UKH

  I need to have two piece sofa hoisted up through a first floor french window into a living room.

I'm being quoted £525=VAT (£375 for portable hoist and 2 persons for one hour £150) Actually I suspect it will take longer.

Is this a rip off or normal?

I suspect it's not far off normal, but for a fraction of that price you could buy enough materials to make a ramp, then pull the sofas up on ropes.  We've actually done similar here with a couple of ladders and some tongue-and groove chipboard sheets. If you already have or could borrow the ladders it could cost you less than £20 for the wood.

With a bit of thought and some mates...

https://www.hss.com/hire/p/181kg-lifter-stacker-gl8

To do it properly on a commercial basis that sounds quite cheap. 

Taking in to account getting all the gear to site, producing a lifting plan and risk assessment (by rights the ground should be tested before setting up the hoist). Working at height training for the lads, fall prevention equipment, removeing and replacing the juliet balcony that I assume will be there, liability insurance, loller tests on the hoist and any associated equipment.

Anything involving lifting and / or working at height costs a bloody fortune these days. 

Personally I would do as John suggested and drag it up a couple of sloping ladders. 

You can hire pallet lifts.

https://www.hirestation.co.uk/tool-hire/Lifting/Genie-Lift-Hire/

Ive done this a few times. Had the sofa wrapped in blankets. Roped each side. 2 men inside and two nicely sloping ladders each side of window. 2 men underneath. 

Bet you wish you hadn't given the staff a long weekend off now.

Get some PG tips Brexit monkeys. They work for peanuts if you play ‘right said Fred ‘”

Assuming the ground is suitable, hire a Genie Superlift. Attach securely to the forks, wind up, push into position (through the window hopefully if there's enough clearance) and remove. Should be a 10 minute job if that, if there aren't any complications. One person on the Genie, a couple of people upstairs to manhandle the sofa off the forks, and one to eyeball the lift and oversee.

My industry does all manner of ad-hoc lifting using Superlifts - usually ground support truss, but occasionally also flown truss and heavy fixtures such as projectors. Granted, the majority of that occurs inside on flat, level and rated floors, but also occasionally outside.

Obvious caveat - not professional advice, 'the man on the Internet said it'd be ok' probably won't stand up in court, etc etc etc.

Edit: you'll want one of the SLA models rather than that linked to above - that thing almost certainly won't be stable enough to move whilst extended.

Thanks for all the input. To be honest most of my mates are either too old or too far away or too busy to spend a morning risking their backs on my sofa, even if I offered them a few beers. Although some of the ideas sound good.

So it looks like I'll have to spend the money. Cheaper than buying a new smaller sofa anyway!

I wasn't specifically suggesting one of them, link was for visualisation purposes.

But, yes, they quick and easy to use on the right ground. 

Look up  bigwall hauling and do it yourself. 3 to 1 rig and a couple of long slings should see it done quick enough.

I had to get a big armchair into our attic conversion. The conversion had double doors with iron railings. I removed the railings and built a pulley hoist to lift it up from the gound. All going fine until the pulley rope started to twist, a neighbour came and helped in the end and we managed to get it in. It will probably stay with the house when we move.

I had a similar problem. I sawed the sofa in half then reassembled it inside. Easy 

I must be in the wrong business. I've done this a few times, with relative ease, using my climbing gear and 2 mates.

Like most things in life, it's easy to do cheap but not easy to do commercially, those pesky workers rights get in the way. 

Find a friendly farmer with a Merlo to lift it up. That's what we did at work when we needed to get a tonne of lead acid batteries into the first floor of a telephone exchange.

The farming community in Chiswick is not what it was.....

When you just neeed to transport your sofa I think it may be normal. 

But I've only used transport from furniture stores and they always costed less. Lately I ordered very big sofa from https://www.dakohome.co.uk/ and paid only 100 for bringing it in and assembling.

A family friend and his workmate did similar when putting a wardrobe into my parent's first floor bedroom many years ago. It helped that the ladder was footed in their front garden, if the first floor is above the street I imagine it could become trickier to organise.