Help Removals Firms & stuff

[Mabs]

So:
moving house in the new year. my dad is also moving, and has a lot of my stuff i need to get rid of / reclaim.
So i figured, its probably cheaper for me to get a company to do the move for me rather than do the 'rent a van , take a friend ' route. For reference its qiute a weight and size of things (quite a few boxes, folding dining table, possibly a large amount of wooden planking) . and its from Devon to Leeds, so quite a drive.

So! :-
any suggestions on who to use, or other ways to do it ?
Any ideas on pricing? im not expecting it to be cheap
or any other input ?

its still in the planning stage and i dont want to commit to anything without taking everything into consideration

 

[dysfunction]

It would efinitely be cheaper doing the Van rental and take a friend.

I reckon it would be about £400-£500 for a removals firm to do it...

 

[Raven]

Get a van for the day. Cheaper.

About four years ago when I moved last it cost us £180 for a box van for 24 houtrs, add another £100 on for fuel.

would cost you at least double that to get a removal firm to do it.

 

[Gumbo]

How old are you and what does your driving license say?

I can drive a 7.5 tonner which is pretty big and could move me and my family quite easily. For me it would be a no brainer to hire, but if I had buckets of spare cash I'd be tempted to pay to remove the hassle.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Cost me about 70quid total to rent a van and move most my stuff last move. FAR cheaper.

 

[djpringle]

Well, we used a delivery firm for our move in the summer but that was primarily for the packing services and moving the big stuff. We were totally surprised by the amount of junk we had accumulated over the 2 years we lived at that address.
Take a good long look at what you have and throw out what you really don't need.
It does sound like you don't have much big stuff, you only mention a folding table and planks rather than 3 piece suites, so in your situation I would go along with everyone else and just go down the van route.

 

[Nate]

Start using ebay to reduce the stuff, make it easier on yourself and all the while pay for your rental and friends help. Good time to sell junk, christmas around the corner!

 

[WPKenny]

Stuff I've learned in the last week due to moving house:

If your mate(s) say they're going to help. Make sure to badger the fuck out of them to make sure they're going to show. Loading a van with only your 62yr old father-in-law for help is a slow process.

Renting a van is far cheaper and cheaper still if you do it mid week. Costs can rise astronomically at the weekend.

Start sorting/packing your stuff NOW. We left it too late and have ended up with random crap all over the place in whatever box we could fit it into and it will be a nightmare to unbox and find anything we need in a rush.

Chuck away anything you can. No sense dragging all that crap around with you. I mean you've not used it for 18 months or so, what are the chances you're going to need it ever again?

 

[Cadiva]

Just to qualify a bit, we'll be using a removal firm to move ourselves out of the flat and up to the house (within the same town) for the exact reason mentioned above - the packing service and the moving of heavy objects.. But Mabs is needing to get some things of his from his dad's house down in Devon and move them up to the new house we're moving into, which won't be before February at the earliest. So we're trying to work out whether getting someone with a van to do the driving up and down from ours to Devon and then back again would be cheaper than getting a removal company to do it for us once we're sorted with the new house. He doesn't want to drive the van so we have to factor into needing a friend to drive any hire van we might get.

 

[mycenae]

When we moved from our rented 2 bedroom flat in May 2010 to the 3 bedroom house we're in now, we had a MASSIVE sort out before we moved, and threw away/recycled what we considered a vast amount of stuff. Vae did most of the packing and boxing up and I helped where I could when I wasn't going wibble and dissolving into a small heap in the corner (I find packing in itself very stressful, and I think just the idea of having to pack up the whole flat overwhelmed me a bit!) We hired 2 guys and van just for 2 hours I think as we were literally moving 20 mins away....they loaded the van with all the big and awkward stuff and all the boxes we had packed with no fuss at all...and it was all in the new place within the 2 hours, just leaving myself and Vae to do shuttle runs to and from with stuff that had yet to be packed or stuff we didn't want in the van, like animals in their cages. To be fair, they were fantastic, very efficient and very careful.
When it came to unpacking everything, we AGAIN threw away a whole bunch of stuff....and now almost a year and a half later, we are still having periodic chuck outs as we STILL have so much crap! I have said to vae that the next time we move, we're hiring a removal company to pack and move everything....my dad had one in to move him and said it was the best money he's ever spent. plus it might stop me having a melt down!

 

[Cadiva]

I have said to vae that the next time we move, we're hiring a removal company to pack and move everything....my dad had one in to move him and said it was the best money he's ever spent. plus it might stop me having a melt down!

That's my kind of reaction as well Mycenae. I've moved about 10 times in a relatively short 10 year period, the current time at this flat (since 2003) is the longest I've stayed in the same place since I moved out of home aged 22! I have a stupidly large amount of crap which really needs sorting through and now, with the midget, we have so much extra stuff which just accumulates with having a child that really does need sorting out.
There's loads of things to pack up and either junk or charity shop so having always moved myself with the help of my dad and his transit van and that really not being an option now he's a fair bit older I think this time as we're moving from a flat into a three-bedroom house with all the extra space (yay!) it's going to be so much easier having people move us as there's two flights of stairs to mess about with in the flat.