Short distance removals tips

[sunshinyday80]

We are due to be moving from our 3 bed house to a similar sized house under 1 mile away. We are debating whether to use a full removals service and do it all in one go, or whether to use a man and van and do several trips back and forth. Also whether to pack ourselves or use a packing service. Any advice or tips from anyone who has done similar?

We hired our own van. Leave cold drinks at each house!!
Enlist minimal helpers, we farmed dc out and had a couple of hands on assistants.
Label everything, you won't recognise the boxes when you get to the finish point!
Find a take away at the new address. It will take longer than you think!

If you are able-bodied and have others to help, you can move yourselves.
You can't start sorting stuff to chuck or packing too early ime.
Do you have others to help? Are they rock solid or will they back out at the last minute?
Two parents working full time, your free time to pack up melts away.
Like pp said, label boxes carefully.
A summer move is one thing, a winter move is grimmer. For that reason at this time of year I would aim for 1 van 1 day.

I wouldn't move myself.

Wardrobes. Washing machines. Sofas. Fridge. All that stuff is hard to move!

Unless cost is a serious issue, and you are young, fit and strong with at least two helpers.

I moved from one (rented) house 30m down the road to a house I bought. I used a man (and his girlfriend) and a van which was cheap and efficient. I packed everything myself but had not much furniture to move as my rented house had been part furnished and I bought new fridge/freezer, washing machine etc and new furniture for my new house.
I have used a packing service in the past and it reduced stress considerably. On the other hand, packing yourself allows more time to declutter and sort out things, so you might end up moving much less stuff!

If you have furniture, and can afford it, get a removal company to do it - them packing is good, but it's ok to pack yourself. It's the big furniture that is hard to shift.
Moving is HARD work.
Minus the furniture, doing it yourself is achievable.

Do it all in one go or it will drag on for weeks

I think its what suits you better really. (and what you can afford)

We moved from a 4 bed to a (bigger) 4 bed 3 minutes away. We still used a removal service (and a packing service) even though we had a few days crossover. It meant minimal stress for everyone. There was a team of about 5 young men doing the packing and moving and they were fantastic. They disassembled the beds and reassembled at the other end, put (most) of the boxes and the furniture in the correct locations in the correct rooms. For me it was money well spent. (1.5k) and it was done in dusted in two days (one afternoon packing, next morning loading, next afternoon unpacking, gone by 3pm)

My neighbours did it the other way i.e. hired a van and moved over a two week period. They are a similar family to us (two adults, two kids, both working full time, kids in school) and did essentially the same move (to new build estate, quite a few of us have upped sticks to it). They found it much better for them doing it that way. They had more control over the packing and were ruthless with the clearing out. They had friends help with the bigger items in the van, then just shifted the rest in car loads.

We moved 4 streets away but I saved up for removers as a treat. DH thought I was ridiculous but after watching them doing it all we both agreed it was the best money we'd ever spent and would never move ourselves again!

Oh we did pack ourselves though as I wanted to make sure it was all wrapped properly etc. We also moved some of our more sentimental bits in our car.

We just moved down the road (as in same road) last week. We did it ourselves with one of dh friends helping.

We have a 4 bed house and 2 kids so plenty of stuff. We managed it but only because the house we were buying was empty and the seller let us start moving in early so we had a few days to move everything over. Also dh is extremely handy at diy etc. However even he has said next time we will be getting removal men and a packing service. It is a LOT of work.

I don't think the distance actually makes any difference?
Surely you're paying for the heavy lifting etc?
Whether you were moving 1 or 100 miles you'll still have to do all the hard work
After recently moving house and seeing the removal company do their thing there is no way I would ever move myself in fact I would pay for the packing service next time 😂

If you are in a chain and have to be out of your old house and into your new one within a day I would definitely use a proper removals service. We moved a few doors up the road last year, from a 3 bed to a 4 bed. We didn't get the keys to the new house until nearly 4pm as the money was so slow to move up the chain - the removal men (4 of them) were here until 8.30! They also disassembled and then reassembled our beds, so at least we and the children could crawl into bed at the end of the day.

We did use a packing service and it was great, I would recommend, but you could definitely manage without.

To me, it would depend if you're renting or buying.

