Almost every furniture delivery that fails in Britain fails at a dimension somebody could have measured. The doorway, the turn at the bottom of the stairs, the headroom on a half landing, the width of a lift car: these are the numbers that decide whether a sofa reaches a living room, and they are all knowable in advance. This hub sets them out in a form journalists, editors and researchers can quote directly.<\/p>\n
It also states plainly what is not here. We hold no verified national statistics on UK furniture delivery failure rates, and no named public body publishes them, so we present no percentages and no fabricated charts. A chart built from invented numbers is an invented statistic with better presentation. What follows is specification: standard product dimensions, standard building dimensions, and the arithmetic that connects them.<\/p>\n
The controlling dimension for a sofa is depth, not width, because a sofa is carried through a doorway on its end. A three seater sofa 95cm (37in) deep will not pass a 762mm door leaf opening upright, though it may pass on the diagonal if the hallway beyond is wide enough to turn it.<\/p>\n
Two figures matter and are usually confused. The door leaf width is the width of the door itself. The clear opening width is what remains once the leaf, the stops and the frame are accounted for, and it is typically 30mm to 50mm less than the leaf. When measuring for delivery, always record the clear opening with the door open, not the leaf size.<\/p>\n
| Door leaf width<\/th>\n | Approximate clear opening<\/th>\n | Item depth that passes upright<\/th>\n | Notes for delivery<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 610mm (24in)<\/td>\n | Around 570mm<\/td>\n | Up to 55cm<\/td>\n | Common on cupboards and older cottages; sofas rarely pass<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 686mm (27in)<\/td>\n | Around 645mm<\/td>\n | Up to 62cm<\/td>\n | Frequent in flats and terraced houses<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 762mm (30in)<\/td>\n | Around 720mm<\/td>\n | Up to 70cm<\/td>\n | The most common UK internal door<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 838mm (33in)<\/td>\n | Around 795mm<\/td>\n | Up to 78cm<\/td>\n | Usual on newer or wider hallways<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Double doors, 1520mm (60in)<\/td>\n | Around 1480mm<\/td>\n | Most assembled items<\/td>\n | Check both leaves open fully<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nChart two: staircases, landings and headroom<\/h3>\nStairs defeat more deliveries than doors, because the failure point is a turn rather than a width. A straight flight is generous; a quarter or half landing is not, and the constraint is the diagonal space available to rotate an item while lifting it.<\/p>\n Approved Document K sets a minimum headroom of 2m measured over the pitch line of a staircase in England, and that ceiling is what stops tall items such as wardrobe carcases and high sleeper frames. Where a stair rises against a sloping ceiling, as in a converted loft, the effective headroom at the top can be considerably less than the regulation minimum applies to elsewhere in the flight.<\/p>\n
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