“Moving a home into a small truck is simply more complicated than unloading a tightly packed truck into a usually empty house,” Kit said. Good news! Once you’ve followed these steps for packing your truck, unpacking it should feel like a breeze.
Remember that the loading is the hardest part Kit also recommends double-checking your work by talking through worst-case scenarios: Will that heavy plant pot roll over? If so, what could it hit? Is there anything fragile nearby? He also said you should give items a shake to gauge whether they’ll survive bumpy driving conditions.
Although this may seem like an extra, unnecessary step, mapping out how things can fit together may save you from having to reconfigure everything once it’s in the truck-and this can prevent a lot of angst.Īs you did with those clean walls, you should secure these items as best you can (to one another and/or to the walls of the truck), using either ratchet straps or bungee cords. If the weather is on your side, consider using the space outside your truck as a staging area to figure out the best Tetris-like solutions for the rest of your belongings. Think tall lamps, bikes, those weak media consoles, and TVs (which, he added, fare better with the additional protection of a specialized box).
#HELP UNPACKING MOVING TRUCK HOW TO#
Create a staging area to figure out how to pack your weird stuffĪfter you’ve loaded up all the clean walls you can, next comes what Kit calls the most stressful part: figuring out how to wedge in the oddly shaped remainders. Repeat as much as you can, and then secure your walls with ratchet straps (use more moving blankets to protect your stuff from the ratchet’s teeth, which Kit said can chew into furniture). Narrow gaps can be filled with items like bookcases, bed frames, mattresses, or sofas turned on their end. Once you’ve finished creating that first clean wall against the back of the truck, try to build others directly in front of it in the same way, starting with heavier, boxy furniture below and finishing with actual boxes on top. Replicate and secure your “clean wall” as many times as you can This “clean wall” strategy is another reason why using uniformly sized boxes pays off in the long run, since you’ll spend less time figuring out how to stack boxes securely and neatly on top of one another. Then stack boxes on top of your base, with heavier boxes going first, followed by lighter ones higher up. He said you shouldn’t use them for this step because they tend to be surprisingly weak.) Once your base is arranged, cover it with moving blankets for added protection. (Kit warned that media consoles are a notable exception. Usually, that means furniture with drawers, like dressers or sturdy end and side tables. Start by looking for strong “base” building blocks that you can line up against the truck’s back wall. “Even if you have a lot of loose stuff, the ‘clean wall’ method lets you load a truck easily in a couple of hours,” Kit said. In both scenarios, the objective is to fit boxes and other right-angled pieces together to create a “clean wall,” with no gaps from bottom to top. Loading a moving truck is like playing Tetris. “Even if you’re the only one moving, loading up a truck is going to be so much faster for you if you have everything in as uniformly sized boxes as possible,” Kit said. Uniformly sized cardboard boxes: Compared with a willy-nilly collection of randomly sourced containers, cardboard boxes of identical size and shape can be stacked and transported much more quickly, whether you do so on a dolly (see below) or in your arms. According to Kit, the best gear to get before your DIY move includes: If you’re moving with a truck on your own, you should borrow, rent, or buy as much of that equipment as you can.
#HELP UNPACKING MOVING TRUCK PROFESSIONAL#
Professional movers use accessories that help them schlep your stuff with maximum efficiency. Here, Wirecutter senior staff writer Kit Dillon-who moonlights as a professional mover-breaks it all down into a few easy-to-follow steps. And loading up that rental truck is often the most miserable part of the whole ordeal.įortunately, when you’re armed with just a handful of pro-level tools and tricks, it’s surprisingly simple to pack your truck in a time- and space-saving way. When you forgo professional movers to DIY your move with a rental truck (and the help of a few friends or family members), what you save in money is often paid for in misery.
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