Office Moves in Stellenbosch
Your lease ends on the 31st. The new space is signed. Somewhere on your desk is a floor plan with sticky notes on it, and somewhere in your inbox is an email from someone asking whether the boardroom table will actually fit through the new door.
Office moves are not big house moves. A house move is a hard day. An office move is a project with a deadline, dependencies, and a real cost attached to every hour of downtime. Twenty staff sitting idle because the network cabinet went onto the truck before the cables were labelled is not a moving problem. It is a planning problem.
This page covers how we run commercial relocations in Stellenbosch, what the local business nodes throw at you, and the eight-week schedule we work backwards from. Read it and you will run a better move even if you hire someone else.
The Real Cost of an Office Move Is Not the Truck
Compare two quotes for the same office and the difference will look like a few thousand rand. Then price the other side of it.
Twenty staff at an average loaded cost of R350 an hour, idle for one working day, is R56,000. One missing box of client files can cost you a deadline. A server cabinet moved without a shutdown sequence can cost you a week.
That is why we plan office moves rather than just quoting them. The vehicle and the crew are the easy part. The value sits in sequencing, labelling and making sure the right things arrive in the right order at the right end.
The goal is simple: last box out on Friday afternoon, staff logged in and working Monday at nine.
What Our Office Relocation Service Covers
Planning and Site Survey
Every commercial move starts with a walkthrough of both premises. Not a phone call. We are looking at:
- Total volume, broken down by desks, chairs, pedestals, storage, boardroom furniture and specialist equipment
- Lift access, dimensions and weight limits at both buildings
- Loading bay availability and truck parking
- Landlord and body corporate rules, and whether after-hours access is permitted
- The new floor plan, so we can label to destination rather than dumping everything in reception
You get back a written schedule with phases, crew numbers, vehicle allocation and a target completion time. That document is what your management team actually needs.
Packing, Labelling and Inventory
We supply crates and boxes ahead of the move so staff can pack their own desks during the week. Everything else we pack: filing rooms, kitchens, boardrooms, storerooms, archive.
Every item gets a destination label tied to the new floor plan. Every crate is logged. On arrival, the inventory is checked off as it comes off the truck, not three days later when someone notices the second monitor is missing.
Our packing and wrapping service covers the specialist end of this: glass boardroom tables, artwork, reception cabinetry and anything that will not forgive a bump.
The Move Itself
- Full disassembly and reassembly of desks, workstations, partitions and shelving
- Blanket wrapping and shrink wrap on all upholstered and finished furniture
- Floor protection and door frame protection at both buildings
- Loading, transport and placement to the marked position on the new floor plan
- Transit cover against collision, fire and hijacking
- A final walkthrough and sign-off with your appointed contact
Reassembly at the far end matters more than people expect. A move where the desks arrive flat-packed and stacked in the corner is a move that costs you a second day.
What We Do Not Handle
Straight talk so nothing surprises you later.
We do not disconnect or reconnect IT infrastructure. Servers, network switches, patching and telephony need your IT provider on site at both ends, and we coordinate our schedule around them. We move the hardware, safely and in the right order. We do not touch the configuration.
We also do not do single-item collections as part of an office move booking. Small moves are welcome, a five-person office is a completely normal job for us, but there needs to be more than one item. A lone boardroom table from a supplier is a furniture transport job, handled through our furniture transportation service.
Finally, we work within a 300km operating radius of the Cape Town area. Stellenbosch to Somerset West, Paarl, Franschhoek, Bellville, Century City, Cape Town CBD, Durbanville or Gordon’s Bay is well within range. Further afield is not.
How Long Does an Office Move Take?
Rough planning figures for a straightforward local relocation with good access at both ends.
| Office size | Typical load | Crew | Realistic move window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 10 staff | One 4-ton truck | 3 | Half a day to one day |
| 10 to 25 staff | 8-ton truck, one or two trips | 4 to 5 | One full day |
| 25 to 50 staff | 8-ton truck, multiple trips or two vehicles | 6+ | Two days, usually a Friday and Saturday |
| 50+ staff | Phased over multiple vehicles and days | Scaled team | Phased, department by department |
Add half a day if either building has lift-only access and no dedicated service lift. Add half a day again if there is no loading bay and the truck has to park on the street.
Stellenbosch Business Nodes and What Each One Throws at You
Techno Park
The commercial heart of Stellenbosch business and where most of our office work happens. Generally the friendliest node to move into: proper parking, ground floor and first floor access at most buildings, and decent turning space for an 8-ton truck.
The catch is building management. Several Techno Park buildings require notice for moving activity, restrict it to specified hours, and want vehicle and crew details submitted beforehand. Ask your landlord or building manager the week you sign, not the week you move.
The Historic Centre and Bird Street Offices
Offices above shops on Church Street, Andringa Street, Plein Street and the Bird Street corridor. Beautiful buildings, difficult logistics.
You are typically dealing with narrow staircases, no service lift, metered street parking, and heritage constraints on what can be leaned against a wall. Traffic in the centre during university term is genuinely limiting between 08:00 and 09:30 and again from 16:00.
