Moving Tips
Plain how-to from crews who do this every day. Click what you need; skip the rest.
Before you book
How moving quotes actually work
A local move is billed hourly, by crew size. Four things move the number: how much you own, the stairs and carry distance at both ends, the drive between the two addresses, and whether you want packing help. A long-distance move is different — it's one flat price quoted before move day, and it doesn't change afterward.
Every one of our city pages has a table of what moves typically add up to, by home size, so you can see the ballpark before you ever call — start at your city. Whatever you're quoted, get it in writing before move day. Ours comes that way.
When to book movers
Two weeks ahead is comfortable most of the year. Make it three from May through August — that's PCS season around Fort Stewart, Hunter, and Fort Benning, when a large share of each town moves in the same window and every crew in the area is booked. End-of-month weekends go first year-round.
If your date sounds impossible, call before you assume it is. Short-notice moves are normal here, and you'll get a real answer on availability the same day.
Full-service, labor-only, or do it yourself?
Straight math, because it saves people money. If you're renting a truck for a move across town, price the whole thing — rental, fuel, insurance, pads, and your Saturday — against a full-service local move before you decide. It's closer than most people expect, and sometimes the rental loses.
Where DIY wins is short hauls with light loads and easy access. Where it stops winning is stairs, a long carry, or a house with more than two bedrooms. The middle option is labor-only: you bring the truck or container, we bring the crew and the loading technique, by the hour.
Packing
Or hand it off — packing services do the whole house in a day, usually the day before the move.
How to pack yourself, room by room
Start about two weeks out, with the rooms you use least — the guest room, the garage, the storage closet — and work toward the rooms you live in. One room at a time, one room per box; a box with kitchen stuff on the bottom and bathroom stuff on top is a box nobody can find anything in.
Pack a little every day rather than a lot at the end. Keep one "do not pack" corner for the things you'll need until the last morning. Get the boxes and paper before you start so you're not improvising with grocery bags — our moving supplies are the same ones our crews use.
How to pack a kitchen
The kitchen takes longer than any other room, and it's where the breakage happens. If you hand off only one room to a crew, make it this one. If you're doing it yourself:
- Use dish-pack boxes — the heavy double-wall ones — with cell dividers for glasses and stemware.
- Plates go on edge, never stacked flat. Flat plates carry the weight of everything above them; on edge they carry almost nothing.
- Wrap every glass individually and pack it upright. Fill every gap with crumpled paper so nothing can shift.
- Heaviest things on the bottom. Small appliances in their original boxes if you still have them; padded and upright if not.
- Mark the box FRAGILE and THIS SIDE UP on two sides, and tell the crew which ones they are.
Which box for what
The rule that prevents most problems: heavy things go in small boxes. Books, canned goods, tools, and records in the small ones. Kitchen, toys, and small appliances in the medium ones. Linens, pillows, lampshades, and anything light and bulky in the large ones. Hanging clothes go straight from the closet into wardrobe boxes, still on the hangers.
Keep every box under about fifty pounds — if you can't lift it comfortably, neither can the person carrying it down three flights. Tape the bottom with three strips in an H, not one strip down the seam.
Labeling that actually helps
Room and contents — "Kitchen — pots, pans, colander" beats "Kitchen" by a mile when you're looking for the coffee maker. Write it on two sides and the top, because stacked boxes hide their tops.
Number the boxes and keep a running list on your phone. Then mark three to five boxes OPEN FIRST — the ones with the first-night essentials — and make sure they're the last ones loaded so they're the first ones off.
What should never go on the truck
Two categories. Things we can't carry, and things you shouldn't let anyone carry.
We can't take hazardous materials: paint, propane tanks, gasoline and anything with fuel in it, aerosols, pool chemicals, fertilizer, fireworks. Perishable food is out, and houseplants don't survive a long haul in a closed truck. We'll point you to the right county drop-off for the chemicals rather than leave you guessing.
And these ride in your car, not the truck, no matter who's moving you: documents and records, medications, jewelry, cash, passports, laptops and the chargers for everything, keys, and anything that would be genuinely painful to replace. We'll flag these at the walk-through rather than assume you've set them aside.
Getting ready for move day
The two-week checklist
- USPS change of address — online, takes five minutes, forwards mail for a year.
- Utilities — set stop and start dates for power, water, gas, and trash. Schedule the internet install first; it books out further than anything else.
- Driver's license — Georgia gives you 60 days to update an in-state address, and 30 days to transfer an out-of-state license if you're arriving. Both can be done online through DDS.
- Voter registration — update it through the Georgia Secretary of State.
