[Ian1969]

Hi
I know these will seem like stupid questions..........but information on the internet is just confusing us!!

can you buy/hire your own 40ft container and if so - any recommendations - we are in east yorkshire UK

can you arrange for a company just to ship your container? (not the door to door service) are they freight forwarders or shipping lines!!! any recommendations

Is it right that only south of UK ports will ship personal belongings?

we have been quoted £5,000 for door to door 40ft container - can DIYing make us some savings?

ok I admit to being unable to understand some of these basic things - can anyone take pity on me and offer guidance!!!!!!

[marcia]

There are a few posts about this somewhere on the forum - I remember asking the question myself.

One of the problems is getting a continer that is seaworthy, and its a lot of hassle I believe to insurance.

Have you tried to look at self packing, a few people have done this, packing a lot of their own boxes to cut down on cost.

Do a search on 'own container' or 'self pack' on the forum and see what comes up!

Sorry can't be more help but we ended up letting them do all the hard work - we had enough on our plates to deal with!

Good luck whatever you decide! :nice1

[Nick88]

A 40ft container is huge. Are you sure will fill it and make it worthwhile?

[Edit] Just saw your other post, and realised you are bringing a vehicle. I would have a word with insurance companies first, to make sure they will cover a container being shipped by someone who is not in the industry.

[mylesdw]

Yes, you can do the whole thing yourself, it takes a little effort but can be done. You deal directly with the shipper (Maersk) and they hire you the container. You get a trucking company to pick up the empty container for you and then take it to the port when it's full. We paid a local haulage firm to collect the container from Southampton on a Friday, he parked the semi-trailer outside the house over the weekend and took it away full on the Monday bound for Felixstowe. Any other questions, ask away and I'll try and look up the specific details

[mikey39]

We have just been quoted for a 20ft Container Norfolk to Wellington, they drop the container at the house and we have three hours to fill it, then they pick it up and do all the paperwork for us £1746.90 i haven't asked yet how we get the container from the port at Wellington to the rental house yet. Also rang Letton Percival regarding Insurance and was quoted £420 to cover 25k worth of goods. Still a bit wary about doing it this way but it does seem a lot cheaper.

[dusk]

*nods* you will have to include costs for a NZ company to do the pickup and drop off for your container - but also what you need to do with the container once your stuff is out of it? Also add in MAF inspection costs etc before you consdier what the total price will be.

[IanW99]

We have just been quoted for a 20ft Container Norfolk to Wellington, they drop the container at the house and we have three hours to fill it, then they pick it up and do all the paperwork for us £1746.90 i haven't asked yet how we get the container from the port at Wellington to the rental house yet. Also rang Letton Percival regarding Insurance and was quoted £420 to cover 25k worth of goods. Still a bit wary about doing it this way but it does seem a lot cheaper.

One thing to consider with this approach when moving to Wellington.

The fact that a lot of houses are on the side of hills, with narrow road access it is quite likely that you will not be able to get the container up to the house.

When you use a moving company, they will check the access and then if necessary offload the container onto smaller trucks for delivery.

If you are DIY I would assume that you would need to hire this service at additional cost.

Of course you may already have accomodation organised and know that you have good access, so no problem, but otherwise, it is something to consider.

Ian

[mylesdw]

We have just been quoted for a 20ft Container Norfolk to Wellington, they drop the container at the house and we have three hours to fill it, then they pick it up and do all the paperwork for us £1746.90 i haven't asked yet how we get the container from the port at Wellington to the rental house yet. Also rang Letton Percival regarding Insurance and was quoted £420 to cover 25k worth of goods. Still a bit wary about doing it this way but it does seem a lot cheaper.

Costing sounds about right, I'd add another 25% for all the other charges. When they say 'drop the container' at your house it will probably stay on the truck/trailer so remember that you have quite a lift to get heavier gear in. A couple of builders tressles and scaffold boards (hired) to may a step makes life much easier. Buy a load of cardboard boxes, it's much easier and quicker to stack them into the container. Two sizes worked fine for us, the majority around 12" cubes and a few bigger ones for bulky items. A forty foot container is nothing like twice the price, probably another 500 quid or so.

[CJ22]

Alternatively, you could look upon this as your big opportunity to get rid of a lot of clutter :)

[StevieD]

muses on how they going to get a vehicle out of the container up on a trailer.....

[mikey39]

IAN 1969 try this link to find someone that might help in your area http://www.kellysearch.co.uk/gb-product-81607.html hope this works ok im not too hot on the computer.

Currently trying to find out how we will get container from port to the house in welly, so if any of you have any experience with this please let me know :confused:

[mylesdw]

muses on how they going to get a vehicle out of the container up on a trailer.....

Do some research and you will find somewhere local that has a loading bay that you can use. Take the truck and trailer there, drive car out onto loading bay. Alternatively a workshop with a four post lift can be used as long as the roof is tall enough to back the truck in.

[mylesdw]

Currently trying to find out how we will get container from port to the house in welly, so if any of you have any experience with this please let me know :confused:

Lots of trucking companies around ports; just look in the yellow pages. There is a home-grown (NZ) special trailer that allows a container to be lifted off the truck and placed on the ground next to it. You would need a spot about 17' wide.

[mylesdw]

If you don't have enough to fill a whole container you can consider wooden packing cases. I have just shipped one from the UK to Lyttleton.

The packing case 1.3 cubic metres on a pallet made of timber approved for export to NZ came flat packed with a very neat and simple system of spring clips to assemble it. It cost UKP 85 from these people www.croc.co.uk and is known as an 'export case'

We hired a van, loaded the crate in the van and took it to the shippers in Southampton. We dealt with these shippers www.uktradeshipping.co.uk who were very helpful. The freight to NZ was UKP 132 and the total with all the other UK charges came to UKP 190. It left UK 20/5/08.

It arrived Christchurch 8/7/08 and we paid the agent here NZ$222 for their charges. I cleared it through MAF and customs myself (NZ$ 95 for MAF) and will collect it tomorrow from the bonded warehouse.

Hope that helps!