If you're buying you'll have a simultaneous completion on both properties, so you'd either have to leave stuff in a property you don't own, or leave stuff outside a property you don't own. Or hope that your vendor or buyer don't mind.

If you're renting you could do it with a man and van and/or friends.

Even at less than a mile, if I were buying I'd use a full removal service every time.

The driving bit is usually the easy bit of moving.

We moved from a 2 bed first floor flat to a 3 bed semi 400 metres away, when we had 1 toddler. We paid for packing, and it was amazing. He got done in 4 hours what took us 3 days in our previous move (with less stuff). On moving day, they had all the furniture dismantled and out by 11.30 which gave us time to clean etc. Got access to the new place at 2. By the time DS1 was home from nursery at 5.30, they had all the boxes in the right rooms, reassembled all the furniture (beds, giant desk, bookcases etc) and were gone. They collected the boxes the following week. Monumentally efficient and took 90% of the pain out of moving day.

Paying £350 for professional removers was the best money we spent.

I packed myself in advance. Hated the thought of someone else doing it and gave me the opportunity to be ruthless in getting rid of things no longer needed. Just used one room to stack boxes.

They arrived at 8am. All finished and everything in new house by 12.30. Fabulous. No bad backs for us. Everything in correct rooms. Just needed to re make the beds, plug in the telly and order takeaway.

Partner went with them to new house. He took a box with mugs/kettle etc.

I stayed behind with the hoover and a box of cleaning stuff to just finish off where furniture had been.

We moved ourselves about a mile away. We had a van for 24 hours and they were the longest 24 hours of my life. Only two of us, from rented to bought although unfurnished so we had all our own stuff. It just seemed to be never-ending.

We had a lot of stuff in the garage so we thought we’d cleared a lot of it out. I think we had to make 5 trips in the end.

It was a complete pain in the arse, but I’m still not sure I’d pay anyone else to do it as we are physically capable. Might try to do it in 2 days rather than one if the opportunity arose again.

We're moving 0.6 miles, we're planning to have a removals company, It's more the heavy lifting/maneuvering than the distance.

You wont be able to do several trips , you will need to be out of your house once completion has happened , and you wont be able to access your new property until completion has happened

Thanks everyone, your comments have all been very helpful.

We're moving out of rented (unfurnished) into a house we are buying, and we're planning to have a few days between completion on the purchase and our final day in the rental, just to give ourselves some breathing space and time to clean etc.

From all your comments, I think I'm leaning heavily towards a full packing service with a removals company, we have two children and I have a dodgy back, so I think it makes sense! Better get started on the decluttering though...

It's worth adding that unless you've already exchanged, timing your notice on your rental property is hard and you might not end up with the spare days you expected.

A colleague of mine has just completed on the purchase of a non-chain property. He'd given notice on his rental property to give himself an overlap but last minute hiccups on the purchase meant that there was hardly any overlap at all.

If you've got professional removers booked it takes some of that stress away at least.

One thing I've found with removers though is that as boxes are included in the price, they won't give you boxes to use until they're formally booked in. Therefore if you have a short window between exchange and completion it doesn't give you much time.

Though if you're going to use a full packing service this doesn't matter.

Also, get a couple of quotes from removers that you'd be happy with. I had planned on using one company buy wasn't able to as they were fully booked on my completion date. I had a backup, thankfully, but it would have been a panic otherwise.

We moved a couple of miles, packed ourselves but paid removals to do it. My husband flatly refused to mess about loading, unloading and dragging heavy boxes up and down two flights of stairs. We'd never move ourselves even if it were next door.

Oh god if you've got a dodgy back then do not do it!! I repeat do not do it
Imagine making it worse for the sake of £1000? Really not worth it
My back is bad and I struggled just packing let alone actually lifting and moving a whole house!

Another strong vote in favour of getting the professionals in. Don't risk your back!

With an overlap between the rented and the new place it's tempting, but we had a three week overlap and that was tight to do it around work and stuff. Wouldn't ever self-move again.

I mainly paid for removals as I dreaded the thought of getting the washing machine and sofas down our very narrow staircase (1st floor flat, converted house - staircase was enclosed and only 2'3" wide). Getting the sofas in three years prior was still ingrained in my memory