- Insurance — auto, renters, and homeowners all need the new address; some rates change with it.
- Everything that mails you — banks, prescriptions, subscriptions, the vet, the kids' schools.
- Us — we'll confirm the details with you the week before. That's the moment to mention the piano.
Preparing the house
- Clear a path from every room to the door, and from the door to where the truck will sit.
- Sort out the truck spot. Downtown street parking, a loading window, an elevator that has to be reserved — tell us the building and the block when you book and we'll plan it, rather than discovering it at 8am.
- Fridge and freezer — empty, unplug, and defrost 24 hours ahead with a towel inside. Drain the washer hoses.
- Photograph the cables on the back of the TV and the router before anything comes apart.
- Beds and tables we take apart and put back together. Anything else you can break down ahead of time saves clock.
- Measure the doorways at the new place for the biggest pieces. Better to know now than on the porch.
Kids and pets on move day
Move day is loud, the doors are open all day, and strangers are carrying everything out of the house. That's hard on a four-year-old and genuinely dangerous for a dog. A sitter or a friend's house is the best answer for both. Second best: one quiet room with the door shut and a sign on it, so nobody opens it with an armful of boxes.
Pets travel in your car with their food, a bowl, and their vet records. Update the microchip address the same week. Kids do better with a "first night" bag they pack themselves — pajamas, the stuffed animal, the tablet — that stays with them, not on the truck.
Moving in Georgia heat and storm season
July here is no joke, and the inside of a box truck in August is its own climate. Summer moves start early, the schedule leaves room so nobody is racing the clock at the hottest part of the afternoon, and there's more water on the truck than anyone needs. Get the AC running at the new place before the crew arrives.
On the coast, June through November means keeping one eye on the forecast. If a storm is genuinely in the picture, we'd rather help you shift a date than load a truck in weather — locals already think this way. And if anything is headed to storage or a house that'll sit empty, humidity changes how it should be packed: paper against wood and upholstery, not plastic, so nothing sits sealed in its own moisture.
Special items
Pianos, safes, and the heavy stuff
We move upright and spinet pianos, gun safes, treadmills, and the rest of the things that make friends stop answering texts. Two limits, stated plainly: not grand or baby grand pianos, and nothing over 800 pounds. Those need a specialty rigger, and we'll tell you so rather than attempt it.
Tell us about the heavy piece when you book, not on move day — it changes the crew and the equipment. And please don't try a piano on a staircase with two friends and a hand truck. That's not a money-saving story anyone tells twice.
TVs, mirrors, and art
A flat-screen goes in its original box if you kept it, or a TV box if you didn't — and it never rides lying flat. Upright, padded, and tied off. Take a photo of the screen before it's packed so there's no argument later about a mark.
Mirrors and framed art go in picture boxes with the corners protected, standing on edge, with an X of tape across the glass to hold it if it breaks. Anything oversized or irreplaceable is a good candidate for partial packing — you do the books, we do the things that don't come back.
Antiques, china, and the things that don't get replaced
China and crystal go in dish packs with cell dividers, wrapped individually, on edge. Drawers come out of antique dressers or get emptied — never tape anything directly onto a finished surface, because the adhesive can take the finish with it. Paper padding and moving blankets, not plastic against the wood, especially in our humidity.
If a piece has been in the family for three generations, this is the room to hand off. It's the one place where a professional pack pays for itself in a single dropped box that doesn't happen.
After the move
The first-night box
One box, or a suitcase, that rides in your car and gets opened before anything else: sheets and pillows, towels, toiletries and toilet paper, phone chargers, the coffee setup, paper plates and a few utensils, a box cutter and a screwdriver, medications, pet food and a bowl, the kids' comfort things, and a lamp. The measure of a good first night is not needing to open a second box.
Unpack in the right order
Kitchen first, because you'll eat. Bedrooms second, because you'll sleep. Bathrooms third. Then everything else, one room at a time, breaking down boxes as you go so the cardboard doesn't take over the house. Set up the beds before the crew leaves — it's the one thing that makes the first night feel like home instead of a campsite.
What to do with all the boxes
If we unpack you, we haul the empties and the paper off the same day. If you're unpacking yourself, flatten them as you go, keep a handful for the attic, and put the rest out for someone else's move — the local buy-nothing and neighborhood groups clear a stack of good boxes in hours. Whatever's left recycles.
And if there's furniture that didn't make sense in the new place, junk removal is priced by how much of the truck it fills, with the good pieces going to donation first.
Questions the page didn't answer?
A local picks up. Ask them anything about your move.