[CjChris]

Hello, wonderful forum members. I thank my lucky stars every day for finding this forum, and I should just kiss my computer on the head for helping me find information on nearly everything I need to know about moving to NZ! :D

Before I list my (random) questions, I want to also point out that recently I've noticed LOTS of people on this board plan to/hope to move to NZ in September!! I think that is so cool! We haven't purchased our tickets yet, but we will soon. We are hoping to fly out of LAX Sept. 17 or 18. I'm so excited! :raebanana

Questions I hope some of you can help me with:

1. Is there a reliable packing estimator/calculator on line to help figure out if the container is big enough for all we hope to move? If you have used one and by experience know it was right on, please let me know (we have tried to list our items by "most important" and "least important" so that we can leave things behind if there isn't enough room, but still..I like the advice of some on here to "take everything." We are leaving, of course, major appliances, microwave, and most electronics.)

2. We are thinking of packing some items (books, nicer clothes) with plastic lined boxes and silica packs inside. Does anyone have any suggestions for other/better ways to protect items in the container from general moisture and/or temp changes?

3. Should we leave our blenders, mixers, and the like in the US? I know we'll need power adapter, but these items are only used on occasional basis, so we are not worried about eventual motor burn out.

4. Should we take our stereo/ CD system? Again, we'll need an adaptor, but will the rpm's be all screwy for the CD player? Same regarding my sewing machine...?

5. Has anyone found a cheap online place to purchase packing materials (bubble wrap, silica packs, wrap paper)? Local UPS store is expensive!

6. I have a baby grand, which is coming with us. Any advice from someone who has moved a piano?

7. Is bamboo OK or not?

8. We live in a condo complex where a container will completely block the neighbors' cars in/out. It will actually be awkward getting a 40 footer in here :eek: .....Did anyone else in this situation come up with a solution /good way to handle it?

Ok....sorry for all that!! Chip away at 'em one at a time if need be, but I hope someone can help.

Thanks ooodles!! ;)

[jess]

3. We wished we'd brought our bread maker and cuisinart, but were fine with leaving the rest. If you have anything high end, it will be expensive to replace it. Then again, you have to buy more transformers or else lug them around to plug in different things.

4. We brought are stereo system, and I'm so glad. Have had no trouble with it.

5. We bought ours at one of those big box office stores like Office USA or something. It was a good bit cheaper than the packing stores. Haven't looked online.

7. Bamboo is one of the things they ask you to declare on the forms on this end. I believe they then include it in the inspection when MAF checks. We brought a bamboo lined cabinet and it was fine.

Best of luck with the moving prep. :)

[jen]

Maybe put the small appliances on the low-priority list. We brought ours though - as you said they're not used that often, so we just leave an adapter in a kitchen cabinet and pull it out as needed . . . kind of a pain but it's been nice not to have to buy a blender, food processor, iron, fan, and vacuum right away. (We brought our toaster but well, errr . . I incinerated the poor thing the first morning when I was still fuzzy on the concept of what could run on just a plug adapter like the laptop and what need to be on the voltage converters (DEFINITELY the toaster :uhoh)

Bring the stereo/cd they'll be fine. We brought our US VCR to play our old VHS tapes, but it didn't work - audio sounded like the Chipmunks!

Maybe try officemax online for packing supplies? Officemax here in welly has good prices on that stuff at any rate.

exciting time isn't it?! good luck -

Jen

[Ana&Steve]

Thought I'd throw in on this, though I'm not sure how helpful it will be, as we haven't even done it yet...
1. Is there a reliable packing estimator/calculator on line to help figure out if the container is big enough for all we hope to move? If you have used one and by experience know it was right on, please let me know (we have tried to list our items by "most important" and "least important" so that we can leave things behind if there isn't enough room, but still..I like the advice of some on here to "take everything." We are leaving, of course, major appliances, microwave, and most electronics.)
I have found a few online estimators by googling "International Movers". You punch in everything, and several companies come back with quotes. However, I didn't like any of the companies. I finally went with Allied/United, who will do all the packing, and they use Rainer to ship, and Worldwide in New Zealand to drop it off.

