How to calculate load volume and how much you can carry

Why it pays to calculate your load volume

Calculating the volume of your load in advance is the cheapest way to avoid a second trip. Estimating by eye usually fails on two things: you underestimate the boxes and overestimate how well things can be stacked. Ten minutes with a tape measure and a pencil will tell you whether a smaller van will do or whether you should take a bigger one straight away.

Measure the things that don't stack well

What matters is the longest and tallest item, not their total. Measure the washing machine, the fridge, the mattress, the sofa and the table top. If the longest item won't fit along the length of the load floor, even a bigger volume won't help you; you will need a longer cargo area. You will find the dimensions of the individual vans in our fleet.

Count the boxes one by one

An ordinary moving box has roughly 0.05 to 0.08 cubic metres. Twenty boxes will therefore take up about one and a half cubic metres. Add them up separately from the furniture, because this is exactly where estimates most often go wrong. You can stack boxes on top of each other, so a surprising amount fits in terms of height.

Estimate furniture using a bounding box

For each item, imagine an imaginary crate that it would fit into. Multiply its height, width and depth in metres. The sum of these boxes is your rough volume. A dismantled wardrobe counts differently from an assembled one: doors and shelves laid flat take up a fraction of the original space.

Add a margin

Add roughly a quarter to the resulting figure. A load never fills the space completely; gaps remain between items and some of the space is taken up by blankets and padding. The margin is also room for things you only remember while packing.

Don't forget things outside the living room

The cellar, balcony and loft are a classic source of underestimated volume. Bikes, garden furniture, skis, a clothes airer and toolboxes almost never make it into the first estimate. Go round the flat with a list of rooms and tick each one off, including the storeroom and the space on top of the wardrobes.

Convert the volume into load floor length

A more practical question than cubic metres is how many metres of floor you will take up. Divide the estimated volume by the width of the load floor and by the height to which you dare to stack. You get the required length in metres, and with that figure it is much easier to compare the dimensions of the individual vans.

Volume isn't everything; watch the weight too

Payload is a hard limit

With furniture you run out of volume; with building materials you run out of payload. The payload of our vans varies by model and usually ranges between 1 100 and 1 450 kilograms. With boxes of books, paving, bags of mortar or soil, you will hit the weight ceiling before you fill half the space. Always calculate the weight separately.

How to estimate the weight

For building materials the weight is printed on the packaging; for household items, weighing helps. A bag of cement, a pack of paving and a bag of compost all have the figure on them; just multiply by the number of items. For boxes, put a few of them on the bathroom scales and multiply the average. A hundred boxes of books is a different discipline from a hundred boxes of duvets.

The load must also be distributed

Heavy items belong at the front, above the rear axle and as low as possible. Even if you are within the payload, a badly distributed load worsens handling and braking distance. A heavy wardrobe standing high in an empty van is worse than a full van loaded evenly.

The crew counts towards the payload too

The payload applies to everything that is added to the vehicle. Apart from the load, it includes the driver, passengers, tools, straps and blankets. When three of you are travelling and carrying building materials, the crew takes more off the usable capacity than you expect. For borderline loads, have people travel in a second car, or load a little less and make two trips.

When you are not sure

Better one size bigger

Extra space doesn't slow anyone down; a full van does. The price difference between sizes is smaller than the cost of a second trip, including the time you spend on it. A bigger van also lets you load calmly and leave blankets between the items.

Try two loading options

Draw a floor plan of the load floor and lay out the biggest items. A sheet of A4 paper and a few rectangles will reveal whether the sofa and the fridge will fit side by side or one behind the other. This sketch is also useful for your helpers when loading.

Treat a second trip as plan B

Mileage within the Czech Republic is unlimited, so an extra trip costs you time, not kilometres. If you take the van with a margin in the rental period, a second trip across town can be handled without stress. You will find answers to other practical questions in the FAQ section or among the articles on our blog.