Most weeks there is a van of ours somewhere in North Ayrshire, and house clearance in Irvine makes up a good share of that. KA11 and KA12 between them hold the new-town estates, the older streets behind the harbour and a fair number of sheltered flats. We have been clearing houses since 2007. Before the coverage and the practicalities, here is one of our own jobs, told the way it came in.
A thousand bricks. Not a hundred — a thousand.
That was the correction that landed a fortnight before one of our February clearances. The customer had sent a proper written list in January, room by room, and in the garage section he had typed "approx 100 building bricks". Then he sat down to check the whole thing again before the date and wrote back with a short set of amendments: "only 1 carpet to be lifted", "only 1 armchair", "only 1 mattress", and then the one that mattered — "approximately 1000 building bricks, not 100 ( typo error in my earlier email)". Fair enough. A thousand bricks is most of a van on its own, before you have touched a stick of furniture. We went back to him with a revised estimate and explained why. He decided to shift the bricks himself and keep the rest of the arrangement as it stood.
The house was a three-bedroom with a lounge, a dining room, a sitting room and a study, sat at the top of its own drive, and parking was the one easy thing about the day. No permits, no suspension, no reversing round a blind bend. Out of the rooms came three pine cabinets, base units with tops on them, three sitting room chairs, an armchair, a patio table and its chairs, a king-size divan with the mattress and headboard. A single divan and mattress on top of that. Curtains and light fittings stayed where they were: "removal of curtains/light fittings not required", as his list had it. No appliances at all. The garage gave up the miscellaneous small garden tools, shelf units still in their original packing, better than twenty black bin bags of household odds and ends. A length of carpet with the underlay rolled inside it. Suitcases. A few small electrical items. The loft and the garden shed he had told us to leave, and we left them.
Most enquiries do not arrive that organised, and we do not expect them to. But we would far rather have the honest second version of a list than a tidy first one that costs everybody a return trip.
Getting a van round Irvine
Irvine is a new town wrapped round a much older harbour, and the two halves behave completely differently on a clearance day. Out in Bourtreehill, Girdle Toll, Broomlands and Lawthorn the roads are wide, the bays are generous and the front doors sit close to the kerb — those are quick loads. Down at the harbourside, over in Fullarton and in the older streets near the Townhead the story changes: narrower approaches, resident cars in every space by eight. The odd flat above a shop with a stair that turns twice on the way up. Castlepark, Vineburgh, Stanecastle, Perceton, Dreghorn and Springside sit somewhere in between.
We come in off the A78 or the A71 depending on the run, and Irvine station on the Ayrshire Coast line is a useful marker for anyone giving directions. It is a couple of minutes up the track from Kilwinning. If you are arranging a house clearance in Irvine from elsewhere and cannot be there on the day, saying which side of the station the property sits on saves the driver a lap of the one-way system.
Where we go, and what it covers
KA11 and KA12 are the two postcode districts this page is about, and that is where most of our Irvine work sits. Past them we cover the rest of this stretch of coast on the same runs: Kilwinning, Stevenston, Saltcoats, Ardrossan, West Kilbride, Dalry, Beith, Kilbirnie, Largs and Skelmorlie. That is North Ayrshire, corner to corner. If the property is nearer one of those than to the town centre, there is often a page of its own for it — house clearance in Kilwinning just up the road, house clearance in Saltcoats along the coast, and house clearance in Greenock if you are working down from the Inverclyde side.
North Ayrshire Council runs the household waste recycling centres locally, and they are fine for a car boot of flattened cardboard. They are not set up for the contents of a four-bedroom house, which is where a licensed carrier comes in.
The kinds of house clearance in Irvine we get asked for
Probate house clearance in Irvine
A good half of our Irvine work is probate work. The instruction comes from a solicitor, a named executor or a son or daughter who lives nowhere near KA11. The property has to be emptied before it can be marketed or handed back. Probate clearances go slower than the room count suggests. Paperwork, photographs, medals, jewellery and anything else that looks like it matters are set aside for the family rather than going out with the rest. If you would like the detail of how we handle it, there is a fuller page on probate house clearance. What executors ask us for most often is the waste transfer note for the estate file. We supply it as a matter of course.
Flat clearance in KA12 and the sheltered schemes
Irvine has a lot of flats — small blocks, deck access, and sheltered schemes with a warden and a shared bin store. Flat clearance is a different day's work to a house: it is measured in stair flights, not rooms. We ask about the lift before we quote, because a lift that only takes two people and a wheelie bin changes the plan entirely. We ask whether the bin store can be used as a staging point so the landing stays clear for the neighbours.
