In a large office move, the hard part usually isn’t the number of desks. It’s that every desk, crate and cabinet on every floor has to pass through the same goods lift and the same loading bay, in a window the building has agreed to. Add more than one floor at the new address and the job becomes a question of order: which floor goes first, where it lands, and how the lift time is shared.
This guide covers that floor-by-floor side of a large office relocation. For the project as a whole, with its workstreams, owners and critical path, see our office move project plan. For splitting a move across several weekends, see phased commercial moves.
What changes when a move covers several floors
A bigger move isn’t a different kind of job. Our Edinburgh office page puts it this way: “A bigger move is planned the same way as a small one, in more detail: a written inventory, a load order, the parking settled early, and a working window that suits trading”. What changes is where the time goes.
- Access sets the pace. As our office moving page says, “a building with a goods lift and a loading bay works very differently from a converted townhouse with one staircase.” On a multi-floor move, every item goes through that one route.
- Floors add work. The same Edinburgh page lists three things a surveyor measures to set the figure: how much is going, how far it’s carried from the vehicle to the door, and how many floors sit between the two.
- Mistakes cost more. On one floor, a crate in the wrong place is a short walk. On several, it’s a crate on the wrong floor and another trip through the lift.
Map old floors to new floors first
Start with the new building, not the old one. Before the survey, decide which team lands on which floor at the new address, then number every desk on every floor plan.
- Count desks, not people. With hybrid working, the furniture and crates set the job, not the headcount.
- Put the floor in every label. We label to a position on the new floor plan, not to a room. On a multi-floor move, make the floor part of each desk number, so desk 12 on one floor can’t be mistaken for desk 12 on another.
- Watch the floors that don’t match. Three floors moving into two, or one big floor split across several, is where teams get separated by accident. Settle it on the plan, not on the night.
- Check the big pieces. Door widths, lift sizes and stair turns at the new building decide what can go in whole. A boardroom table or a run of tall storage may need taking apart to fit the goods lift. That’s agreed in writing beforehand, so it’s in the plan and in the price.
The goods lift is your timetable
On a multi-floor move, the lift booking is the schedule. A slot shared between several floors has to be divided between them, and what doesn’t fit in the slot doesn’t move. Our guide to evening and weekend office moves puts it plainly: “Without a lift booking, there’s no weekend move.”
Every building sets its own rules, so ask both building managers, in writing:
- Is there a goods lift, what are its door and car sizes, and can it be booked for the whole window?
- Will other tenants be using it during the move?
- Does the building want a lift marshal, protection on lifts and common parts, or a method statement? Our office relocation costs guide notes that managed buildings frequently ask for all three.
- Who checks the condition of the lifts, corridors and floors before and after, and are photos taken?
- Can the loading bay be held for the whole window, or is it booked in slots?
- Is there a charge for out-of-hours access or security?
Get the answers before the date is fixed. Goods lifts, loading bays and out-of-hours permissions are ours to arrange once we know the buildings. Managed offices often need notice for weekend access, and that’s much easier to secure three weeks out than three days.
Crates help here too. They stack on a trolley, so a booked lift slot is used properly rather than half wasted.
Set the floor order
The load order is agreed in advance, so the unload at the new building follows the new layout rather than arriving as a stack to work through. On a multi-floor move, agree three things at the survey:
- Which floor clears first at the old building, and which floor fills first at the new one.
- Floor by floor or team by team. Where a team spans two floors, decide whether it moves as a team or as two floors.
- What happens if a floor runs late. If one floor overruns its share of the lift, the rest of the plan needs a fallback agreed beforehand.
A contact on every floor
Moves run best with a single named contact who can answer questions on the day: not a committee, but somebody who can make a decision without a meeting. On a large move, that person still makes the decisions, but they can’t stand on every floor at once.
Name a floor contact for each floor as well: someone who knows where that floor’s teams sit, answers the crew’s questions there and reports to the person in charge. On our side, we assign a project coordinator and produce a move plan before anything moves. For what the person in charge does on the day itself, see our office move day checklist.
Check floor by floor at the new building
Before the crew leaves, walk each floor with its own plan. Someone should check every desk has its crate, its screen and its chair. Anything missing or on the wrong floor is far quicker to sort while the crew is still there.
Then test IT floor by floor, not at one desk in the building. Printers are easy to miss: their network settings and drivers need repointing, and if nobody plans for it, a whole floor finds out at once that nothing prints. Servers, network hardware and anything hardwired stay with your IT provider. Our guide to moving office IT covers how the two jobs fit together.
When one weekend isn’t enough
On our office moving page, an office of 30 to 75 desks usually moves over “a full weekend, phased by floor or team”, and one of 150 desks or more is “phased across several agreed windows”. If yours is heading that way, our phased commercial moves guide covers the order and the fallback.
What to send for a quote
Send us, before the survey:
- both addresses, and the number of floors in use at each;
- a rough desk count per floor;
- the new floor plans, if you have them;
- lift sizes, loading bay times and any building rules you already know;
- who handles your IT;
- your preferred window.
We’ll survey both buildings, check the lifts, stairs and carry distance at each end, and give you a written price based on an agreed inventory. For what’s included and what stays with you, see what an office relocation includes.
In London, our office removals in London page covers multi-floor moves, phased relocations across several weeks and full building clearances. If your offices sit above a warehouse or trade unit, our commercial removals in Manchester moves administrative floors around the operational programme rather than separately.