2. We are thinking of packing some items (books, nicer clothes) with plastic lined boxes and silica packs inside. Does anyone have any suggestions for other/better ways to protect items in the container from general moisture and/or temp changes?
I like silica balls.

3. Should we leave our blenders, mixers, and the like in the US? I know we'll need power adapter, but these items are only used on occasional basis, so we are not worried about eventual motor burn out.
We decided to bring almost everything except the vacuum and the stereo, (not that nice) And we will pick up a few voltage converters.

4. Should we take our stereo/ CD system? Again, we'll need an adaptor, but will the rpm's be all screwy for the CD player? Same regarding my sewing machine...?
Defiantly bringing sewing machines!

5. Has anyone found a cheap online place to purchase packing materials (bubble wrap, silica packs, wrap paper)? Local UPS store is expensive!
Ebay! However, if you end up with a door to door mover, they will be doing all the packing, and you really have to let them if you want full coverage insurence.

6. I have a baby grand, which is coming with us. Any advice from someone who has moved a piano?
Sorry no.

7. Is bamboo OK or not?
Not sure

8. We live in a condo complex where a container will completely block the neighbors' cars in/out. It will actually be awkward getting a 40 footer in here :eek: .....Did anyone else in this situation come up with a solution /good way to handle it?
Maybe ask the company how they deal with it...maybe they can park it on the street and cart it out there?

Hope it all goes well. It's all very exciting!

[Sam B]

Don't your removals firms just do all this for you, or are you saving money by doing it yourself? Our firm came and looked at all the stuff we wanted to take, and told us it would fit in a 20 foot container if we dropped a couple of items out. They did all the packing for us, provided all the materials, and they built a special crate for out precious Bechstein piano. I thought all removals and shipping companies offered the same service - you shouldn't have to be worrying about all this?

[jess]

if you end up with a door to door mover, they will be doing all the packing, and you really have to let them if you want full coverage insurence. We used a door to door mover, but were able to do a self pack. We had insurance coverage for total loss and also for some individual items we chose. That was with Tran Global (who actually just do the contract part and the move itself was through Global Ocean Freight). That's probably not the norm though.

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

Same here, but maybe that's a brit thing? Could be different in the US? Our shipping deal states that they unpack everything once it gets here as well (assuming it does, and doesn't finish up at the bottom of the Atlantic).

[Ana&Steve]

We used a door to door mover, but were able to do a self pack. We had insurance coverage for total loss and also for some individual items we chose. That was with Tran Global (who actually just do the contract part and the move itself was through Global Ocean Freight). That's probably not the norm though.
That's good to know!
Ana

[CjChris]

Thanks for the replies...yes, we are hoping to do self-pack because it will save so much money (if not take a lot of time!).

We have not settled on a shipper yet. So many decisions!! We have to figure that out soon, though...

[Lupin]

Just check how much it will actually save you because it worked out for us as a few hundred pounds. I know a few hundred pounds is a lot of money but we were moving between Xmas and new year and in the end were so grateful to just spend the time with family (not to mention how ill I was!!!).

[jess]

Just check how much it will actually save you because it worked out for us as a few hundred pounds. I know a few hundred pounds is a lot of money but we were moving between Xmas and new year and in the end were so grateful to just spend the time with family (not to mention how ill I was!!!).wow for a few hundred dollars I would have let them pack it too! :nice1 It was brutal in the time frame we had. But I couldn't get a quote with packing that wasn't almost twice what Trans Global/Global Ocean Freight was offering for our self pack. :no We saved over $5000 off the nearest quote we could get with packing included! Maybe I didn't get enough quotes...

[jen]

wow for a few hundred dollars I would have let them pack it too! :nice1 It was brutal in the time frame we had. But I couldn't get a quote with packing that wasn't almost twice what Trans Global/Global Ocean Freight was offering for our self pack. :no We saved over $5000 off the nearest quote we could get with packing included! Maybe I didn't get enough quotes...

