Most of a house clearance in Barnstaple is settled before the van has left the yard. Photographs of each room by email, a word about where the van can stand, and a date that suits whoever is holding the keys. After that it is a nine o'clock start and the rest is carrying.
The longest one we have done on this side of the district ran three days, in the middle of April 2021. A big old house south of the town in EX32, out where the lanes drop away towards the Taw. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the 14th to the 16th. Six loads came out of it altogether. A load on the first day and a second the same afternoon, another on the Thursday with two more behind it. A final load on the Friday with the fridge freezer, which leaves separately because of the gas in it. The person arranging the clearance lived in London and did not come down for any of it. The team leader photographed each room as he found it and again once it was empty, and those went over by email at the end of each day.
Three days is long for us, mind. Houses that size run on for the ordinary reasons — more rooms than a town semi, outbuildings nobody has opened in years, and a drive the van has to be walked down rather than reversed up. Most house clearance work in Barnstaple itself is finished and swept through before dark on the first day.
A one-load house clearance out of Barnstaple, EX32
Smaller, this one, and far more typical of what we do. November 2021, a house up in the lanes east of the town, still EX32, arranged by somebody living in Barnstaple itself who had the keys and a free day. One load. A mattress went out with it and a small fridge freezer, and both of those travel apart from everything else — more on that further down. Nothing to dismantle, nobody to meet beyond the handover of keys, and the property was clear inside the day.
Two jobs at opposite ends of the scale, and the morning starts the same way for both: nine o'clock, a walk round with the team leader, and an agreement about what is staying.
Where we work in North Devon
Barnstaple is the hinge of North Devon and we work outward from it. Braunton, Fremington and Wrafton on the way to the dunes, Ilfracombe and Woolacombe on the coast, Combe Martin, Lynton and Lynmouth over on the Exmoor edge, and inland to South Molton, Umberleigh, High Bickington and Chulmleigh. That is EX31 and EX32 for the town and its immediate villages, EX33 and EX34 for the coastal strip, EX36 for South Molton, EX37 for Umberleigh and EX18 for Chulmleigh further in. Devon, North Devon district, North Devon Council for household waste rules and bulky collections if you would rather go that route for a couple of items.
There is no motorway out here, which shapes everything. The A361 link road down to Tiverton is the artery, and our vans come in that way. Barnstaple railway station sits across the river at the end of the Tarka Line, an hour and a bit up from Exeter Central through Umberleigh, Eggesford and Copplestone. Worth knowing if you are travelling in from away to meet the team and would rather not drive. Plenty of people do exactly that: hand over the keys, sit in a café by the Long Bridge for the morning, come back to an empty house.
The larger towns further off have their own pages, and it is worth knowing which team is nearest before you ring. House clearance in Exeter covers the city at the other end of the Tarka Line, and away down the A30 into Cornwall there is house clearance in Truro and house clearance in Newquay for the smaller places on that coast. If your property sits somewhere between, ring and we will say plainly who can get there.
Keys through the post, and the meter readings
Not everybody can be there, and a fair share of the houses we empty are being dealt with from the other end of the country. One clearance was handled entirely at arm's length by the executor, who had no wish to make a long drive twice. The keys came to us by Special Delivery, wrapped properly, tracked, signed for the day after posting. The team let themselves in, cleared the house, took photographs of every empty room and posted the keys back afterwards. He also asked something sensible while we were arranging it:
"Is there any chance your staff could read the meters while they are at the house please? It would save me a long journey just for that purpose if they could."
Of course they could. Electric and gas readings were written down on the day and emailed over with the photographs, and the invoice went out once the keys were back in his hand. We invoice executors, solicitors acting on an estate or an administrator where there was no will without any difficulty, and the invoice follows the work rather than coming before it.
What it costs, and how we work it out
You will not find figures on this page, and that is deliberate — houses differ too much for a number typed on a website to mean anything to you. What we do instead is this. You send photographs, we tell you in writing how many loads we think the house is and how long it should take, and that estimate is free and ties you to nothing. The team leader walks round when he arrives, and if he thinks the estimate is going to shift he says so before anybody picks anything up. Nothing extra happens without you saying yes.
What we cannot put in an ordinary load
A few things have to travel separately and be documented separately. Tins of paint, thinners, oils, gas cylinders, asbestos sheeting from an old shed roof — none of that can ride in a mixed load, and we will tell you what to do with it rather than quietly taking it and hoping. Sofas, armchairs, padded dining chairs: these carry treated foam, and since 2023 the rules oblige us to keep them apart from everything else and send them for incineration through their own permitted route. It is not fussiness on our part, it is a separate stream with its own paperwork.
Fridges, freezers and chest freezers have their own gas-recovery handling too — the fridge freezer off that three-day clearance in EX32 went out under it, and the small one from the November job the same way. Mattresses go their own road as well.
