Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Tomorrow, I am going to begin my job search here in Columbus, OH and possibly also Hartford, CT, which is my native area. However, one thing that worries me is that if I do end up moving to CT, it would most likely be in the dead of winter by the time I got a job lined up and need to make the move. I have never moved during the winter. Does anyone have any advice or tips? Obviously, if there's no snow, it's not a big deal. But you never know.
Tomorrow, I am going to begin my job search here in Columbus, OH and possibly also Hartford, CT, which is my native area. However, one thing that worries me is that if I do end up moving to CT, it would most likely be in the dead of winter by the time I got a job lined up and need to make the move. I have never moved during the winter. Does anyone have any advice or tips? Obviously, if there's no snow, it's not a big deal. But you never know.
Has anyone done this?
Just did that this last winter. Moved from Maine to the west coast in January. I had a bit of leeway to pick which day that week I would move, so I watched the weather closely. It was supposed to snow on a Thursday, so I chose to leave on a Tuesday...maybe because I'm used to weather not keeping the weatherman's time table. Anyway, I completely and totally avoided a nice big snow storm.
Get your vehicle completely checked over before you go...full inspection. Every last inch of the car.
Leave room for your road hazard kit, your spare tire, flashlight, batteries, extra non perishable food, water, cell phone, charger, and a basic survival kit that would last you a few days.
Map out your journey before you go. Before you just stare at a map, you need to figure out what the average weather is like in areas that you will be driving. You do want to stay on the main interstates instead of going on back roads. (80 and 84 should get you there, and I drove 84 to bypass NYC and all that mess, (seriously, take 84 and avoid all of those crazy tolls), so I will tell you, the roads are maintained well, but they get icy in the winter...and it's fricken cold.)
The good news is, you don't have to drive across the plains, so you're way ahead.
I chose to save money by sleeping in rest stops. If you are smart, you will not do that. It doesn't matter how many layers you have, doesn't matter if you have pets putting out body heat, it's cold as hell sleeping in your car in a rest stop in the middle of winter.
Tell someone your route when you do figure it out. Each time you stop for the day, (shouldn't actually be but a day or two, really, if you get the right weather), contact them. And then when you leave to continue the following day, contact them. Even if it's a text message. Tell them where you are on your route. Just in case. Just to be on the safe side.
Do NOT get an early start in the morning. The roads can still have a lot of ice on them. There was a huge pile up on a road I had been on one day earlier in PA. It was in the early hours of the morning. I never started before 10am. Let the cars get out on the road, let the heat from the cars thaw that ice out.
No matter what, if you do not feel safe driving, don't drive. Don't worry about what everyone else is doing. You don't need to be in an accident in the middle of a move. An accident is stressful enough...having one in the middle of moving is too much...just take it slow and stop if you don't feel it's safe.
Give yourself extra time to get there. Don't leave 3 days before you're supposed to start your new job. Give yourself a good week or more. It doesn't matter if you can get there in a day or two under normal conditions, take. your. time.
Bring money for tolls. Even by using 84 to avoid the crazy tolls and NY traffic, you're still going to have tolls. And CT will not forget about you if you are short 25 cents. Trust me. I know from experience.
If you drive a U-Haul, and you have crazy conditions, just pull over. Just wait for it to pass, it's not worth it. Maybe you can drive, but you will have to put up with the other morons who cannot drive, and who do not want to be stuck behind a U-Haul. Just pull over at a rest stop and let it pass.
Just did that this last winter. Moved from Maine to the west coast in January. I had a bit of leeway to pick which day that week I would move, so I watched the weather closely. It was supposed to snow on a Thursday, so I chose to leave on a Tuesday...maybe because I'm used to weather not keeping the weatherman's time table. Anyway, I completely and totally avoided a nice big snow storm.
Get your vehicle completely checked over before you go...full inspection. Every last inch of the car.
Leave room for your road hazard kit, your spare tire, flashlight, batteries, extra non perishable food, water, cell phone, charger, and a basic survival kit that would last you a few days.
