Guides / the step-up
The step-up move
Out of a two-bedder near the station, into a house in Hornsby Heights, Mount Colah or Thornleigh. It is the signature local move, and it is trickier than its distance suggests, because the two doors play by completely different rules.
Why a short move can still bite
On paper the step-up looks easy: a small load and a drive measured in minutes. What the paper misses is that the two ends are different trades. The unit end is a building game, with a lift to book, a bay with a time limit and a bond clock behind it. The house end is a terrain game, with a driveway that climbs, a front path with steps and a decision about where the truck stands. A crew that plans only one end does the other one badly, on your hours.
Door one: leave the unit properly
Everything in the apartment guide applies: book the lift for the morning, stage boxes by the door, keep the bond deadline in view. One step-up-specific tip: load the truck with the house in mind. Things headed for upstairs rooms load last so they come off first, while the crew is freshest for the stairs.
Door two: read the house before the day
The ridge streets were cut into slopes, and the classic Heights or Mount Colah driveway climbs. Three questions, answered before the day, keep the second door honest:
- Where does the truck stand? Top of the driveway, bottom of it, or on the street. This decides the carry distance, which is the single biggest driver of hours at a house door.
- What is the path from truck to door? Steps, gates, wet brick in winter, the overhanging branch at head height. We walk it before the first piece comes off.
- Which room does each thing land in? Deciding on the day costs minutes per piece. A simple plan, even rooms chalked on masking tape at the door, keeps the crew moving.
The furniture question nobody asks in time
A unit's furniture fits a house easily. The trap runs the other way: the new house often needs more than the unit held, and the fridge is the classic. Measure the new kitchen's fridge alcove before you buy the bigger fridge, and if a new piece is being delivered, aim it at the house after the move day, so the crew is not working around boxes that belong to the future.
The crew and the money
Most step-ups run the 3-mover crew at $350 an hour from the published card: a 2 to 3 bedroom load with a house door on one end is exactly what that tier is for. A genuinely small step-up, a one-bedder into a townhouse say, can run the 2-mover crew instead, and when that is the honest read you will hear it from us unprompted. The Two Doors Check reads your two doors and lands on the honest tier before you even enquire.
The short version
- Run the unit end by the apartment guide: lift booked, boxes staged, bond clock in view.
- Answer the three house-door questions before the day: truck, path, rooms.
- Load for the house: upstairs things on last, off first.
- Measure the fridge alcove before buying the fridge.
- Let the check or the callback size the crew honestly.