Everyone knows about the first skip of a house move, the one that arrives before the packing starts and takes away everything not worth paying a removal firm to carry. Far fewer people plan for the second one, and it is the second one they end up needing in a hurry. After a century of serving movers across Ormskirk, we see the same pattern every month, and this guide covers both ends of the move properly. For the departure clear out itself, our guide on clearing your home for a house move in Ormskirk works through it room by room. Here we put that first skip in context and make the case for thinking about the second before you exchange.
The First Skip Pays for Itself in the Removal Quote
Removal firms price on volume, so every cubic metre that goes in a skip before the quote is a cubic metre you never pay to move, store or unpack. The arithmetic is rarely close. A loft’s worth of kept-just-in-case, the garage strata, the furniture the new house has no wall for, all of it costs more to transport than to part with, and it costs twice if it then fills the new garage for a decade. The timing rule is to clear before the removal survey, not after, so the quote reflects the household you are actually taking. Booked two or three weeks ahead of the survey, a skip week turns the sorting into a project with a deadline instead of a vague intention, and our full moving house in Ormskirk guide covers where that week sits in the wider move.
What the First Skip Should and Should Not Take
The pre-move clear out has a hierarchy. Anything working and decent sells or goes to charity, because moving season is when the local marketplace is hungriest and a fortnight’s notice is enough to find takers for most furniture. The skip takes the genuine end-of-life material, from tired flat pack and dead appliances small enough to travel legally to the garden’s accumulation and the shed’s archaeology. Keep electricals, paint and gas bottles out and route them separately, and resist the mover’s temptation to skip things in anger during the stressful final week, because the regretted disposal is always something skipped at ten on the night before completion. A 4 tonne midi skip handles the typical Ormskirk pre-move clear out with room to spare, and our guide to skip hire for furniture deals with the bulky pieces specifically.
The Second Skip Moment Nobody Plans
Then you get the keys, and the second moment arrives. Almost every buyer finds something left behind, from a shed the sellers quietly abandoned to carpets that looked fine in the photographs and a garden that was staged rather than solved. Add the changes most buyers make immediately, because the first month is when carpets come up, the worst room gets stripped and the previous owner’s taste leaves the premises, and the new house produces a skip load before the boxes are even flat. The buyers who planned for this booked the skip alongside the decorator and dealt with it in one organised week. The ones who did not spend their first months shuttling carloads to the tip between work and unpacking, which is nobody’s picture of a fresh start. If the survey or the viewing notes hinted at leavings, pencil the second skip in before completion and it becomes a detail rather than a disruption. Ormskirk’s housing stock makes the second moment more likely, not less, because the town’s older properties come with cellars, outbuildings and mature gardens, all of which are exactly where departing owners leave what they could not face moving. The prouder the garden in the listing photographs, the more of it tends to need attention by the second month.
Timing the Pair Around Completion
The two moments want different timing. The departure skip works best three to four weeks before completion, giving the sort out its deadline and clearing the stage for packing. The arrival skip suits the first or second week in the new house, once you know what the previous owners really left and which room is being tackled first. Ormskirk completions cluster on Fridays like everywhere else, and the moving weeks around school holidays are our busiest for exactly this reason, so both skips reward booking as soon as dates firm up. Tell us it is a move when you call and we will time the pair around exchange and completion rather than around a guess.
One Local Firm at Both Ends
Because our rounds cover the whole area daily, the same team handles both moments even when the move crosses the district, from the town out through Aughton and Lathom. Everything from both skips returns to our own recycling centre in Burscough for sorting and processing, as our Environmental & Recycling page explains, so the old house’s clutter and the new house’s surprises both end up handled properly.
If a move is on your horizon, plan for both skip moments and the whole thing runs lighter. Call our team on 01704 779345 or set the dates through our contact page and we will look after the waste at both ends of the move. Moving is heavy enough without carrying what you never needed, and a skip at each end is how you leave light and land lighter.