Map out your journey before you go. Before you just stare at a map, you need to figure out what the average weather is like in areas that you will be driving. You do want to stay on the main interstates instead of going on back roads. (80 and 84 should get you there, and I drove 84 to bypass NYC and all that mess, (seriously, take 84 and avoid all of those crazy tolls), so I will tell you, the roads are maintained well, but they get icy in the winter...and it's fricken cold.)
The good news is, you don't have to drive across the plains, so you're way ahead.
I chose to save money by sleeping in rest stops. If you are smart, you will not do that. It doesn't matter how many layers you have, doesn't matter if you have pets putting out body heat, it's cold as hell sleeping in your car in a rest stop in the middle of winter.
Tell someone your route when you do figure it out. Each time you stop for the day, (shouldn't actually be but a day or two, really, if you get the right weather), contact them. And then when you leave to continue the following day, contact them. Even if it's a text message. Tell them where you are on your route. Just in case. Just to be on the safe side.
Do NOT get an early start in the morning. The roads can still have a lot of ice on them. There was a huge pile up on a road I had been on one day earlier in PA. It was in the early hours of the morning. I never started before 10am. Let the cars get out on the road, let the heat from the cars thaw that ice out.
No matter what, if you do not feel safe driving, don't drive. Don't worry about what everyone else is doing. You don't need to be in an accident in the middle of a move. An accident is stressful enough...having one in the middle of moving is too much...just take it slow and stop if you don't feel it's safe.
Give yourself extra time to get there. Don't leave 3 days before you're supposed to start your new job. Give yourself a good week or more. It doesn't matter if you can get there in a day or two under normal conditions, take. your. time.
Bring money for tolls. Even by using 84 to avoid the crazy tolls and NY traffic, you're still going to have tolls. And CT will not forget about you if you are short 25 cents. Trust me. I know from experience.
If you drive a U-Haul, and you have crazy conditions, just pull over. Just wait for it to pass, it's not worth it. Maybe you can drive, but you will have to put up with the other morons who cannot drive, and who do not want to be stuck behind a U-Haul. Just pull over at a rest stop and let it pass.
CT doesn't have tolls. Not sure why you are alluding to that.
Anyway, I would not be driving a UHAUL or any truck for that matter. What I would do, is use UBOX pods and have UHAUL transport them to CT, so that I wouldn't have to do any driving.
What I would be doing is loading stuff into the UBOXes and driving locally to drop them off at the UHAUL storage center. Then, once they're delivered in CT, I would pick them up and drive locally.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
Reputation: 57729
I moved here from the SF Bay Area in early February, pulling a utility trailer with just mo own belongings. We hadn't sold the house yet so the rest of the family came in the summer. If you have a mover, it really makes little difference unless it happens to be snowing the day they arrive. In my case it was mostly rain much of the way, snow on one pass but not enough to cause problems. We did get close to a foot about a week later. Back then (1990s) we got a lot more snow, freezing fog and black ice than the last couple of years.
CT doesn't have tolls. Not sure why you are alluding to that.
Anyway, I would not be driving a UHAUL or any truck for that matter. What I would do, is use UBOX pods and have UHAUL transport them to CT, so that I wouldn't have to do any driving.
What I would be doing is loading stuff into the UBOXes and driving locally to drop them off at the UHAUL storage center. Then, once they're delivered in CT, I would pick them up and drive locally.
Because it was a simple mistake. I found the receipt and looked at it again. It was 84 in Mass, not CT..no big deal.
If you're not driving, then I'm not sure what the question is? Are you flying? Then it's not even a big deal to move any time of the year.
Snow isn't as much of a problem as ice, and Nov - Mar is black ice season. The Rt. 315 hospital curve is an excellent example of the problem. You'll start seeing wrecks periodically on the local nightly news in a couple of weeks. It takes people time to relearn to slow down and leave enough space between them and the car ahead. Plowing/salting/briming is hit or miss.
There will be short stretches of dry, calm days throughout the winter, so moving is possible, but to be really safe, I wouldn't plan on moving long distance between Christmas and late March. An in-town move is much more doable.
