Everyone wants to give you advice on how to move better, cheaper, or quicker. While reading up on advice can simplify your move, be wary of the bad advice that’s out there. As a general rule, don’t cut corners when it comes to personal safety or protection of your home and items. Planning ahead and talking to professionals is always your best bet.
Below are some common pieces of bad advice we’ve heard over the years – avoid them at all costs! We’ve also provided some great tips on how to move the right way.
Bad Advice: Wrap Your Dishes and Glassware in Clothing to Save on Bubble Wrap
A commonly shared “life hack” for packing breakables is to wrap them in clothing to save on packing paper and bubble wrap. This ‘tip’ is wrong, isn’t cost efficient and certainly isn’t safe.
Packing breakables in clothing increases chance of injury and you likely won’t know something is broken until you unpack it. Your safety, clothing, and breakables are more valuable than a sheet of packing paper.
Good Advice: When packing dishes,
start with a DishPack box. Put a double layer of crumpled moving paper in the bottom of the box. Starting with the heaviest dishes on the bottom layer, wrap each plate and place it in the box vertically, like a record. After the largest plates are packed, use more packing paper and place crumpled pieces between each plate to keep the plates stable and in place. Another layer of crumpled paper, and you can add the lighter plates in the same way until the box is full.
Bad Advice: Keep Drawers Intact by Wrapping them with Press’n Seal
Press’n Seal barely keeps your food safe – what is it going to do to protect your drawers? You will need a more substantial wrapping material to keep your drawers safe from chips and scratches.
Good Advice: Professional movers such as Elite use heavy moving blankets to move and pack heavy and expensive furniture such as dressers and couches. Not only do moving blankets protect against scratches – they provide some additional padding as well.
Bad Advice: Keep Belongings in Drawers to Save on Boxes and Save Time
It may be tempting to keep your belongings in their respective drawers, but moving can shift objects and can cause damage to both your drawers and belongings.
Good Advice: In order to move safely, you’ll need to empty all drawers, but be sure to put the drawers back before moving the overall piece of furniture. The empty drawers in the dresser help stabilize the overall structure during the move.
You’ll want to pack up your belongings into their own boxes to protect your drawers from damage. If there are fragile objects in your drawer, make sure you wrap them properly with packing paper and bubble wrap. See how Elite wraps breakables such as glassware and dishes. Drawers are not built to withstand being moved with items inside, so don’t use them as boxes while moving.
Bad Advice: Book Movers at the Last Minute to Get a Cheaper Price
Everyone wants to score a great deal, and sometimes deals do exist for those who wait – such as last minute hotels on Priceline or buying overproduced clothing from an outlet store for a discount. In the moving industry, these deals do not exist. If you wait too long, you might not even be able to get a mover!
Good Advice: Movers run on a tight schedule, often planned weeks in advance, so if you try to book after the schedules have been set, they might not have room in their schedule for you. Busy moving times such as weekends and the end of the month (25th-2nd) are often booked at least 4-6 weeks in advance. If you are moving out of or into a building with an elevator, those must be booked in advance as well, no matter the date of the move.
If you’re still convinced you’ll get a better price last minute, it’s best to make a reservation with a mover that will refund your deposit, like Elite. That way you can still shop around, but you’ll have a backup plan in place in case you don’t find a cheaper price, and avoid a last-minute scramble for help. Elite offers refunds of deposits up until 3 business days before the move.
Bad Advice: Keep Large Furniture in One Piece to Move Quicker
While the thought of taking your furniture apart only to reassemble it at your new location may seem unnecessary, it can actually make your move easier, and helps to prevent injury and damage to your home and furniture.
Good Advice: How does disassembling furniture save time? Well, large furniture causes the most trouble during a move. It’s hard – and sometimes impossible – to carry through doors and up staircases. Large, assembled furniture also takes up more room in the moving truck. Taking the legs off of a piano, for example, not only saves space in the truck, but makes it less likely for the piano to be broken during the move. You’ll also want to pack glass table tops separately from the rest of the table, for example.
Most injuries are caused by improperly moving large furniture, so by breaking things down to a more manageable size, you also significantly reduce the chance for injury.
Any Other Bad Advice?
At Elite, we perform thousands of moves per year, and have heard and seen countless bad practices when it comes to moving. As a rule, don’t try to cut corners when it comes to the safety of your items or yourself, and plan as much in advance as possible to make your move less stressful and more efficient.
Now for some good advice!
At Elite, we perform thousands of moves per year, and have heard and seen countless bad practices when it comes to moving. As a rule, don’t try to cut corners when it comes to the safety of your items or yourself, and plan as much in advance as possible to make your move less stressful and more efficient. As always, if you need help with your move, you can call your friends at Elite!