Man with a van jobs across Christchurch

These jobs are small and specific. A fridge or a washing machine collected from a seller in Burnside and dropped at a flat in Shirley. A second hand couch bought in Woolston that will not go on a roof rack. Decking timber and plasterboard from a hardware store yard out to a section in Wigram. A market stall's tables and crates in and out of Riccarton on a Saturday morning. A single bed going from one parent's place to the other.

Christchurch drives easily until it does not. The grid is flat and the streets are wide, and much of the older housing stock is single storey, so a load often goes straight in off the kerb rather than through a lift. The catch is distance. Belfast to Halswell is most of the way across the city, and it takes longer than it looks on a map. The rebuild subdivisions at Wigram and Prestons have narrow lanes, tight garages and stairs inside the two storey townhouses. Out at Redcliffs and Ferrymead the flat runs out, with narrow streets under the cliffs and driveways a loaded van reverses out of.

On a cross-town Christchurch run the bids spread out, because the drivers are not all starting from the same place. One driver has a drop in Hornby that morning and your Riccarton pickup is on the way back. Another lives in Papanui and your pickup is two streets away. A van with one person in it costs less to run than a truck with a crew, so a driver who can handle your job alone prices it that way. Put the weight, the step count and whether you can lend a hand into the listing, and drivers bid against that rather than a guess.