How many cubic metres is your move? A Melbourne room by room guide

Ask three removalists what your move will cost and you will get three numbers. Ask them how many cubic metres you have and, if they know what they are doing, you will get three numbers within about ten percent of each other. Volume is the honest unit in this industry. It sets the truck size, the crew size, the hours for a local move and the entire price of an interstate one.

What a cubic metre actually looks like

One cubic metre is a box a metre wide, a metre deep and a metre tall. That is roughly ten standard tea chest cartons, or one large washing machine with a bit of room to spare. It is much smaller than most people picture, which is why self estimates come in low.

Some reference volumes from our own load sheets:

• Tea chest carton (431 x 406 x 596 mm): 0.10 m3
• Book carton: 0.07 m3
• Queen mattress and base: 0.8 to 1.1 m3
• Three seat sofa: 2.0 to 2.4 m3
• Four door fridge: 1.2 m3
• Six seat dining table with chairs: 2.2 m3
• Standard washing machine: 0.4 m3
• Upright piano: 1.3 m3

The bedroom shortcut

Most quoting starts with bedrooms because it is fast and it is usually close enough. Our bands, drawn from jobs across the Melbourne metro area:

• Studio or one bedroom unit: 12 to 18 m3
• Two bedroom unit: 20 to 28 m3
• Two bedroom house: 28 to 35 m3
• Three bedroom house: 35 to 48 m3
• Four bedroom house: 50 to 65 m3
• Five bedroom house: 65 to 85 m3

The gap between a two bedroom unit and a two bedroom house is not the bedrooms. It is the shed, the garden furniture and the second lounge suite that a house has room for and a unit does not.

Where estimates go wrong

Four rooms are responsible for nearly every underestimate we see.

The garage

A double garage in Doncaster routinely holds 8 to 12 cubic metres on its own: tools, bikes, camping gear, paint that cannot travel, and the bookshelf that came out of the lounge three years ago. If the garage is coming, say so, because it can be the difference between an 8 tonne and a 12 tonne truck.

Outdoor furniture

An outdoor setting, a barbecue, pots and a trampoline add up to 4 or 5 cubic metres and none of it is in the house when you walk through doing your mental count.

The roof cavity and under the stairs

Christmas decorations, suitcases and the cot you kept. We find a cubic metre or two up there on most family moves.

Books

Books are dense rather than bulky. Fifty book cartons is only 3.5 cubic metres, but it is 900 kilograms, and weight is what decides whether the 4.5 tonne truck can legally carry the load.

How to count it properly in twenty minutes

1. Walk each room with your phone and list every item bigger than a microwave.
2. Write a rough length, width and height in metres beside each one. Round up.
3. Multiply the three numbers for each item and add them up.
4. Count your cartons, or estimate them: 25 to 35 for a one bedder, 45 to 60 for two bedrooms, 80 to 110 for three. Multiply by 0.09.
5. Add ten percent. Everyone forgets something, and it is always the shed.

If your estimate and the removalist's estimate are more than five cubic metres apart, one of you has forgotten a room. It is worth finding out which before the truck arrives.

What the number changes

For a local hourly move, volume sets the truck and the crew. Under 20 cubic metres we send a 4.5 tonne truck and two movers. Between 20 and 40, an 8 tonne. Above 50, a 12 tonne and four movers, because a big truck with two people on it just means a longer day at the same hourly rate.

For an interstate move, volume is the price. At a sample rate of $95 to $130 per cubic metre to Sydney, being wrong by five cubic metres is a swing of five hundred to six hundred and fifty dollars. That is the entire argument for a video walk through before you accept an interstate quote.

Our removal cost calculator does this arithmetic from a bedroom count, stairs and a packing option, and gives you a truck size, a crew size and an hourly band in about thirty seconds. Start there, then send us photos of the garage.