[giraffe]

Hello

We just got our blue stickers today:bluebanana so are starting to plan our move. Reckon we should be heading over September time-ish. All very exciting.

Just wondering if its possible to bypass the removal companies when shipping stuff over. Can we hire a container (40ft) direct from the shipping companies and pack all the stuff ourselves and thus save money

Has anyone any experience of this??

[TheNaylors]

Congrats on getting your blue stickers :bluebanana:bluebanana:bluebanana

Can't help with the shipping query though...but will be interesting to find out!

[JandM]

Congrats on getting your blue stickers :bluebanana:bluebanana:bluebanana

Can't help with the shipping query though...but will be interesting to find out!
Likewise!:)

[JandL]

I would also like to hear about this, we have many of our boxes mostly packed already in plastic containers for storage.

[colindp]

I have packed containers myself but still used the sevices of a shipping company to deal with all the paperwork and customs etc to be honest the savings are not huge.....
I paid £2900 to get our stuff home from NZ and that was packed by myself. I am paying for pickfords to get our stuff to Perth full door to door service and removal of all packaging at destination for £3800.

[Red Devil]

... for the sake of approx. £3,000 you may as well appoint a reputable removal company!

It's costing us £3,900 to move all our belongings from Lincolnshire (UK) to Oxford near Christchurch.
This price covers everything... full export wrap, door-to-door service, clearing of rubbish and more importantly the standard liability extension at 3% of the value of goods being shipped (insurance basically), plus additional destination charge of £170 for delivering our 20ft container to Oxford, as it's just outside the standard 25 mile radius :roll

I think £3,900 is worth it to be honest, as it cost us £2,500 to move back from France to the UK last year!

Best of luck :nice1

[JandL]

Only having £5000 left in our pockets after loosing out 30k due to house pricing, I'll be interested in any savings I can find.

[giraffe]

an update.. I found an old thread (can't link to it) from someone who shipped directly with MSC shipping. Phoned MSC and have jsut been quoted £2875 for a 40 foot container. They deliver container to your door - you have 3 hours to load and then they deliver to NZ. Quotation is only valid for 30 days and will vary according to US dollar flucutations. We're not going for a while but i jsut asked them to quote as if we were going tomorrow to give me a ball park figure to work from.
It is up to us to arrange MAF clearance and an agent etc to handle the auckland side of things - they just deliver to auckland.

Haven't had any quotes from removal companies yet but i think that must be a big saving.

anyway i thought i'd pass the info on.... i think we'll definitely be going down this route when the time comes..

[mylesdw]

We dealt directly with Maersk, the container shippers. We rented a 40' container from them and paid a local haulier to collect it from Southampton. He left it outside our house for the weekend while we packed it and then took it to Felixstowe on the Monday. The total cost door to door for our stuff was around ukp 2400. It's not difficult to do.

[Red Devil]

... unless you plan on filling it, you'll have stuff rattling inside a 40ft container.

One 20ft container can adequately hold a 'typical family size house' worth of belongings, i.e. 30 cubic metres, or 1050 cubic feet.

When you way up the cost of doing it yourself as opposed to appointing a removal company, I don't think it's worth the stress and hassle (IMHO).
Don't forget to take into consideration having to purchase adequate packing material to see your belongings through the journey!

Best of luck with your move :nice1

[Ana&Steve]

... unless you plan on filling it, you'll have stuff rattling inside a 40ft container.

One 20ft container can adequately hold a 'typical family size house' worth of belongings, i.e. 30 cubic metres, or 1050 cubic feet.


Hmmm, a little OT, but does anyone have a good way to estimate the container size needed? I've heard several stories of being quoted larger needs then fitting into half that and still being charged more. (To be fair I've heard several stories of friendly and accurate service too!)
I guess one could mark out the approximate size in a large room like the living room and stuff the rest of the house in it...

[mylesdw]

... unless you plan on filling it, you'll have stuff rattling inside a 40ft container.

One 20ft container can adequately hold a 'typical family size house' worth of belongings, i.e. 30 cubic metres, or 1050 cubic feet.


Yes, that's true. Ours included two cars as well as the house stuff.

[Red Devil]

... I see what you mean Myles. We thought of shipping our car too (Subaru Forester) but decided to sell in the UK and buy again in NZ. I've already approached a number of dealers on Moorhouse Avenue, Chch and there are plenty of bargains to be had!

[AlastairUK]

I don't envy you guys. I'm going with a bag of clothes, my laptop, camera and snowboard. If I can't carry take it with me on the plane, it's not coming with :)

[victoria24]

we had an estimator guy round from pickfords this morning and ours will fot into a 20 footer. a 20 ft equates to 1100 cubic somethings and ours is 1101 and we've got a big house. this includes all white goods but no vehicles. i was surprised to be honest. just gotta wait for the quote now..

[hosebergine]

we must be clutter-bugs! We live in a pretty standard sized 3 bed semi and it looks like we're just over a 20ft container without any white goods!!!! We're only taking one wardrobe too! Must be all the kids toys....

[JandM]

Although it's irritating if you've got rid of stuff which it then turns out you could have taken, it's maybe better, because of the horrible stress it would cause at a very late stage, if they overestimate than under. We did an ordinary house move years ago, where the boss had sized up the job but a couple of his erks came on their own to do the work. They kept trying to leave when there were still things in the house! 'We've got a van-load,' was the excuse. One or other of us would be out there telling them how OF COURSE they had room for more if they just moved x over a bit. They complained about our books (which of course, the boss had seen and allowed for), 'You should live in a mansion, not a ****** semi.' Eventually, all our things DID fit in the van perfectly well.

Then they tried to get away with dumping everything as near inside the front door of the new place as they could, instead of placing it according to the labels that were on everything. Not the best day of my life.:mad:

[hosebergine]

you're absolutely right about over-estimating. Some people have had sofa's to sell at the last minute when there wasn't enough room in the container. Not what you need when you're stressed out as it is