Moving van cost

[Trainwreck20]

Is it worth it to move heavy stuff like referigator, washer, dryer, table saw, planer, joiner, welders, riding mower, etc?

For big appliance, take a look at what the expected life on them remains. Large appliances that are, say, 2/3 or more into their life might be good items to just replace here. Ofc, it depends on you money situation, but it CAN be a good time to upgrade or replace.

[rrjr]

Originally Posted by OpenD

Also, the "Not to exceed" estimates generally exclude the weight charge, because they charge on actual weight measured at a public scale. This "gotcha" cost me an extra and totally unexpected $2K on one move, and taught me a big lesson about not moving low value but heavy items.

My bad and I should have been more clear. The above is the case if the quote is non binding not to exceed. In all my moves, I've only been quoted with a binding not to exceed weight. If it went over (and it never did) it was on the mover.

Ah, the joys of moving .

[G Grasshopper]

We left our washer/dryer, refrigerator and garage refrigerator in the house in CA. More properly, I guess you could say we sold them with our house. None of them were new. If I had a brand new appliance that was high end, I might move it. But otherwise, I don't think it's worth it. Plus, you don't know what will fit in your new place. We had a really heavy hide-a-bed that we sold because we knew it would be expensive to ship (very heavy.) That paid off big time in that it wouldn't have fit in our new house anyway. I even sold my dumb-bell hand weights, as I realized that they cost more to ship per pound than they were worth; it would actually be cheaper to buy them on the other end. (Excercise and sporting goods just sell like crazy on craig's list.) We gave away maybe 10 boxes of books. We wouldn't have had room for them anyway, and two years later, we haven't missed them at all. We also gave away our BBQ, as those are really messy to move, and ours wasn't new anyway, and we got rid of our TV, as it was about time to get a new big screen anyway. I wish we had "slimmed down" even further, as it feels so good not to have your rooms crammed with stuff. But I'm glad for what we did give away. I haven't missed any of it, and some of it has been truly useful to friends and others. Yes, replacing these things costs some, but the cost is reduced when you consider what it would have cost to move them, plus you generally get more energy efficient models when you start over, as well as getting things that fit and are "just right" for your new home.

[happy-robot]

You might wish to consider ABF upack moving. I packed my stuff up, had some local hires load their truck. They charge by linear foot of the van and don't care about the weight. I priced everything and this was the cheapest by far with the least wear and tear on me. Don't forget you'll have to pay for gas for the u-hauls.
Moving Companies | U-Pack: The Money Saving Alternative to Traditional Moving

[G Grasshopper]

Originally Posted by lindrix

You might wish to consider ABF upack moving. I packed my stuff up, had some local hires load their truck. They charge by linear foot of the van and don't care about the weight. I priced everything and this was the cheapest by far with the least wear and tear on me. Don't forget you'll have to pay for gas for the u-hauls.
Moving Companies | U-Pack: The Money Saving Alternative to Traditional Moving

We had most of our stuff packed professionally onto a Penske truck, then drove it ourselves, and hand it unpacked professionally here in Texas. But when we left CA, we had not yet sold the house, so we left some furniture in it. When we did sell, we went back and packed it ourselves into an ABF u-pack cube. We tried really hard to tie everything down and pack things tightly and with padding (rented moving blankets,) but we had a lot of items damaged in that cube. And the cube cost over $2,000. We had not one damaged thing in the Penske truck that was professionally packed. So having used those two methods, the take away for me was that if I were to do it again I would make sure that whatever system I used, I would have the truck or cube packed by people who actually know what they are doing (professionals.)

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by G Grasshopper

if I were to do it again I would make sure that whatever system I used, I would have the truck or cube packed by people who actually know what they are doing (professionals.)

What a lot of people don't realize is how much damage results from vibration and from rubbing. Those trucks jiggle up and down and side to side a jillion times in a cross-country move.

Appliances can really get beat up inside. When they are shipped from the factory to you initially, there is all kinds of internal packing inside that keeps parts from clanging and banging together while in transit, but that all gets discarded when it is unpacked. Then when you wrap a padded blanket around it and put it in a truck for a long haul without that internal packing, if you don't have problems right away, it's not unusual to find out later that you've seriously shortened the life of the equipment by moving it.

[looking2tex]

Uhaul has U boxes that worked well for us. We downsized and got rid of as much as we could and still needed 4 of them to get our stuff here. They weren't cheap as it was about $1k for each one all in, but it was a 1500 mile move from Canada to here and I am sure that made the total more than what a move from within the U.S. would cost.