be charged separately. If you know an item has been repaired, glued or rebuilt before, say so when you ask for a quote.

No hoisting

When a wardrobe or sofa will not go down the stairs whole, some companies hoist it out of a window. We do not hoist furniture through windows or take windows out. Dismantling is what we offer instead. If an item cannot pass the stairs, doors or lift even once it is apart, we will say so before moving day, not on the landing.

Why it is not worth forcing it

Carrying furniture is manual handling, and HSE says employers must avoid hazardous manual handling so far as reasonably practicable, assess the risk of what cannot be avoided, and reduce it. The law sets no specific weight limit. A heavy wardrobe forced round a stair turn in one piece is exactly the kind of lift that guidance is about. Taking it apart turns one dangerous carry into several safe ones, for the crew and for your walls and banisters.

Of the 75 booked jobs in our records, 15 (20%) included dismantling and reassembly. These are the London ones. The prices are the total each customer booked at the time, for the whole move, under our earlier pricing, and the dismantling was not priced as a separate line then. Read them for what kind of move includes dismantling, not as today's prices.

The pattern is that dismantling is not just for big houses. A short move from Kilburn to Hampstead and a half-day move in Harrow both included it, as did an office move. Across all our records, the jobs with dismantling run from short local home moves to 4-bedroom houses and a van load to Spain.

On the day

• Empty wardrobes, drawers and bed storage before the team arrives. Clothes on hangers can go into wardrobe boxes; anything left inside slows dismantling and can damage the panels
• Strip the beds. Bedding packed, mattresses free to lift
• Clear space round each item. A wardrobe needs room for its doors to come off and panels to be laid down
• Leave anything you will not need on the list off it. Our terms tie the price to the items listed, so anything added on the day is not covered until it is added to the booking
• Show the team where each item goes at the new home before the rebuild starts, so a wardrobe is not built in the wrong room

Waiting time, for example while a room is cleared, is charged at £40 per crew member per hour, so being ready when the team arrives keeps the cost to the list price. What furniture needs dismantling before a move helps you decide which items to put on the list in the first place.

Dismantling is added to a removal, so start from the move. If you are moving a house or a flat, our London house removals page covers the vans, crews and rates, and the quote form lets you list each item to be taken apart and whether it should be rebuilt. If the furniture is the main concern, the furniture disassembly in London page sets out the service on its own terms.

Either way, the price for each item in this guide is the price that appears in your quote, with the £90 minimum shown when it applies and anything that needs photos marked as such. If you are unsure whether a piece needs taking apart at all, send a photo with your request for house removals in London and the team will say.