What Fits in a Transit Van? A Room-by-Room Guide

"Will it all fit in a Transit?" is the question behind most small London moves. The honest answer depends on two things the word "Transit" does not tell you: which Transit, and how much your home really holds. The name covers a family of vans that ranges from a mid-size panel van to a 5-tonne model you cannot drive on a car licence, and the home that "only has a few bits" is usually bigger than its owner thinks.

This guide works it out room by room with numbers you can check. It uses the load space of each vehicle on our rate card, the volumes real homes needed in our booking records, and our own rates to show when a second trip costs more than a bigger van. Prices per hour are covered in our man and van price guide; this one is about space.

"Transit" is a model name, not a size. Ford sells several vans under it, and the figures on its own pages show how wide the range is. Ford UK's Transit Custom page gives load space of up to 5.8 m³, about 205 cu ft, and says every style comes in two load lengths. Its Transit van page gives up to 15.1 m³, about 533 cu ft, and is clear that its figures reflect peak performance across the range, so not every version reaches them. The version it pictures is a 5-tonne long-wheelbase, high-roof van.

That matters for two reasons. First, a quote that just says "Transit" could mean a van with less than half the space of another. Second, the largest versions weigh more than a car licence allows: GOV.UK says a standard car licence covers a van up to 3,500kg (or 4,250kg for a zero-emission electric or hydrogen van), and its licence categories page puts vehicles between 3,500kg and 7,500kg in category C1, which drivers who passed after 1 January 1997 need an extra test for. If you are hiring a van to drive yourself, the space you can legally use may be smaller than the brochure's best figure.

So the useful question for any provider, us included, is not "is it a Transit?" but "how many cubic feet does the van hold?". Ours are published:

Above those sit our lorries, the 5.5 Tonne Lorry at 1,000 cu ft, the 7.5 Tonne Lorry at 1,300 cu ft, the 10 Tonne Lorry at 1,500 cu ft, the 12 Tonne Lorry at 1,700 cu ft and the 18 Tonne Lorry at 2,200 cu ft, which are for whole homes rather than man and van jobs. A cubic foot is a box one foot on each side, so 350 cu ft is the space of 350 such boxes, before you allow for the gaps that furniture always leaves.

The three vans used for most man and van work in London differ in more than size. The bigger the van, the higher the hourly rate, the longer the minimum booking and the dearer each mile. Here they are side by side, with the loading and unloading time our quote form assumes for a full load in each.

Three things stand out. The Transit LWB gives you 150 cu ft more space than the Small Transit (SWB) for £10 an hour more with two movers, and the same 2-hour minimum. The Luton Box Van adds another 200 cu ft but moves to a 3-hour minimum, because a load that size always takes longer to carry. And the default crew rises with the van: a full Luton Box Van is planned with 3 movers, because 2 hours of loading with fewer people becomes a much longer day.

The loading times for the two smaller vans are earlier defaults that the quote form uses as a starting point; your own quote is built on your inventory and access. Rates for every crew size are on our man and van in London page and the pricing page.

What each one is for

• Small Transit (SWB). Up to 350 cu ft: single rooms, studios, part-loads and single items. Good for a student room, a single sofa and bed, or a run to and from storage
• Transit LWB. Up to 500 cu ft: small flats and larger part-loads. The longer floor helps with sofas and bed frames that will not fit a short van
• Luton Box Van. Up to 700 cu ft: 1 to 2 bedrooms. The box body has straight sides and a tall, square load space, which is why tall wardrobes and stacked boxes go in more easily than in a panel van

People size a van by bedrooms, and that is where most mistakes start. The bedrooms are rarely the problem. The living room, the kitchen and the boxes are. Walk through your home one room at a time and note the things that take floor space in a van:

Living room

• The sofa, and whether it comes apart or has removable legs
• Armchairs, footstools and any sofa bed
• The TV, its stand or media unit, and speakers
• Bookcases, and the books in them, which become many heavy boxes
• Coffee and side tables, rugs and lamps

Bedrooms

• Bed frames and mattresses, counted separately, with the size of each
• Wardrobes, and whether they are flat-pack, solid or fitted
• Chests of drawers and bedside tables
• The clothes, shoes and bedding, which are boxes and bags

Kitchen and dining

• Fridge freezer, washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher, if they are yours
• The dining table and chairs
• Crockery, pans and food cupboards, which pack into more boxes than people expect

Everything else

• The hallway: bikes, a pushchair, coats and shoes
• The bathroom: a laundry basket, toiletries and towels
• Storage: the loft, the cupboard under the stairs, the shed, balcony furniture and plants
• Anything at the old address that belongs to someone else, which should stay off the list

That list is the inventory a quote should be built on. Our quote form uses it to suggest a vehicle, starting from the size of the home. The table below shows what it suggests. It is a recommendation drawn from each vehicle's load space, not a fixed rule, and you can choose a different vehicle.