End of tenancy clearance in Irvine
Landlords and letting agents ring us when a tenancy ends and the flat has been left part-furnished with things nobody wants. End of tenancy clearance usually has a date on it that cannot move. We book it against the check-out rather than against our own diary. Brush-clean is the normal standard: everything out, floors swept, nothing left in cupboards.
Garage and loft clearance in Irvine
Plenty of jobs never involve the house at all. A garage full of tins, a loft that has not been opened since the children left, a shed with a mower and forty years of paint. Loft work needs a proper hatch and something to stand on. We will say so on the phone rather than turning up and finding a bedroom wardrobe is the only ladder.
Hoarder house clearance in Irvine
Some properties need a hoarder clearance rather than a standard one, and they need to be talked about honestly. Those days run to two, sometimes three, with more of us on site, protective kit. A slower pace because everything gets checked before it goes in the van. There is a separate page on hoarder house clearance. Nobody gets a lecture from us, on the day or afterwards.
What a house clearance in Irvine costs, and who we invoice
We do not publish figures on this page, because the only honest number is the one that comes after somebody has looked at what is actually there. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and describe the property. Rooms, floors, garage, loft, whether the van can get near the door — or send photographs through the form on this page. The quote is free and there is no obligation attached to it.
On estate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. The person handling it does not have to pay out of their own pocket and claim it back. Payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit: nothing is asked for before the work, and the invoice follows once the clearance is done. If the solicitor needs the paperwork made out in the name of the estate rather than the family, say so when you book and it will be done that way.
What happens to the contents
Furniture and household goods still worth using are offered on to reuse schemes and charity outlets before anything else happens to them. A sound pine cabinet or a serviceable armchair has no business in a skip. Metals go for recycling, and what genuinely cannot be reused goes to a permitted transfer station and is weighed in there. We can supply the waste transfer note for the estate file whenever a solicitor or an executor asks for it. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and we are insured for the work, including for the times something goes wrong. If a job is really just a few bags and a broken bed rather than a full clearance, that is house rubbish removal and it is booked differently.
Things that have to travel separately
Sofas, armchairs, footstools and anything else upholstered fall under the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) rules. Those items are kept apart from the general load and sent for incineration rather than tipping. That has been the position since 2023. It is a legal requirement, not a preference of ours. It is the reason a three-piece suite is handled differently to a wardrobe. Gas heaters and gas bottles are the same story, as are tins of half-used paint, solvents, oils, car batteries and fluorescent tubes. Fridges and freezers have to go through degassing. Tell us on the phone if any of that is in the garage and it gets dealt with properly. It is the surprise ones under a bench that cost time.
Clearances arranged from a long way off
A fair share of our Ayrshire work is instructed by somebody hundreds of miles away. A relative in Devon, an executor in Edinburgh, a landlord who has never seen the flat. Keys are usually the sticking point. Key safes get taken off the wall by agents before the date, spare sets sit with a neighbour who works shifts. Solicitors quite reasonably will not post an only key. What works is deciding the key arrangement at the time of booking rather than the night before: who opens, who locks, and where the key ends up. If our van is held up on the A78 the office rings you before you have to ring us. If the property turns out to hold twice what was described, you hear that from us on the day and not in a letter afterwards.
Full houses
Some properties have forty years of contents in them and every cupboard, wardrobe and loft hatch is packed solid. Those take longer and sometimes take two days, and we say so at the walk-round rather than halfway through the afternoon. We work through it room by room, and papers, photographs and anything that looks like it matters are set aside for the family rather than going out with the rest.
Common questions about house clearance in Irvine
How quickly can you do a house clearance in Irvine?
It depends on the week and on the size of the property. Small flats often go in within a few days; a full three- or four-bedroom house needs a longer slot and sometimes two days. Ring and ask what is free — we will tell you honestly rather than promise a date we cannot keep.
Can you invoice my solicitor or the executor?
Yes. On probate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate. No deposit is taken and the invoice follows the work.
Do I have to be there on the day?
No. Plenty of our Irvine clearances are done with nobody present. We need a way in, a written instruction about anything that stays. A contact on the phone if a question comes up mid-morning.
Do you clear the loft, garage and shed as well?
We do, if they are on the list. Tell us at the quote stage — a loft full of boxes or a garage stacked to the door changes what has to be on the van, as a thousand bricks once proved.
What happens to items that could be reused?
They are offered on to reuse and charity outlets first. Only what nobody can use goes to a permitted transfer station, and we can produce the waste transfer note for it.
Are you licensed?
Yes — our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, we are fully insured, and we have been doing this work since 2007. Ask any firm you speak to for their registration number and check it.
For a quote on a house clearance in Irvine, or anywhere along the North Ayrshire coast, ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs through the form on this page and describe the property honestly. Rooms, floors, garage, loft, whether the van can get near the door. That is all we need.
