[lisa]

Hi

Just thought I would share the fact that we had an offer on the house on Sunday. :P we had dropped it by £20,000 and then they offered another £10,000 under that but we managed to get them up to the asking price and they were round in 2 hours to measure up.!!!
They are not dependent on selling and are already asking what date we are leaving the country, :eek shan't be booking flights until they have signed on the dotted line though.
Am a wee bit panicky at the mo as there seems to be a huge amount still to organise and plan for, will start ringing round shipping companies in the morning I know this is a stupid question but if you go for the full packing do they do EVERYTHING and equally if you go for no packing do you have to wrap the large items of furniture ect.? Anyone care to share their experiences of this- I am quite happy to pack toys, ornaments ect in order to save a few pounds but don't know if I could do the whole shabang. :wah
Anyway we will keep our :hopeso that they don't pull out. I'm a nervous wreck everytime the phone goes :wah
Tips on coping would also be good - my friend is doing me a reiki head massage tomorrow so hopefully I will be too spaced out to worry. :mrgreen:

Lisa :P

[bbq]

Can't help you with your questions, but good luck on your move

cheers

alex :nice1

[Marie P]

Good luck Lisa :hopeso

I want to know about the packing ,I lived at home till I was married ,then lived here for 17 years .....

Do the packers for example take the books off the bookshelves and pack them ,or you pack them and they just pack the container.

Marie x

[Emma]

Congrats on the offer :cheers

Must be a relieve. At least that's sorted. No, you only need to worry about moving :laugh :laugh ..

Can't help you though with the packing question. Sorry... but I have no clue. We'll be stuck here for another year or so :(

[Moorf]

Marie

You have a choice with packing - you can let them do it all (i.e. take the books off the bookshelves and pack) or you can do the packing yourself :no and they pick up the boxes and ship.

Personally I'd let them do the whole thing - they know how to pack stuff properly and quickly (when we moved from Scotland back to Sussex we were STUNNED by the speed they packed up a 4 bed house!!! Less than a day and we had heaps of stuff as we hadn't done the paring down for NZ at that point.

Check out the "Making the Move" area on this forum :nice1

Moorf

[Lil]

The packers literally pack whatever you have, from wherever you left it. I guess some folks just let them in and pack it as they see it. I myself spent weeks on end sorting stuff, making sure all books were on the bookcase, all cds were together and half packed some stuff myself that I wanted to be careful with.

You cannot really have a half measure, it's either they pack everything or you do it yourself entirely. If you pack yourself it makes a difference to the insurance. If they pack for you, you cannot be made liable for any damages. In my opinion it's best to pay the small amount extra and let them do it for you - they really know what they are doing and have the lifting and shifting down to a fine art.

[Lil]

I must be just slower at typing than you Moorf, cos when I started your post was not there then bingo we both reply with very similar answers. After seeing our chaps in action, there is no way I would bother to sweat and toil for days lifting and shifting stuff around.

[Moorf]

Totally agree Lil - I'd much rather spend a day making cups of tea and watching the furniture ballet too :nice1

[Marie P]

another dumb question ....do they actually bring the container to your house ......so you can keep filling till its full .....

or do they just take your stuff and fill the container elsewhere ...

cheers ....Marie x

[Lil]

It really does depend on your situation - the amount of stuff you have etc. Ideally they prefer to bring container to you, pack it and seal it in your presence and then take it straight to docks for shipping. Because we did not have visas sorted, our stuff has been in storage for 10 weeks, so it was packed into what I can only describe as 4 x quarters of container sized wooden crates. Not sure that is a good description so will try again - 4 wooden crates that would fit snugly end to end inside of the container. They were nailed shut at our house, transported to depot, stored and then transferred to container for shipping.

I think some companies can cut costs by taking everything from you unpacked like a normal removal (not same as export packing) and then they do the full export packing in their depot. When you get quotes they will tell you what services/options they offer.

[Diny]

Lisa .... your posting could have been written by me !!!! I'm not trying to take credit - what I really mean is that you are in the same situation as us. It suddenly turns abit manic doesn't it.

Anyway, I shall echo most of what the others have answered regarding your questions about shipping. However, about 6 hours ago I actually had the man from Britannia here in my house measuring up.

As for letting them do it all. You certainly can leave the entire lot to them, just step aside and they will pack EVERYTHING.

Or - you can indeed get some cartons from them and pack things like books, clothes, plates & cutlery, pots, pans .... everything except the furniture. This of course will be reflected in the quote you get.

Britannia say they do not let the customer wrap the furniture as there is a right and wrong way to do it :?

Preparing the cartons is called packing and preparing the furniture is called wrapping ...... it's amazing what you can learn in such a short space of time :uhoh

Yes ... they bring the container to your house and then the men from the packing company will load it up. They take responsibilty for the loading and yes ... they can do it very quickly.

Make sure your company offers a service where they will unwrap and place your furniture at the other end (if you want them to) and take away the waste packing too. I don't know about some companies, but I know that White & Co and Britannia have told me that they don't unpack the cartons - only the furniture.

White & Co have quoted us 3050 plus insurance. Will let you know what Britannia quote when I get it through the post.

Hope this helps ... good luck.

Diny

[Jennie & Rob]

:cheers :cheers :cheers Well done on your house offer. We are just 2 weeks ahead of you and have had 3 shipping companies around now. I was amazed at what they will do - even dismantling my daughter's cabin bed and reassembling at the other end. It took my husband hours to put it together so I would happily let some other person do that!
Best wishes and good luck. Cannot help relieve the mania - I am terrible at the moment; rushing around like a headless chicken constantly moving stuff around and wondering if I really want to ship my lifelong collection of empty yoghurt cartons.....
Jennie

[Tanya]

Make sure your company offers a service where they will unwrap and place your furniture at the other end (if you want them to) and take away the waste packing too. I don't know about some companies, but I know that White & Co and Britannia have told me that they don't unpack the cartons - only the furniture.

Diny

PSS used NZ Van Lines here in Christchurch and they also said that they were only to unwrap the furniture. He then told me of an english person who insisted they unpack the boxes too - after a bit of an arguement, they Van lines guys said ok - so what they did was to slice the parcel tape off the bottom of the box and lift the box off the goods inside and tip them out where they stood :eek :eek Said after they had done that to a couple of boxes the guy told them to stop and he would do it!! :eek

Tanya

[sarahw]

I'd personally get them to pack - we used PSS & NZ Vanlines this end. They packed my entire household contents (3 bed house) in 2 days and personally by that stage I think I would have ended up in hospital if I'd had to pack all that stuff too on top of organising everything else! They pack each & every thing.

At the other end they were pretty good - they unpacked all furniture & fixed it together & unpacked 90% of the boxes putting the stuff on a flat surface. While they were doing that I unpacked all of the boxes in the kitchen & served up cold drinks!

[Diny]

Interested in hearing about NZ Vanlines as this is the company Britannia use in NZ.

Diny

[Moorf]

Ditto as GB Liners also use NZ Vanlines!

Moorf