...Anyway, I would not be driving a UHAUL or any truck for that matter. What I would do, is use UBOX pods and have UHAUL transport them to CT, so that I wouldn't have to do any driving.
What I would be doing is loading stuff into the UBOXes and driving locally to drop them off at the UHAUL storage center. Then, once they're delivered in CT, I would pick them up and drive locally.
Sorry - a bit confused (maybe not enough coffee consumed yet) ... you would be driving locally to drop what off at UHaul storage center? I am under the impression that U-Boxes are containers that are dropped at your home for you to fill, and then UHaul would come and take the container away. On the other end UHaul would bring the container and drop it at your new home. Isn't that how it goes?
Presuming it is, by using a container you're at a better advantage weather-wise than if you hired a mover. Since containers can be at your home for a number of days, you could work around any snow storms that might hit. A hired mover would most likely have to do the moving on a specifically reserved day despite any weather conditions. The additional stress for you would be that you'd have to do the shoveling per the mover's schedule whereas with a container you could do it on your schedule.
Sorry - a bit confused (maybe not enough coffee consumed yet) ... you would be driving locally to drop what off at UHaul storage center? I am under the impression that U-Boxes are containers that are dropped at your home for you to fill, and then UHaul would come and take the container away. On the other end UHaul would bring the container and drop it at your new home. Isn't that how it goes?
Presuming it is, by using a container you're at a better advantage weather-wise than if you hired a mover. Since containers can be at your home for a number of days, you could work around any snow storms that might hit. A hired mover would most likely have to do the moving on a specifically reserved day despite any weather conditions. The additional stress for you would be that you'd have to do the shoveling per the mover's schedule whereas with a container you could do it on your schedule.
No, the way it works, is that I would rent a pickup truck with UHAUL and hitch one of their UBoxes onto the truck, then drive it to my condo and fill it up, then drive back to the UHAUL place and drop off the UBox there. I have a lot of stuff, so I would need about 2 Uboxes. Then, UHAUL ships the UBox containers to your desired destination city and they leave it in a storage facility on-site. Once I move to the new city, I rent a UHAUL pickup truck again, hitch the Ubox on it and drive it to my new home and unload everything, then drive it back to the UHAUL place and drop off the pickup truck and Ubox. Using this method, I would not have to drive a UHAUL truck across the country. Instead, they do the driving for me, and it costs less as well. It also allows my stuff to stay in Storage for a while, until I find an apartment.
No, the way it works, is that I would rent a pickup truck with UHAUL and hitch one of their UBoxes onto the truck, then drive it to my condo and fill it up, then drive back to the UHAUL place and drop off the UBox there. I have a lot of stuff, so I would need about 2 Uboxes. Then, UHAUL ships the UBox containers to your desired destination city and they leave it in a storage facility on-site. Once I move to the new city, I rent a UHAUL pickup truck again, hitch the Ubox on it and drive it to my new home and unload everything, then drive it back to the UHAUL place and drop off the pickup truck and Ubox. Using this method, I would not have to drive a UHAUL truck across the country. Instead, they do the driving for me, and it costs less as well. It also allows my stuff to stay in Storage for a while, until I find an apartment.
No offense, but that's a royal pain and I'd be looking at a different company's pod containers! :-) However, I'm guessing price comparisons is a big factor and/or because it's a condo there's no place to drop a container for a few days' time, so I'm definitely not chastising!
I get it though -- the only driving you'd be doing is local shuttles on each end. With this I'm guessing it means that you'd reserve for a specific day and not for a span of days? That would make a difference if there had been bad weather or was bad weather. Does UHaul allow you to make a reservation on short notice or make reservation changes with short notice without any kind of financial penalty? If so, when the time does come, you can watch the weather and reserve accordingly.
While it's definitely wise to think ahead, if I was in your shoes I wouldn't worry about the actual move. When that time actually arrives, and since you've thought ahead, you'll have Plans A, B, and C and all will be well.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
