House Removals in Seaham

Seaham is thirteen miles from where we keep the van. We load in Durham, run east on the A690, then come in on the A182 over the top of the A19 at Murton. Forty minutes on a decent morning. An hour if we meet the school run.

That distance shapes the day more than it sounds like it should. An eight o'clock start in Seaham does not need a five o'clock start in Durham, so the crew arrive having had breakfast rather than having driven through the dark. It also puts a return trip at a little over an hour. On smaller jobs we will sometimes tell you one van going twice comes in cheaper than two vans going once.

There is no office here. One base, in Durham, trading since 2008, with our own crew rather than subcontractors. The figure on the written quote is the figure you pay.

What it costs, and the two things in Seaham that move it

A three-bedroom move inside Seaham is £550, fixed and agreed in writing before the day. It does not grow because the job turned out harder than the phone call made it sound. Every other size, the hourly rates, packing and the extras all sit on the full Great House Move price list, and it is the same list here as anywhere else we go.

Two things shift a Seaham quote. The first is stairs. Each flight is charged at both ends where a building has no lift, from £25 on a one-bed to £105 on a four-bed, and it is East Shore Village that catches people out. The townhouses up there run to three storeys with the main bedroom at the top. A three-storey new build empties slower than a four-bed semi on the flat. Every time.

The second is the date. Friday, Saturday and month-end work carries an uplift on the labour, Sunday more again, and most completions land on a Friday. If you have any say in it, take a Tuesday mid-month. It is the cheapest day to move out of anywhere, and in Seaham it also buys you a kerb.

Five kinds of Seaham house, and what each does to the day

Seaham was laid out as a coal port from 1828 rather than growing as a market town. Housing went in between the railway lines and the coastal denes as the pits needed it, and each wave built differently. You can date a Seaham street off the pavement.

• The Londonderry streets near the centre. Sophia Street, Adolphus Street, Tempest Road, Vane Terrace. Two-storey brick terraces, small walled front gardens, front door near enough on the pavement, nothing off-street. A Luton works off the road here, and works best before nine.
• Dawdon. Grid-iron colliery terraces fronting straight onto the road with an enclosed yard at the back. That yard gate is usually the tightest opening in the whole job. Measure your sofa against the gate rather than the front door.
• The 1930s terraced bungalows around Deneside. The front elevation faces a paved walkway rather than a road. Crews from outside the county arrive expecting to park at the door and end up walking a hundred metres each way with everything. We load these from the rear and price the carry in.
• The 1950s and 60s semis. Gardens front and back, no garage, and rear access down a vennel about the width of a wheelbarrow. Sheds, chest freezers and three-piece suites come out through the house instead.
• East Shore Village and the newer closes. Built on the old Vane Tempest colliery site north of the harbour. Driveways and integrated garages, which is the easy half. Reversing a loaded 3.5-tonne Luton back out of a close, which is the other half.

Church Street, North Road and where the van stops

Church Street is pedestrianised. If you are above one of the shops the van does not reach your door, and everything becomes a carry to the nearest vehicle access. Say so at quote stage and it goes into the number. Leave us to find out on the day and it goes into the hours.

Durham County Council charges from 8am to 6pm at Noses Point, Seaham Hall Beach, the Marina, Vane Tempest and Terrace Green: £1.10 up to an hour, £2.20 to two hours, £3.30 beyond that. Outside those hours there is no charge at any of them. South Railway Street, Green Street and Princess Road are council car parks with no charge at all, and on a tight terrace that is where the second vehicle ends up.

Terrace Green is worth a paragraph on its own. Of its 68 bays, 23 carry no charge, because the ground beside the Tommy statue was given to the people of Seaham by Lord Londonderry on terms the council could not charge against. A covenant from the coal age, still deciding where you can leave a vehicle. The 32 bays put in along North Road are covered by none of that.

Two bits of local geography cost time. The Durham Coast Line splits the town, and the Station Road level crossing was stopped up under a 2013 order and replaced with a footway, so the way over the railway by car is not where a sat nav wants it. The town also sits on limestone cliffs twenty to thirty metres above the sea with denes cut into them, so several roads that read as a shortcut finish at a footpath. The old colliery line down from the station is one. A walking route now.

The A182 junction over the A19 had its dumbbell roundabouts taken out and traffic lights put in their place. Whether that made our run any quicker we could not tell you. It sits inside the margin of a wet Friday.

Getting a van to your door in Seaham

• Church StreetPedestrianised the whole way, so a flat above the shops is loaded from the nearest vehicle access and the length of that carry depends which end of the street you are at.
• Sophia Street, Adolphus Street and Tempest RoadTwo-storey terraces with walled front gardens and no off-street parking. The kerb outside your door is whatever is left by the time we arrive, which is why these jobs start before nine.
• The Deneside bungalowsFront doors open onto a paved walkway rather than a road, so loading happens at the rear of the house and the walk is a long one in both directions.
• East Shore VillageCloses on the former Vane Tempest colliery site, with three-storey townhouses and no room to turn, so a loaded Luton reverses out the way it came in.

Getting in and out of Seaham

Everything long-distance out of Seaham begins on the A19, north for the Tyne or south past Peterlee for Teesside and the A1(M). London is roughly 270 miles by road, Manchester about 150, Leeds about 95. Those go out as one fixed figure with the fuel already inside it, and the long-distance bands are set out on the price list. If the A1(M) is shut at Wetherby, that is our afternoon rather than your invoice. The same crew loads at this end and unloads at the other, so nothing gets handed over to strangers at a depot halfway down. Phone 0191 743 2754 or WhatsApp 07575 566760 with both postcodes and we will price it before you commit to anything.

Questions people in Seaham ask

Also covered near Seaham

• Murton
• Easington
• Ryhope
• Dalton-le-Dale

Other towns we move every week: Removals in Durham · Removals in Newcastle · Removals in Sunderland · Removals in Gateshead · Removals in Middlesbrough · Removals in Darlington

Every town we cover and the long-distance routes are on the areas we cover page, and every figure is published on our prices page.