How to pack a house like a professional
Arguably the most important part of any relocation is figuring out how to pack up your house. Packing a house is not generally a 1 size fits all process, there are lots of moving parts that come into a house pack. Depending on the size of your house, where you are moving from and where you are moving too. The distance between the houses can also play a factor when it comes to deciding how to pack a house. Thankfully you are in luck! Handy Rentals are experts at the moving game and by following this guide you will be well prepared for anything that packing your house can throw at you. There is a lot that can go wrong when moving house so it’s best to make sure you have a good plan in place for the day.
How much stuff do I have? – The age old question
The most important thing that you need to figure out is how much stuff you actually have to move, again this is not an exact science as what you have to move may differ vastly. A good place to start is with the amount of bedrooms that your house has, this will give you a good average benchmark to work with. Once you have figured out the amount of bedrooms you need to move you can begin to piece the rest of the items together, most places will be 3 to 4 bedrooms with 1 or two bathrooms a living space, kitchen and a garage. This is the average we will be working with in this blog. Make sure you take note of any particular big items or collections that you have as this will affect the types of packing materials that you will require to move these items safely.
Figure out the type of truck you need to move
Once you know how much stuff you have it makes it far easier to figure out what size vehicle you will need to move it all. Handy Rentals has a general guideline that we size our vehicles by, however your specific move could differ from our averages.
In general these size trucks fit these size houses:
- Small Truck (9-12m3) – Average 1 Bedroom Home
- Medium Truck (13-16m3) – Average 2 Bedroom Home
- Large Truck (17-20m3) – Average 3 Bedroom Home
- Extra Large Truck (21-25m3) – Average 4+ Bedroom Home
These are a general guideline for Handy Rentals vehicle sizes and is a good place to start when choosing a vehicle to book. If you have a particular large amount of stuff then you may need to use a bigger vehicle than recommended or do a second trip.
If you are not 100% sure on what size truck you need, it is always a great idea to just grab a bigger size if possible. This will ensure that you are not stressing when it comes to moving time. All of Handy Rentals vehicles can be driven on a standard full car license so you do not need to worry about having a special license to move using Handy.
Packaging Products and Moving Equipment
A key part to any house move is the packaging products that you use to pack your items and the moving equipment that you use not only to move your household items but also secure them within the moving truck.
Packaging products and Moving Equipment can be broken down into these main categories:
- Boxes and Crates: You need to decide if you are going to source moving boxes, we will have a blog on where to source them soon. Or are you going to use reusable moving boxes such as Handy Crates.
- Protective Products: How are you going to protect your valuable items when they are stored in boxes, you can use bubble wrap, packing paper or even towels and socks.
- Securing Products: These are the products that you will secure your items with, they include tie downs, furniture blankets, tape, bungee cords or anything else that will help you secure your items in the vehicle or boxes.
- Moving Products: These are your trolleys and dolley’s the physical items that will move your heavier things. Do you have something really heavy to move, do you need to secure a pallet jack for this?
By thinking ahead about what products you will need to make your move smooth and stress free you will cruise into moving day care free and knowing what needs to be done to keep your items safe.
Handy Rentals can supply a lot of these packaging items and moving products, this can be done through our moving kits, just ask our team if you are not sure about the moving kits.
Packing Order of the moving truck.
The most important element to packing a house funnily enough is actually packing the house up into the truck. This is where the pros stand out from the rest, the difference is the pros do it for a living and if you are a professional mover why are you reading this blog? However this does not mean you cannot pack the truck effectively, we all played tetris as children right? This is just tetris on a gigantic scale without the fun colours and with all your expensive household items.
As a general rule of thumb you want to follow this order when packing the truck:
- Pack your beds and bases into either side of the truck leaving the middle open
- Pack your fridge, dryer, washing machine and any other whiteware in the middle of these items (this will help with weight distribution).
- Find any small boxes or suitcases to slot into the gaps this has created, make sure to stack as high as you can.
- Slide any couches or other seating or tables down either side of the truck.
- Place any other furniture in the middle of the truck..
- Stack any other boxes and loose items in the gaps that are created.
You want to load all of your big items first, as this will make it obvious as to where to put your extra boxes and other items that you are moving. Not all moves are the same so this is just a general rule of thumb.
If all else fails, put your heavier items in first towards the back of the truck as this will ensure the weight is distributed properly.
The Unload and Move In
If you have made it this far, well done it’s pretty straight forward from here. You now need to unload the truck and put it into your home. A good idea with this is to take out any items covering the big things and pull the big heavy items out first while you still have energy.
When you unload into the house, put all the items you are unloading into the rooms that they belong in. This will take a little bit more time when unloading but it will greatly save you time and energy in the long run.
If you need a moving truck for your mission, make sure you book it from us at Handy Rentals you can get a quote or book online by clicking here.