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8 tips for house moving

This is a belated post as I finished moving some times ago and thought I would save some tips to remind myself the next time I move house. I have underestimated the gross amount of items that I have had and ended up needing 2 separate days of truck moving. I booked a Lalamove 10-ft truck with mover for the second big move as I don't need cartons nor wrapping for furniture. Lalamove was very efficient, the driver arrived early and moved all my storeroom items and remaining carton boxes with care despite the rainy weather.

Here's my tips for house-moving / lessons learnt from mistakes:

1) Defrost your refrigerator


If you have a layer of ice in your freezer compartment, do defrost it a day before and clean up the water. That would save you from having to clean up any leakage of water from a defrost during and after the move.

2) Turn off the tap of the washing machine and disconnect the water pipes


Disconnect the tap connecting pipe and drain away the water prior to the move. If you leave it to your movers, be prepared to clean up puddles on the floor afterwards. And wet floor is a hazard! This might seem like no-brainer, but trust me, when you are in the midst of the house moving "chaos", many things can just slip your mind without putting it in your checklist.

3) Use big garbage bags to pack the clothes before putting into the cartons

What I did was to bundle the clothes still hung on hangers and stuff them all into the garbage bags, so that after unboxing I can just drag the bag of carton and straightaway hang the clothes in my wardrobe.

4) Confirm with the mover company beforehand all the items that need dismantling and the charges, get an acknowledgement message

This mover company that I hired charge by per truck booking and stated in their catalogue "one simple dismantling per truck booking" but the movers that came told their understanding is 1 dismantling per booking (despite me booking two trucks, their so-called two trucks booking is actually one truck running two trips!). So I was charged an extra fee for the dismantling of another bed (there were two beds in total). The liaison person of the company was uncontactable throughout the move despite my multiple call attempts to clarify. There was also no reply to my messages after the move. 

5) Check how many trolley spaces the movers have

Another thing I learnt was that they do not accept squeezing in of "loose items" even if there's space on their truck, "loose items" being anything that's not placed on their trolleys and wrapped. A 10ft truck can fit 6 of such trolleys. So if your items are big eg. wardrobe, bed, sofa, dining table, it is likely that one item would already take up one trolley space. So prioritize what are the "must-move", especially when you see that they have only a few trolleys left. Luckily I checked with them and told them no need to move the storeroom stuff and sofa.

6) Label the cartons with stick-on papers and number them all

This is for convenience of unpacking in order of priority and also to prevent any carton from getting missed out when moving. I labelled the cartons with stick-on papers instead of writing on the box surface so that I can still re-use and resell these clean cartons after moving.

7) Pack the fragile and heavy stuff first

I packed the fragile and heavy stuff first, and saved my clothes for the last. This is because those things were seldom used e.g. decorative ceramic wares, needed more time for packaging and definitely needed the help of movers to bring them over. If I have leftover clothes and accessories in my wardrobe, I can simply put them into my luggage bags and bring over.
Small, loose items I packed them into containers or small cartons first before putting these into the big cartons. Those non-essential light-weight household items I also packed last or not at all as I could go back for them later.

8) Donate or sell unwanted items to reduce moving load

Start donating or selling your unwanted loots a few months before moving. Some stuff that are already reserved for buyers or waiting to be discarded I just left them behind at the old place.

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