Notice the jump between "studio" and "1-bedroom". A studio is one room plus a kitchen, and the form suggests the Small Transit (SWB). A one-bedroom home usually has a separate living room and bedroom, each with its own large furniture, and the form goes straight to the Luton Box Van. The Transit LWB sits between the two: it is the van for a sparsely furnished studio with a lot of boxes, a one-bedroom flat where the furniture stays behind, or the larger part-loads that do not need a box van.

Suggestions are one thing; booked moves are another. Our records include the agreed volume for a number of real home moves, each estimated from the customer's inventory before the day. The chart below plots every home move in those records that has both a recorded volume and a bedroom count, against the load space of our three vans. Two are in London; the rest are elsewhere in England, which is where most of the volume-recorded jobs happened.

What the records show

• No whole home fitted a Transit. The smallest home move with a recorded volume needed 600–700 cu ft, more than the 500 cu ft of a Transit LWB. A Transit is right for part of a home, or a studio with little furniture, and our records have no whole flat that went in one
• The 1-bedroom move needed 700 cu ft. That is within the 700 cu ft of a Luton Box Van, which is why the quote form suggests one for a 1-bedroom home
• The 2-bedroom homes needed 800–1,100 cu ft. Every one of the 3 needed more than a single Luton Box Van. The Shoreditch → Bethnal Green flat, 1,000–1,100 cu ft, was booked as "7.5-tonne lorry or 2 × Luton box vans"
• The 3-bedroom houses ranged from 800 cu ft to 1,500 cu ft. The spread is wider than the bedroom count suggests: the largest needed 1.9 times the space of the smallest
• The 4-bedroom houses ranged from 1,400 cu ft to 2,300 cu ft, a gap of 900 cu ft between two homes with the same number of bedrooms

The lesson is the same one every removal survey teaches: bedrooms are a poor guide to volume. Two homes with the same number of rooms can need very different vans, because what is in the rooms matters more than how many there are. The prices on those jobs were set under our earlier pricing and are not shown here; only the volumes are used.

If your load is a little over a van's capacity, two trips in the smaller van can look cheaper, because its hourly rate is lower. Whether it is depends on the distance and the minimum booking. We worked it through on our own rate card for two common cases, both with two movers on a weekday:

• Case 1: a load just over 350 cu ft. Two trips in the Small Transit (SWB) against one in the Transit LWB
• Case 2: a load between 500 cu ft and 700 cu ft. Two trips in the Transit LWB against one in the Luton Box Van

In each case we gave both options the same carrying time, the default loading and unloading time for the bigger van (2 hr 30 min in case 1, 4 hours in case 2), because the same things are carried either way. The second trip adds two drives, back empty and then loaded again, at the same driving time and per-mile charge as the first. Time is rounded up to the half hour and never charged below the van's minimum, as in every quote. These are illustrations of the arithmetic, not quotes.

Case 1: Small Transit twice, or the LWB once

The Transit LWB wins at every distance, by £11.90 on a 2-mile move and £121.50 on a 20-mile one. Its rate is only £10 an hour higher, and the second trip adds driving time and miles that cost more than that difference.

Case 2: the LWB twice, or a Luton once

Here the answer changes with distance. On a 2-mile move, two trips in the Transit LWB come out £20.20 cheaper, because the Luton Box Van's 3-hour minimum and higher rate outweigh two short drives. At 10 miles the two are within £1 of each other, and at 20 miles the Luton Box Van is £100.50 cheaper. Each extra drive across London is slow, and in the sums it is paid twice.

Why the bigger van usually wins anyway

The arithmetic is close on short moves, but it leaves out things that rarely go the smaller van's way:

• The second trip depends on the first. If the new address is not ready, the keys are late or the first unload runs long, the second load waits, and waiting time is charged at £40 per crew member per hour
• Parking twice. A London street that has one free space at 9am may not have one at noon. If you have a parking suspension, it has to cover both visits
• Tall and long items. A box van takes upright wardrobes and long sofas that a panel van may not, so the split between trips is not always yours to choose
• Stairs are paid on every trip. From the first floor up, stairs are charged at £10 per person, per flight, per hour at that address, and two trips can mean more time on the stairs
• Everything arrives together. With one van, the bed and its mattress, the table and its legs, all arrive at the same time

Two trips make sense when the second load is small and close, or when the van has to come back for things that are not ready yet. If you are unsure, tell us the load and both addresses, and the written quote will show the van and hours we would use.

