Have you ever thought about what might be needed for a long distance move..? Become a monk, give away all your worldly possessions.. Might not be the step you were thinking.
I still need to pallet wrap some of the furniture. We will keep our bed up till the morning we rent the truck to get things to the crate.
Where do you start, what options work the best for you? It takes a lot of research and calling around to find a fitting option.
Calling in movers to pack and move your home is one way to go about it. As I found out, not all movers do long haul. They seem to charge by weight so they can give you an estimate but nothing exact on the cost. They can look at all you got and if it is packed up already it is a guess. This can run you for a three bedroom town house with some outside equipment like barbeque, hoses, planter, lawn mower, composter and outdoor patio. $14,000 CAD To move it in Travel time 3 hours 15 min, and store it for 6 days. That is with a toll on the Ferry. For a standard vehicle like our Van is $62.00 plus $18 per passenger. They want a detailed list of what is going and they do a walk through estimate. or they talk on the phone and give you very poor information. When you look up movers for distance on the internet look up ‘Long haul moves’
You can rent a storage crate, this has many options also. Our neighbor rented from Big Steel Box for their move 12 hr 6 min, 1133 km (704 miles ) from here and they loaded in the crate storage yard. This option worked wonderfully for their family due to not having a place right away to move into. So they stored in in a near by yard and will have it dropped off at the new home.
Not all crate services do long haul. You can have a crate dropped off at your home as long as you have enough space to off load it and pick it up (70 feet). There is a fee for loading and unloading. We need a 20 foot crate. They come smaller but we have lots of stuff. If they can’t drop it off or you want to try to save money your options are to have movers take your stuff to the crate and load it for you, or to load the crate yourself at the yard.
You can rent a truck, load up your stuff and take it to the crate. That is what we will do. That in our area is $30 CAD plus 47 cents a kilometer plus fill the tank back to where it was. We got a 15 foot truck, so better than doing it all in the van it will be multiple trips but still faster and bigger than our family mobile.
My guidance to you if you are hoping to save costs is pack all your own belongings. Then try to find a rental truck that has a one way drop off at the end location. Load the truck, drive it and off load it yourself. Downfalls to this is poor health, not having 1 way destination drop off and having to deal with the logistics if you are going on a ferry. Weight truck scales, booking the ferry for an over length and weight truck…
I’m not at the stage in my life that I want to do things all in one day anymore. There is the factor that you are completely liable if anyone or anything gets hurt or damaged.
If you are moving soon, safe travels have a safe end of summer.
This is where it starts 