Yikes, with Crown the difference between self-pack and them packing was around $500. That even included them coming back a week after moving and hauling away a small mountain of boxes/packing material. OH did all the moving quotes & I don't remember if he talked to transglobal or other companies.

[jess]

Yikes, with Crown the difference between self-pack and them packing was around $500. Crown quoted us (with them packing) as follows in late 2005 for the amount they estimated we had after coming to our house:

1x40 container $14,465.00
1x20 container $11,845.00

Crown didn't want us to do a self pack and did not quote us for that. They said the difference wasn't worth the work, and from what you said about their $500 break for self packing it would not have been worth it to go with a self pack through them.

We went with Trans Global (http://www.transglobalmoving.com/) (who seemed to be a middleman for Global Ocean Freight) (http://www.global-oc.com/) instead for $6000 for a 20 ft or $7070 for a 40 ft with self pack.

[Nathan]

Jess's quotes are right in line with what I've gathered. I didn't get one from Crown. We're more remote though, so our costs are a little higher, but not bad.

After all the moves I've done in the past 30 years, I much prefer to pack my own stuff. I've had thousands of dollars in damage over the years from shoddy packing. (The worst was a car that had it's roof mangled because the packers didn't allow any room for it between the roof and the layer above!) And it makes for a great purging! (If that's true why do I have so much stuff?!)

[CjChris]

FYI to anyone else moving:

I thought I'd post this great shipment calculator Nathan found:

http://www.upakweship.co.uk/quote_usa_new.htm

It is the most detailed of any we've seen (and you can use it to estimate the size container you'll need whether you use these shippers or not).

[Ana&Steve]

I should have posted our quote; mind you we are in San Diego so I'm sure it affects the price, being so close to LA.

Sullivan United
40ft- $10,600
20ft- $7800
this price didn't include insurance which is $10 per $1000 of value

Ana

[jen]

Crown quoted us (with them packing) as follows in late 2005 for the amount they estimated we had after coming to our house:

1x40 container $14,465.00
1x20 container $11,845.00


We used Crown from Santa Barbara CA to Wellington 5 months ago - cost was $9,000 for a 20ft container having them pack (not counting any insurance). That was more than their original quote since we were over their weight estimate, having lots of heavy books and cases of wine.

FWIW our only breakage was one soup bowl and one shelf on our entertainment stand that had something heavy put on top of it. I've had no experience with moves farther than across town (well, not since college when I could fit all my belongings in the back of a car :laugh) so it was probably for the best that I didn't do the packing. If you've done it before I can see how you'd want to save the $$.

Jen

[constablechuck]

We sold all of our major assets before moving and only brought what we could carry on the plane, when we considered the money gained from selling the items and the money saved by not getting a container it worked out much cheaper for us to just buy new and used items in NZ, we did bring our laptops and a few other electronic items and had to buy 2 transformers and a few new power cords, some things that we couldn't manage to sell we gave away and a few things we needed to keep but couldn't carry on the plane we gave to family to hold onto for us.

Were from PA so the weather you have in WV is not much different from where we came from, the winter here in Christchurch has been mild compared to what were used to, so far were very happy with our decision to come here, hopefully things will go well for you.

[suebeenz]

By the way, when I got moved things, they pretty much advised me to not bother with insurance. It was very expensive, and the deductables were high, and if memory serves, didn't cover all that much (such as water damage on the boat).

I rolled the dice. I packed things very carefully though (only took me 3 days of me life) :)

[speckythecky]

Nathan was looking a shipping a baby grand from usa in a post back in feb.
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9438&highlight=instruments

he might be able to help

[Nathan]

Nathan was looking a shipping a baby grand from usa in a post back in feb.
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9438&highlight=instruments

he might be able to help

Yah, she never listens to me. ;) She knows me too well!! :D

[CjChris]

;) Oh dear, is Nathan trying to leave the country with my baby grand!!????

He stole my heart and now he's stealing my piano!!