A van can have the cubic feet and still not take the item. Volume tells you how much fits; length and height tell you whether the big pieces fit at all. These are the items that most often decide the van on a London move:

Tall wardrobes

A solid wardrobe that stands taller than the van's load height has to travel on its side or its back, which takes up floor space a stack of boxes would have used. Flat-pack wardrobes come apart and travel flat. Fitted wardrobes stay with the property unless you arranged otherwise. Measure the height of any wardrobe you are keeping in one piece.

Mattresses

Mattresses usually travel upright against the side of the van, in a cover, so the floor stays free. That needs height, not floor space. A king-size or super king mattress is wider than a standard one standing up, and a memory foam mattress is heavy and floppy to carry. Measure the length and width, and check whether it bends; many do not.

Long sofas and corner units

A three-seat sofa needs floor length. Corner and modular sofas come apart into sections, which then pack like smaller items. Some sofas have legs or arms that come off. If the sofa is longer than the van's floor, it either goes in at an angle, which wastes space, or it needs a longer vehicle. Getting it out of the building is often the harder part: sofa won't fit up the stairs covers measuring the route, taking doors off and dismantling.

Taking things apart

Taking furniture apart makes it fit better and travel more safely. If you would rather we did it, dismantling is priced per item, only as part of a removal, with a £90 minimum booking:

We do not hoist furniture through windows. Anything that will not fit the stairs, the lift or the van door is taken apart instead.

Weight

A van has a weight limit as well as a size. GOV.UK explains that the design gross weight on the van's VIN plate is the most it may weigh loaded, including the van itself, the driver and passengers, the fuel and the load. Exceeding the maximum permitted axle weight can mean a fine of up to £300 or a court summons. Books, files, tools and kitchenware fill a van's weight before its space, which is one reason heavy boxes should be smaller boxes. If you are driving a hired van yourself, check its plate before you load it.

As an example of how the numbers relate, the owner-supplied figures for our Extra Large Van give a cargo box of 4.5 m long, 1.7 m wide and 1.9 m high, a rated volume of 15.9 m³ (about 562 cu ft) and a payload of 1,100kg. The Extra Large Van page sets them out; that van is not on the standard rate card above, so ask about it when you request a quote.

You do not need to measure everything. Measure the few items that could change the van, and the access that could change the day.

Photos help as much as measurements. A picture of each large item, and of the stairs and the front door, lets us confirm the vehicle before the day instead of on the pavement.

Loading order decides how much fits as much as the van's size does. GOV.UK gives the basics for any van: load evenly throughout the cargo area with the heaviest items at the bottom, do not overload the individual axles, and secure the load with restraints such as netting and straps. It also warns that some vans have no bulkhead, so an unsecured load can end up in the cab in a collision.

On a home move, that becomes a simple order:

1. Heavy appliances and solid furniture first, against the front wall of the load space, so the heaviest weight sits low and forward
2. Long items next, such as mattresses and bed frames, standing upright along the sides
3. Sofas and tables in the middle, wrapped, with nothing heavy resting on them
4. Heavy boxes low, light boxes high. Books and kitchenware at the bottom, bedding and clothes on top
5. Fragile and last-needed items last, so they come off first and stay out of the way
6. Strap each section as it goes in, so nothing shifts when the van brakes

Two things make a load denser without any skill. Boxes of the same size stack tightly; carrier bags and odd-shaped boxes do not. And the gaps inside furniture are space: drawers can stay full of light things, and cushions and soft items fill corners.

If you are loading a hired van yourself, leave the last few feet clear for the items you will need first at the other end, such as the kettle, the bedding and the tools to put the bed back together.

Most problems on moving day come from the van being sized on a guess. A good description has three parts: what is moving, room by room; the few items that are large, long or heavy, with measurements; and the access at both ends. From that, we suggest a vehicle and crew and put them in writing, with the hours, the mileage and any London lines such as stairs, parking or the Congestion Charge shown separately.

Be honest about the boxes and the loft. The items that appear on the day, rather than the large pieces everyone remembered, are what overflow a van. If you are not sure, it is cheaper to say so and let us size up a step than to find out on the pavement.

If the van we suggest looks too big, ask about the smaller one. If you are deciding between a man and van and a full crew, man and van or removal company explains where the line usually falls in London.

Whichever vehicle fits your load, every move with us includes the same basics:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.
• Our own crew. Every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor.
• One named coordinator. Your single point of contact, from the quote to the last box.

For a room, a studio or a part-load, start from our man and van in London page, which lists every van with its rates. For a whole flat or house, our house removals in London page covers lorries and larger crews on the same rate card. If you are not sure which you need, send the list anyway; the London house removals team sizes every move from the inventory, not the number of bedrooms.