A Local Van Moving and Storage offers affordable packing services.

Packing Tips & Packing Services

A Local Van offers a full range of packing and unpacking services. Local, trained professional packers are able to help you with as much or as little of the packing as you need. We also sell moving boxes and packing supplies.

Packing Tips

Packing yourself can be a great way to cut some costs associated with your local or cross country move. To help you pack as safely and efficiently as possible, A Local Van has compiled tips to make your packing experience easier.

  • Use moving boxes (differently sized liquor store boxes take longer to load on the truck).
  • Tape boxes securely on the bottom with 3 strips of tape and at least 1 strip of tape on top. NO BOXES WITH OPEN TOPS or plastic bags. Neither will stack in the truck and will contribute to broken contents.
  • Use paper without ink, newspaper ink rubs off easy and may damage some items.
  • Load books into small boxes (1.5 ft). Don’t load more books into a box than a man can carry (40 to 50 lbs.).
  • Packing dishes and other items in garbage bags is a formula for breakage.
  • Putting pillows in garbage bags may end up in the family member trash pile.
  • Only use large and extra large boxes for light articles such as bedspreads, pillows, lampshades and artificial flowers.
  • Utilize dish packs for china and glassware. Plates should be placed in a vertical position in the box and packed tightly with paper.
  • Clothes may remain in dressers. Remove money, coins, valuables, rings, breakables, anything that can spill, or items that will fall from drawer to drawer when they are tilted up to go through doors.
  • Empty armoires. They are usually very heavy without any contents.
  • Vertical file cabinets can be transported with their contents, but lateral file cabinets should be emptied.
  • Desk must also be emptied.
  • Check with your mover to see if they unhook and reattach your washer and dryer. This may be the time to change out those old rubber washer hoses so you may eliminate a flooding problem in the future. Check your dryer plug at the new house for the same type of prongs.
  • Disconnect and label computer, stereo and television wires and connections. Pack the stereo and computer equipment in boxes.
  • If you move anything yourself, move the lampshades, lamps, large pictures, oil and water color paintings.

One room at a time

It’s more efficient and less stressful if you pack one room at a time. Be sure and label each box appropriately (on top and side) with a description and perhaps more importantly, a destination. Whose room or what room does it belong to? Boxes containing breakable or sentimental items should always be labeled as “Fragile”. Keep a detailed list of what items are packed in each box to make unpacking easier.

Consider a staging area

If you have the space, you’ll start to feel better if you can empty each room. It helps to make you feel like you’re making progress and speeds up moving day considerably. If you can, put the contents of your rooms in a central staging area. This assures that rooms are empty and clean and ready for the next family. A large rec. room or garage is great places to store things temporarily. The more you have in the garage, the better. It’s faster, less stressful and can save you a lot of time and money. NOTE: It’s the little things that aren’t packed found behind furniture, etc. that collects and takes up precious time to gather and clean up.

Don’t forget to visit our cost cutter ideas link for useful relocation information.

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