Self moving an entire house

[Pinballdad]

Folks. All these posts on this topic are nice but please state prices. It would be more helpful to a thread when you make sure you inform us of what you paid. Then we can compare. Even if it was years ago, list it and we can factor in inflation. I am considering a move like this next year so prices will help me

Thanks!

[dothetwist]

In 2014, from AZ to FL (2,000 miles) with one U-Box (a division of UHaul) fully crammed, was $1350 (we loaded at Uhaul AZ site, they delivered to our driveway in FL).

In 2003, from VA to AZ (2,300 miles) we used U-Pack, don't know exact quantity but it was a bit less than the AZ to FL move. Cost was $1200. Had to rent a rental truck to haul stuff from our VA home to freight station and again in AZ to haul from freight station to home, so I added $200 for those rentals. Back then U-Pack did not offer pods or bringing their trucks to you, you had to go to them. It was pretty new concept back then....you were charged by linear feet in a big old tractor trailer and you were given 'dividers' to partition off your space. Nothing arrived damaged but everything was very dusty!

[Vannort54]

We called a moving company they provided all the boxes we needed. We paid extra for them not to transfer our stuff to another truck this way the truck it was loaded on is the one it arrived on. It was worth hireing a professional mover since our apartment we rented in clearwat was on the second floor. And we had solid oak bedroom funiture abd the salsman told us not to empty the draws so they were full. We had a solid oak dresser bureau, and a solid oak Armoire, and a king size bed. When they unloaded our stull it was 95 degrees and high humidity.It was worth every penny we just had to unpack boxes. It was well worth the cost. we moved from Joliet Illinios.

[UMassMike]

We got really screwed on trucking when we moved from MA to FL. The cost was around $2500 when all was said and done, for a ~600 sq. ft. two bedroom apartment. I would never go with another trucking company for a cross country move, but would do the self-pack option or sell almost everything and drive a U-Haul all of the way. I realize that for a whole house, this isn't practical at all, but the self-pack option you all are talking about sounds way, way better.

[Bones]

I used ABF back in 1986. Make sure you reserve well in advance and request a walk ramp !!!!!! Same when you call for the delivery....request the ramp. You can load a ton of stuff in a 28' trailer....

Go to thrift stores and get some cheap blankets for padding....

[neb2886]

I am going with 2 containers form U-Pack. They seem to have the best price. We will be loading one container and putting it into storage and then packing and sending down the other once our house sells.

I will post final prices once I have it all sorted out to give others an idea but I believe it will be around $2200 given the $200 for 30 days of storage.

[MortonR]

We did a couple of self moves a few years ago, both were in excess of 1000 miles.

For both we used ABF Freight's "U-Pack" service, which was by far the least expensive for the volume (4 bedroom home) of belongings we were moving.

We also employed professional loaders to load the trucks both times. These can be found through U-Haul's do it yourself moving web site or by calling a local moving company and hiring one of their crews. Hiring a local mover's crew was the absolute best experience we had, as they were able to survey what we had to load and determine the best way to load it and make everything fit. Had we attempted this ourselves we would have left a lot of stuff behind, without question.

Loading cost us around $400-$600, but it was worth every penny. No sore backs, damaged furniture, pinched fingers/toes, etc. Letting someone else do the heavy lifting was money well spent.

We looked at the "PODS" stuff but it was really expensive compared to other options. Understand that we didn't need to store anything, so we didn't need to worry about where things were going or how it was to be divided up.

RM

[pinkbunny17]

**Disregard, you're getting U-Pack, not the uhaul ones. Sorry!**

Have you seen the UPack (from Uhaul) containers? I mean in person. We almost made the same decision you did when we moved here from DC and we pulled up to the UHaul place and they just seemed flimsy. Plus we weren't convinced that 2 pods would've fit our 2bdrm townhouse.

We ended up just getting a 14' UHaul for $1,310 - it was cheaper than the 2 U Packs and we STRUGGLED to fit everything into that truck...we knew if we'd just gotten 2 UPacks, we would've been screwed.

[dalamarjj78]

My family and I moved from Boston to Florida about six months ago. We used ABF Upack and paid around $1,300 for a 2 bedroom apartment.

U-Pack offers two options: the relo-cubes or a semi trailer. Our apartment building wouldn't let us leave the relo-cubes sitting in the parking lot overnight so we had to go with the semi trailer option. We also opted to do a terminal to destination move: we rented a U-haul, loaded it ourselves, drove it to a nearby shipping terminal about 20 minutes away, loaded everything onto the semi trailer and then they dropped the trailer at the house we moved into in Florida. We then had 2 days to unload it and then they came and picked the trailer up.

The good thing about the trailer option is that you only pay for the space you use. We were actually quoted a few hundred dollars more when we made the reservation but since we used less space than we thought it knocked a few hundred dollars off the price.

You can also do terminal to terminal shipping (you load/unload at their terminals into a u-haul and do the rest yourself) - this is the cheapest option (though you would obviously have to pay for the Uhaul). Or you can do door to door which would run a little bit more but would eliminate the hassle of renting the Uhaul trucks and all the extra loading/unloading at the terminals.

Just make sure you pack everything really good (use lots of packing blankets and strap things down really well). We didn't pack a few smaller pieces of furniture really good (coffee table, standing fan, etc.) and had to throw them out when it arrived because the trailer vibrated so much they were dinged and scratched on arrival.

Good luck!