Packing, Office Moves & Mobility

Packing is not an afterthought

Most transit damage is a packing failure, not a handling failure. Cargo is going to be lifted, stacked, driven and occasionally dropped; the packing is what stands between that and a claim. We pack to the contents and the journey — proper crating for the fragile and the valuable, the right cushioning and bracing, cases built for the pieces that do not fit a standard carton — because it is far cheaper to pack something well than to settle a claim for it.

Personal effects have their own rules

Moving a household across a border is not the same customs exercise as moving trade goods. Used personal effects have their own rules, allowances and documentation, and the concessions that apply to a genuine household move depend on getting the paperwork and the declarations right. We handle these formalities as part of the move, so an employee or a family arriving in a new country is not left to navigate an unfamiliar customs regime on their own.

Inventory, valuation and claims

Every consignment is packed against a written inventory — each carton and item numbered and described as it is packed, not reconstructed afterwards from memory. That list is what customs reads, what the receiving party checks against, and what any insurance claim is settled on. It is also, quietly, the thing that stops items going missing: an inventory that is checked at both ends leaves nowhere for a carton to disappear unnoticed.

Valuation is the other half. Household and office goods are insured on a declared-value basis, which means the figure you give us before departure is the figure that matters afterwards — an under-declared consignment is under-insured no matter what it was actually worth. We ask you to value properly, we explain what the cover does and does not include, and we would rather have an awkward conversation before the truck arrives than a disappointing one after it.

If something is damaged despite the packing, tell us early. Claims are settled on evidence — the inventory, photographs and the packing record — and every one of those is easier to assemble in the first week than in the second month.

How an office move is sequenced

An office move is a project with a deadline that cannot slip, and the work that decides whether it goes well happens weeks before anything is lifted. It starts with a survey and a floor plan for the new premises, because every crate needs a destination room and a position before it is packed. Desk contents go into returnable crates rather than cartons — they stack safely, they seal without tape, and they can be labelled to a zone and a desk so nothing arrives needing to be opened to find out where it goes. Furniture is dismantled and its fixings bagged and tied to the piece they came off.

IT is handled on its own track. Machines are logged by asset tag, cables bagged and labelled to the machine rather than to a bin, screens packed in purpose-made cartons and never stacked flat, and anything in a server rack powered down against a written sequence agreed with whoever owns it. The rule we work to is that IT goes out last and comes in first, so the network is live before people arrive to find their desks.

The rest is building logistics: lift bookings and floor protection agreed with facilities at both ends, an out-of-hours or weekend window where the operation cannot take downtime, access and parking cleared, and a sequence that gets the functions you cannot run without back on their feet first. The plan is agreed with your facilities and IT people before a single crate is delivered, because a move plan invented on the loading bay is a move plan that overruns.

What packs well, and what needs a case

Most household and office goods pack into cartons perfectly well; the trouble is concentrated in a short list of items and it is worth being specific about them. Flat screens travel in purpose-made cartons, upright, never laid flat under anything. Marble, glass and stone tops are carried and crated on edge, never flat, because a slab that flexes across its face cracks. Artwork and mirrors get corner protection and a slatted crate sized to the frame. Upholstery is filmed and then boxed rather than filmed alone, because film alone traps moisture. Books go into small cartons, since a large one filled with books cannot be lifted safely and will fail at the base.

Appliances are drained and their drums or moving parts secured. Fuel-powered equipment — mowers, generators, tools — has to be run dry, and where a consignment will travel by air, lithium cells come out of the equipment and are handled under their own rules. Some things simply do not travel: aerosols, paints, solvents, gas cylinders and fuels are dangerous goods and are excluded from a household consignment; perishables, plants and seeds run into quarantine at the far end; and every destination has its own list of restricted items that is worth reading before the packers arrive rather than after.

Where crates are built, the timber matters as much as the carpentry. Solid-wood packaging for an international move has to be heat-treated and carry the IPPC mark under ISPM 15, and a crate that is beautifully made from untreated timber is a crate that can get a whole shipment fumigated or turned away. It is a five-second check on the stencil and it is checked on every case that leaves.

The survey, and the clock it sets

Everything on a household move follows from the survey. A consultant walks the property — in person, or by video where that is easier to arrange — and produces a volume estimate in cubic feet or cubic metres, along with the list of items that need special treatment and the access constraints at both ends. That volume figure is what drives the mode, the container size or the consolidation booking, the crew size, the number of packing days and the price. A list emailed from memory is not a substitute; people underestimate their own volume almost universally, and the correction lands as a cost on the day.

From there the shape of the job is predictable. A modest household is usually a day of packing, a larger one two or three, with fragile and specialist items taking a disproportionate share of that time. Loading follows packing, then export documentation and the sea or air leg, then clearance of used personal effects at destination, then delivery, placement of furniture in the rooms you want it, and unpacking. Debris removal is generally a second visit a day or two later, because nobody wants to make unpacking decisions with the crew standing there.

If the destination address is not ready when the shipment is, the goods go into storage in transit rather than being delivered somewhere temporary and moved twice. That is worth planning for rather than improvising. One point to be clear about: our remit is the goods — packing, freight, customs formalities on the household consignment, delivery and unpacking. Anything to do with an employee’s own entry paperwork sits with the employer and their own advisers, and we simply plan the shipment around the dates you give us.