I’m going to be moving from Chicago to North Carolina in October. Most of what I’m moving is my massive library, along with my video & CD collection, and what furniture I have that is worth hauling 800+ miles. I’m still trying to decide between hiring regular movers or using a pod to do this, weighing off the expenses versus the convenience of not having to carry all those boxes myself.
The one thing that is bothering me is the best way to move my electronics equipment - computer, VCR, DVD player, etc. Every other time I’ve moved it’s been within Chicago, so anything that was valuable or delicate got transported in a friend’s vehicle. I don’t drive, so I can’t move them myself on this trip, and I really don’t want to try to impose on a friend to make the round trip, even if I’m paying for gas & other expenses.
Can movers be trusted to transport things like computers? Can I pack them carefully enough to be sure they arrive intact? Would I be better off shipping them via UPS or FedEx? BTW, I don’t have the boxes any of this stuff came in, as they were dumped in a previous space-clearing purge.
Any advice, suggestions, or stories of your experience at this sort of thing are welcome.
Whenever I’ve moved, I’ve wrapped everything in clothing as padding, put it into various boxes, and carried in a personal vehicle, so that probably doesn’t help much. OTOH, we had Tippett-Richardson move my father, and all his stuff came through alright. But there was not a lot of electronics involved, just a TV and a cheap-ass ‘music centre’.
If your audio equipment is standard size and valuable, maybe an Anvil case with rack mounts would be a wise investment. I think 19 inch is the standard width. This is way off the beaten path of great advice, so feel free to snicker.
I recommend leaving the packing to the professionals. I’ve been through several office moves, and the pros definitely know how to wrap and pack delicate items.
On the other hand, I think the more of the packing you do yourself, the less the movers will charge. So I’d recommend packing the books yourself. If you’re really paranoid about the computer, you might remove the hard drives and hand-carry them.
11811, I’ve never heard of an Anvil case. My audio equipment consists of a couple of all-in-one units, which cost me maybe $150 when I got them years ago.
I’ll definitely be packing the books, etc myself. Ideally, I’d like to have as much stuff as possible already in boxes so the movers can just carry it out to the truck.
In that case, your audio equipment is fairly worthless now.
When I moved about a decade ago, the movers charged by the pound, so I was motivated to reduce the amount of stuff I moved. I purged as much as I could and then bought things like the sofa and TV set when I got to the new place.
I.T. guy here. With your computers, it’s important to realise that it’s not the computers themselves that are important but the data that’s on them. If the computers get damaged, you can claim it on insurance; you can’t do that with your data. So back it up. Twice. External HDDs are cheap. The PCs go with the movers, one portable HDD goes with you, the other with the movers.
As for the equipment itself, unplug everything, neatly coil the cables and put them in a seperate box. Then wrap the PCs in bubblewrap…
Also, keep in mind that iPods have “hard drive mode” where Windows (or OS X, I’d imagine) treats them the same as any ol’ external HD. So, if you have an iPod that has some space on it, you may not even need to get an(other) external HD. (Though redundancy is always good, of course.)
I don’t have an iPod, but I do already have an extra hard drive; the motherboard on my previous computer died, so after got the new computer I had picked up an external case so I could salvage what hadn’t been backed up (which, I’m ashamed to admit, was quite a bit). I can’t offhand remember the relative sizes of the two drives, but I’m pretty sure I should be able to copy the computer HD onto the external before I move. I also have new laptop I might be able to use to store backup files.
I am planning to purge the library as much as I can stand to (I hate getting rid of books) as well as ruthlessly strip my videotape collection down to things that I won’t be able to replace on DVD, and transfer as much of that as I can to DVD if time permits. Most of the furniture is being disposed of here; what I’m taking will be mostly bookcases, a matched set of dressers that are fairly new, and a few chairs.
That’ll teach you not to go agreeing with people, you fiend!
Personally whenever I move I invest £50 in nice clean boxes (you can order them off the internet, and they come with bubble wrap, wrapping paper, tape, etc.), pack all my stuff, and then let the professionals deal with the heavy labour of shifting them all (just make sure you don’t make the boxes too heavy). Since the labour tends to be by the hour, the lifting is much better value for money.
Any particularly sensitive items of electronics can go inside a box with clothes/bedding around them for padding, otherwise bubblewrap and a ‘fragile’ sticker should be OK. PC’s are just as likely to die spontaneously from being moved around a room in my experience :mad: So back up everything, and then stop worrying - unless there is something wrong with the truck, the loading/unloading stage is by far the most likely to damage your stuff, whether you’re moving 800 miles or 8.
Electronic equipment isn’t as fragile as you think. How do you think it made it’s way from Taiwann to your house? Boxes loaded, unloaded, loaded, unloaded in various trucks and warehouses by warehouse personnel that aren’t too concerned about “fragile” and “this side up” stickers.
See those stacks of computers up on top of the gondolas at BestBuy? Know how they get there? Usually two guys tossing and catching them.
Just wrap your stuff in towels and blankets and stuff them in boxes tightly and close them with packing tape. They’ll be fine.