What we do with what comes out
Anything still fit for use, we would rather see used. Furniture in decent order, unopened household goods, tools, crockery, books — North Devon has active reuse projects and charity warehouses, and it takes ten minutes to drop a load off rather than tip it. What is left is separated for recycling and the remainder goes across a permitted weighbridge, with a transfer note for every single load. We hold waste carrier licence CBDU419679 and can send you the paperwork if a solicitor or a managing agent wants it on file.
Papers and photographs we set aside rather than bin. Ask us to look out for albums or documents and they get bagged separately and left for you.
Full houses
Some of what we do in Barnstaple and the villages around it is not a tidy probate house at all. Rooms filled shoulder-high, a hallway you can only get down sideways, a kitchen nobody has been able to use for years. Those jobs take longer and take more loads, and we will say so honestly at the estimate stage. What we will not do is make anyone feel bad about it. The team turns up, gets on with it, and talks about the weather. The hoarder house clearance page goes into how those days are run.
Verminous work — decayed food, animal mess, anything requiring the team to be kitted out properly — is handled as its own category, and again you will know before we start rather than after.
The kinds of house clearance people ask us for in Barnstaple
Probate house clearance in Barnstaple
A good share of our work here is probate: a house that has to be emptied before it can be valued, put on the market or handed to an agent, with the family often two counties away or further. We can take keys from a neighbour, an agent or a solicitor, clear the property, photograph every room empty and send the pictures over the same evening. Papers, albums and anything that looks like a document are set aside rather than binned. Where the estate is being run through a firm, we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the administrator directly. Our probate house clearance page has the rest of the detail.
Flat clearance in EX31 and EX32
Flat clearance in Barnstaple is usually straightforward as long as somebody has checked the van can actually stop outside. Roundswell and the newer estates on the western side have driveways and room to turn. The older terraces closer to the town centre, the streets running off Boutport Street and down towards the Strand, are a different proposition — narrow, permit-marked, and busy from mid-morning. Tell us which you have and we plan the day around it. Stairs we can manage; a suspended bay outside the door is not something we can conjure at two days' notice, so if your flat clearance sits on one of the tighter streets it is worth a word with the council first.
Garage and loft clearance in Barnstaple
Garage and loft clearance comes up as often on its own as it does with a whole house. Lofts out here are usually boarded and usually full — suitcases, boxes of paperwork, a water tank taken out years ago and never carried down. Garages tend to be the harder half: paint, oil, garden chemicals, a mower with fuel still in it, none of which can go on a mixed load. Say what is up there and what is in there when you send photographs, because a loft adds a couple of hours to the day and that is far better in the plan than sprung on the team at three in the afternoon. If it is only the outbuildings you want emptied and not the house, that is house rubbish removal and it is booked the same way.
End of tenancy clearance in Barnstaple
End of tenancy work is its own animal: a deadline, an inventory, and a landlord or agent who wants the property empty and swept by a particular date. We work to the date. Carpets up or carpets left, white goods out or white goods staying — settle it in writing beforehand and there is nothing to argue about on the morning.
Getting a figure
Send photographs of each room, including the loft hatch, the garage and the shed if there is one, and tell us the property size, the parking situation and anything you want left behind. Use the form on this page and it comes straight to the office. We will come back in writing with an estimate and the number of loads behind it, so you have something you can hold us to. If you would rather talk it through first, ring 0800 046 5555 — somebody who actually books the vans will answer, and you will get a proper estimate rather than a sales call.
Whether it is a flat in EX32, a bungalow at Braunton, a cottage above Lynmouth or a farmhouse out past South Molton, the job is the same shape. Nine o'clock start, cleared in a day where we can, swept through, photographed, and the paperwork sent on.
Common questions about house clearance in Barnstaple
Do I need to be at the property on the day?
No. A good many of ours run on keys posted to us by Special Delivery, or collected from a neighbour or an agent. The team photographs every room once it is empty and the keys go back the way they came, tracked.
Can you invoice a solicitor or executor on a probate clearance?
Yes. On estate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the administrator directly, and the invoice follows the clearance rather than coming before it.
Will you take up carpets and take down curtains?
If you ask us to. Carpet and underlay out of three bedrooms and a landing changes what fits in a load, so it is much better settled at the estimate stage than discovered at four in the afternoon with a van already full.
How long does a house clearance in Barnstaple take?
Most are one day, nine o'clock to mid-afternoon, with a second load run out the same day where it is needed. Bigger properties on the parish lanes can go to two or three days, and we tell you which yours looks like before you commit, not on the morning.
How soon can you come?
That depends on the week. Ring 0800 046 5555 and whoever answers will tell you which dates are genuinely free, rather than promise a day and lose it. We have been clearing houses across Devon since 2007 and the diary is the one thing we do not fudge.
