A few tips I really didn’t get to put into my last post on moving.  The real key to success in moving is in the details.  I made a lot of moves, mostly for the US government in my career, so they were done by professionals.  Believe me, a pro is no guarantee of good performance … I’ve seen both sides of the coin.  It’s not for no reason that an old saying in the military is that "three moves are as good as a fire".  It’s hard to keep nice things nice for multiple moves … but you can do it if you do it right.

Planning:  The earlier you start the better your move will go … this applies no matter if you use a professional or do it yourself.  Get rid of stuff you don’t want (if you are sure you or someone else won’t use it in the Philippines … see Part 1 for more on this.  Pack things yourself that you have the original materials for or that you feel are special.  A good example.  I once shipped two TV’s which I had the original boxes and packing for.  The "professional" packers not only refused to use the original boxes,(leaving me even more garbage to get rid of to be ready to leave my house) but packed two TV’s together in the same carton, the ‘right way’ as they told me.  When I got to the destination, both TV’s had all the knobs on the front cracked or broken off.  In case you’re wondering it’s darn hard to find replacements for little things like proprietary plastic knobs for a 5 or 6 year old TV.  I tuned one TV for years with a pair of pliers, vowing never again to take the word of an expert over my own good sense.  Go through your house, garage, storage shed, etc. with a little packet of stick-on colored labels.  Red for junk/sell, blue for store or send to relatives, yellow for pack for the Philippines (or some other color scheme you like).  This will save untold hours when the day to begin packing actually arrives.

Materials:  There are lots of ways to find boxes and cushioning materials for your stuff.  One thing many don’t realize, though, is that ocean shipping is not like having a name-brand household moving company handle your goods from packing through transport to unpacking.  Containers are handled, often roughly by forklifts and cranes.  Containers may be stacked on the deck of a ship and subject to several weeks of rain and salt spray.  Flimsy cardboard boxes that are sold by consumer-oriented outfits like U-Haul, Office Depot, etc. are not what you want.  Look in your local Yellow Pages for commercial moving supply outlets.  I bought all my boxes, except a few U-haul ‘cheapies’ that I already had on hand, through a local company in our former home town.  When our stuff got to the Philippine end of the trip the difference in the state of the boxes was phenomenal.  The U-Haul boxes looked like refuges from WW II and the commercial-grade boxes were mostly still ready for another move.  In addition the moving supply store had better package sealing tape and some wonderful multi-layer sheets of paper for coving dressers, living room furniture and such with a vinyl layer inside the paper to seal them against moisture and dust while letting things inside ‘breath’.  I see plenty of domestic US moves where furniture is wrapped in plastic shrink-wrap sheeting … if the container sits in the alternate sun and rain on a Manila dock for a few weeks the wooden furniture inside the plastic might just as well be outside in the rain … don’t so it.  Incidentally, our overall costs for materials came out quite a bit less than if we had bought everything at U-Haul.

Preparation: As I believe I mentioned earlier, most shipping companies offer several options for actually getting your good into a container and on their way.  One method that has worked well for many is, you arrange a date and time with the shipper and a local hauling firm arrives with your container on a trailer at your home and the driver waits a fixed period of time while you (and some strong-backed helpers ‘stuff’ the container.  Typical ‘free’ wait times are on the order of two hours.  An experienced warehouse crew can ‘stuff’ a 40-foot container in two hours, but they will work up a sweat doing so.  An average home-packer will be sorely taxed to get it done in that time, so make sure you know how much extra waiting time will cost you … you may need it.  One thing that sounds silly, unless it happens to you is, remember the floor of a shipping container on a truck frame is abut 48 inches above the ground … a full 4 feet.  A friend of mine made a two hour pickup arrangement, had his packed goods all ready to load and was waiting with a crew of helpers when the trucker arrived, on time.  One thing he didn’t have was any kind of a ramp or ladder … everything was packed, remember?  It’s a lot of work to lift everything 4 feet into a container and it wastes a lot of time over the alternative of rolling in stacks of boxes on a hand truck.  Be prepared.

A better alternative for many is to have the container dropped at your location and picked up after loading.  This will add considerably to the trucking costs .. the company has to make two trips .. but will remove the time pressure.  Make sure, however, that your local laws and neighbors will put up with an ugly container in the street in front of your house … again, better to find out sooner rather than later.

Since I had to get my household goods from Colorado to California (where my shipper, Manila Forwarder had their offices) and my wife and I also had to get there (our car was sold with the buyer taking delivery on the morning of our move) I decided to rent a U-Haul truck and let the one vehicle move both the household goods and us.  Worked out pretty well, although you never know about Colorado weather and driving a truck that distance is sure not as comfortable as traveling in your car … but it went all right and the boxes got to the container and we got to our gate at LAX all with time to spare.  So it’s a method you can keep in mind in case it gets you out of the same pickle we were in.

Hope these tips are of some value in helping you with your move … my only regret is we waited longer than we needed to … we’re here in the Philippines nearly two years now and I haven’t regretted making the move seriously once.

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