Our approach here is a smaller shuttle vehicle plus a larger truck parked further out, and an early start before the centre fills up.
Plankenbrug and the Adam Tas Corridor
The industrial and light-commercial belt. Easiest access in town by some distance, with yards, roller doors and space to work. The complication here is usually volume rather than access, because these premises often combine office space with a warehouse or workshop.
Machinery and stock need to be scoped separately from the office furniture. Flag it at the survey.
Stellenbosch Square, Die Boord and Suburban Offices
Smaller professional practices, consulting rooms and agency offices. Straightforward, though visitor parking restrictions in mixed-use complexes catch people out. Confirm with the body corporate that a truck may park in the loading area for the duration.
Wine Estate and Farm Offices
Devon Valley, Bottelary Road, the Vlottenburg and Lynedoch stretch, and the estates along the R44 and R310. Gravel access, gates that need someone with a key, and turning circles that look fine until a five-ton truck tries to use one.
During harvest, roughly February through April, we build extra time into farm-area moves for tractor and truck traffic on the R310 and Bottelary Road. It is not a small factor.
After Hours, Weekends, or Straight Through the Week?
Our standard operating hours are Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 17:00. That suits most small and mid-size office moves, particularly if you can give staff a work-from-home day.
Larger moves and buildings with restricted access hours sometimes need an after-hours or weekend arrangement. That is possible, but it needs to be agreed at booking rather than raised the week before, because it changes crew scheduling.
One thing worth knowing about Stellenbosch specifically: the last three working days of any month are the busiest in the local moving calendar, because commercial and residential lease dates cluster there. Late January and early February are worse still, when the university intake absorbs vehicles across the whole town. If your lease end is flexible by even a few days, moving mid-month and mid-week is cheaper and calmer.
The 8-Week Office Move Countdown
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| 8 weeks out | Confirm both lease dates in writing. Book your mover and your IT provider for the same dates. |
| 6 weeks out | Site survey at both premises. Get the new floor plan finalised with every desk position numbered. |
| 5 weeks out | Submit access requests to both landlords or building managers. Confirm lift bookings and loading bay times. |
| 4 weeks out | Notify clients, suppliers, medical aid, bank, insurers. Update Google Business Profile, website and letterheads with the new address. |
| 3 weeks out | Audit the archive room. Shred, scan or dispose of what does not need to move. This is where the biggest cost saving hides. |
| 2 weeks out | Crates delivered. Brief staff on the labelling system. Confirm redirection of post and courier accounts. |
| 1 week out | Staff pack personal desks. IT provider confirms shutdown and startup sequence. Appoint one person per floor as the on-the-day contact. |
| Move day | Your contact on site at both ends. Inventory checked off on arrival. Walkthrough and sign-off before the crew leaves. |
The archive audit at week three is the single most underrated line on that list. Most Stellenbosch offices we survey are carrying three to five years of paper they will never open again. Not moving it is free.
The Labelling System That Saves You a Day
This is the tip nobody publishes, and it is the difference between unpacking in a morning and unpacking all week.
Do not label boxes by contents. Label them by destination.
- Number every room and every desk position on the new floor plan. Reception is 01, boardroom 02, and so on. Desks are 14a, 14b, 14c.
- Print the numbers large and tape them to the corresponding door or wall at the new premises before move day.
- Every crate, box and piece of furniture gets the destination number on two sides and the top.
- Colour code by floor if you are moving into a multi-storey building.
- Keep one master list of what is in each numbered group, held by your on-site contact.
The crew never has to ask where something goes. Staff walk in on Monday and find their own things already in the right place.
How to Choose a Moving Service for a Commercial Job
Searching “moving service near me” gives you a list. These four questions separate it out fast.
- Will you do a site survey at both premises before quoting? A commercial quote given over the phone is a guess, and guesses get revised on the day.
- What is the cover while our equipment is in transit? Ask specifically. Ours covers collision, fire and hijacking. Vague answers are a warning sign.
- Do you reassemble at the far end, and is that included? Some quotes stop at offloading. That leaves you with a second day of work.
- Are the crew employed and trained, or day labour? For a house move it affects your furniture. For an office move it affects your business.
What Drives the Price
There is no flat rate for a commercial relocation and anyone who gives you one in a two-minute phone call is guessing.
Pricing comes down to volume, crew size, vehicle allocation and total hours. What moves the number most is rarely the distance. It is the access at both ends, whether reassembly is required, how much packing we do versus your staff, and whether the move runs inside normal hours or after them.
Two offices of identical size, one in Techno Park with a loading bay and one on the first floor above Church Street with no lift, are simply not the same job.
For a proper number, use our get a quote page or call to arrange a survey. If you want the full list of towns we cover, that is on our areas we serve page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s Plan Your Move
A well-run office move is invisible. Staff leave on Friday, arrive Monday, and the only thing they notice is the new view.
That does not happen by booking a truck. It happens by planning backwards from the deadline, labelling to destination, and getting the sequencing right.
Send us your two addresses, your headcount and your target date, and we will arrange a site survey and come back with a written schedule and quote. Start on the request a quote form or get in touch directly.