Removal companies and storage

[Mymindhasgoneblank]

Does anyone have any experience of moving house and putting belongings into storage? I’m selling my flat in London and moving in with relatives 100 miles away while I look for somewhere to buy near them so will need to store my furniture.

I’m wondering if it’s best to use a removals company near my current home or near the area I’m moving to (maybe it doesn't matter?)

I’m also not sure whether it makes sense to store things like a kitchen bin, under-counter freezer, etc or if I’ll end up paying out more than it would cost to buy this stuff new. I hate waste and I’m loath to throw out loads of things only to have to buy it all over again.

If anyone has gone down the storage route and has any tips, I’d be very grateful.

And any idea of costs would be really helpful. I know I'll need to get quotes but even just a ballpark...

In my experience working for a large removal & storage company, the costs of moving to and subsequently from a storage facility will be much of a muchness whether you select a facility near origin or destination as ultimately they goods still have to travel the same overall distance.
White goods (washer, fridge freezer, etc) can store well if prepared adequately (clean & dried etc) but if you're storing longer term, it may be best to sell via market place and purchase new as there is the potential for mould to grow and make them unusable.
Other furniture would usually store well if cleaned and dried before removal. The only pieces I've heard negative things about are occasionally sofas (went into storage grubby & came out mouldy) and mattresses collapsing as they were stored incorrectly (bent over or squashed).

Hope this helps.

We have three months between moving houses and our storage costs (for contents of a 5-bed house) are around £220 per month

Thank you so much - that's really helpful. It hadn't occurred to me that a mattress might get damaged so I'll definitely check how whichever firm I use stores them and will ask if they can supply a covering for my sofa.

And while £220 is obviously a lot, it's not as bad as I feared - I only have a one-bed flat so hopefully I'll be able to keep most of my stuff. Thanks again

We had all of our stuff in storage for about a month and then moved 2 weeks ago. We had a 3 bed house and the storage cost £125 a week in Oxfordshire. Everything was fine including the white goods. The mattress was OK too. It was all stored in a container and when we moved they just put the container on the back of the lorry. We moved 200 miles and stored it all near us.

my parents having discovered a leak in pipes in the subfloor that has been going on for years... now need to clear out everything downstairs, the floor come up and be dried out, the pipes relaid and I think even a new boiler, a company has quoted an astronomical amount - £30,000 which they say includes removal and storage of furniture for a month - I have told my father to ask for a breakdown, since when do plumbing companies organise storage and removal - I am suspicious that they have little deals with other companies and that as a result my parents are paying more than is necessary - anyone got a rough estimate for storing downstairs contents of detached house, 3 sofas, a chair, two dining type tables, a desk, about 10 dining chairs of various types.... If my parents weren't; wobbly on their feet I would say soft furnishings, cushions etc can easily be moved upstairs, they also. have a huge garage that is dry and safe.

We used the local removal company to store and then bring things up for us because we knew they had a great reputation with dry and secure storage

the cost was based on how many vans //size of vans so you would need to throw out tons of bins to make any noticeable impact ( we did skip all our rubbish before hand ). We packed oursleves but were told to leave things like TVs or anything we were particularly concerned over and they sorted them at no additional costs

the storage cost was small compared to moving - but it was 2 guys for 2 days due to distance

Use a removal company that utilised wooden storage containers on the truck - your goods are placed in the wooden containers of which several fit in one truck and these are lifted off and stacked in the companies warehouse.

This ensures good ventilation around the container and prevents issues and means things are only handled twice.

Use the companies supplied cardboard boxes and packing, they are a uniform size that means they stack easily and robustly.

If they think insurance are paying they will rack up the charges!

Hi, I put my worldly goods in storage in the city I was moving to for about 3 months when moving over 300 miles. Easier to sell, then buy rather than do both together. It was a long time ago, so costs not applicable, but it did make life easier.

I didn't store white goods (left them in house I was selling) or a sofa (given to friends), as I didn't know what sort of property I might end up in. As far as I remember, everything survived in good order apart from a rather rickety desk that fell apart on arrival in my new place.

So just check everything is reasonably robust, as it will be handled more than a simple one step move!

We had to store a load of our belongings for a short while when we did our London move. 4 bed FWIW. I will say I do believe it made the process easier, despite being an additional outlay. The company we used was Happy2Move and as they took care of the storage as well as the move, it was cheaper than others on the market and they handled getting into storage for us when we packed up our old house. So it deffo limited any stress there. They also came and saw the house beforehand and made suggestions and we ended up storing less based on their recommendations, so it was nice knowing they weren't trying to rip us off.

Storage further from London will probably be cheaper than in or near London because space is expensive. Find a decent big storage unit near your new location. Try to put things in the unit in a labelled organised fashion so you can get the out gradually if needed.

I had my belongings put into storage when I sold my first house (so many years ago now).
The company I used said all the right things and promised the containerised storage mentioned above but on the day itself, turned up with just ordinary vans. I obviously made my displeasure known but as I was completing that day, I had to be out so had to go with it.
When the house was clear I went straight around to the offices of the removal company but they were dismissive and said that they would send me an itemized list of my possessions as they were loaded into wooden containers in their warehouse (a bit late as by then, I would struggle to remember exactly how it was all packed).
Fairly certain a couple of small items went missing as I never saw them again.

The only comeback or satisfaction was that a friend who was planning to use them went with another company after hearing of my experience.