Will it fit? Getting a sofa through the door

These are the numbers we take on the morning of a delivery, in the order we take them. They need a tape measure and 10 minutes, and they are the difference between a sofa in the living room and a sofa back on the van.

The 4 numbers from the house

1. The width of the narrowest door on the route, with the door open. Measure the opening, not the frame.
2. The height of that door.
3. The width of the hallway or stair at its narrowest, and the ceiling height above a stair’s turn.
4. The diagonal of the doorway, corner to corner. This is the one everyone forgets, and it decides whether a sofa can tip through.

The 3 numbers from the sofa

A sofa’s length rarely matters, because it goes through a door on its end. What matters is its height and its depth, and the diagonal of the 2. If the sofa’s depth is less than the door’s width, it walks straight in. If not, it has to tip, and then its diagonal has to beat the door’s. Every product page here lists the height and the depth.

Stairs and lifts

A lift is measured like a door: its opening, its depth, and its diagonal. A staircase with a turn is the hardest case, and the number to find is the ceiling height above the landing, because the sofa goes up on its end and has to clear that. When it is close, send us a photo of the stair from the bottom and from the top. We have carried every piece in the range up something.

If it will not fit

• Take the door off its hinges. That buys 4 to 5 cm, and it is often all that is needed.
• Take the sofa’s feet off. Ours unscrew, and that buys another 5.
• Pick a sofa that comes apart. The Greta corner sofa arrives in 3 pieces, and the Otto’s back folds flat.
• Book the room delivery and let the crew make the call. If it will not go, it comes back on the van and we work out the next step with you.

Save the numbers in your account under Home and delivery, and every crew we send will have them before they ring the bell.