I’ve gotten two estimates for moving from my apartment into a duplex. One bases their rates on a cost per hour. IOW, $99 per hour with a two hour minimum, each additional 15 minutes is $24.75.
The other estimate came in at $270, but they have a list of all the stuff they’d have to move of mine. They estimate the job at 3 hours plus they provide 5 free wardrobe boxes for my clothes.
It seems to me it’d be better to go with the $270 guy since I get free materials plus a definite cost. Am I correct that the per hour mover has an incentive to move slower and therefore cost me more? The per hour mover didn’t even ask me how much stuff I have, how many staircases there are, how far the doors would be from the truck, etc.
I have a one-bedroom apartment and, frankly, not a lot of stuff. On the other hand, I want the mover to move as much as possible, not just the furniture, cuz if I’m paying you then YOU load my crap and take it into my new place. Know what I mean?
Which one would you go with?
So the flat rate guy, is only going load and unload furniture, per the list you provided? Did you include boxes for kitchen crap, books, television, knick-knacks, clothes, linens, etc. on your list? If so, then you know that that your only looking at a potential savings of $70, if the per hour guy can do it all in two hours. What’s the drive time between the two places? The per hour guy is going to include that time in his billable hours.
Is $70 worth locking in your downside risk that the hourly guy may go over 2 hours and 45 minutes, vs. being able to do the job in two hours or less?
I’d probably go with the flat rate guy, assuming you know that rate includes everything in your apartment, and not just furniture.
I did include several medium sized boxes in my list, so that’s where I’d put the books and kitchen crap (which is a quite apt name for it). TVs were included.
For the per hour guy, their time starts and ends at their facility. So, 10 minutes to get to my place, probably 15-20 to get back to their facility from my new place. So, they’d have to be able to get my whole move done in an hour and a half in order to avoid overage.
It’s not so much that I want to quibble over twenty bucks (assuming overage), but I don’t want to get pantsed, either.
I have no thoughts on the subject at hand. However: if you have a referral, use that guy. And never engage a moving company over the Internet if you can avoid it. There are scams – including one dude out of Florida in particular who is masterful at this, and uses about a billion company names – where they’ll put your stuff on the truck and then shake you down for more money to give it back. Referrals!
Also, if you have any friends who are cops, ask them to come buy while the guys are loading the truck, but to keep his profession on the down low unless the driver tries the scam. (Then he can arrest him and let you get your stuff off the truck.)
–Cliffy
This happened to a friend of mine. She and her husband packed up all of their stuff per the instructions given to them before hand by the moving company. Paid the cash for whatever the charge was (a few hundred bucks or so, if I remember right).
When the movers got to the new house (in town, less than 5 miles away), they refused to unload the truck until she gave them almost $900 because of the cost of materials they had. You see, the wrapped some loose card board around her dresser for her (seriously: the invoice said “Cardboard 5 ft”) and that was a $900 charge from them.
Personally? I will never use movers. Ever. I will just do it myself, have some friends, etc.
Ok, but there are plenty of honest and reputable movers. Myself, I will never again subject myself or my friends and family to the suffering that is moving when professionals can do it faster and more easily. I have no qualm at all with using a moving company.
The one company I won’t use, however, is the one that was refered to me last time. I came to that decision as I watched one guy drop my speaker box on the driveway and then casually toss it around like it wasn’t an expensive piece of equipment. Came with a hearty recommendation. Never again.
Personally, I’d go with the company with better reviews. It really pays to go out of your way to investigate movers.
I use the local Two Men and a Truck office because they have always treated me fairly. Even though they charge by the hour, the guys hustled incredibly hard, and the employees in general were very open and clear with me at every stage. I did move the most sensitive things (my PC, for example) but nothing arrived broken anyway. When one of my pieces of junky old furniture was already damaged, they showed me to make sure that I knew it was from beforehand, because they really pride themselves on their work and didn’t want me to think they had broken it.
I only paid once the job was done. I kept cash aside for a tip both times and gave them all of it; they really, really earned it. Both times I was absolutely amazed by their speed and efficiency. I’ve used them twice and had different guys each time, but the same great experience.
No idea if this chain is OK in other areas, but it worked for me. I found them by basically finding the movers with little/no troubling reviews or BBB incidents, since I didn’t know anyone to get a reference from.
Actually, it is Two Men and a Truck that I wasn’t impressed with last time. Yeah, I’m a hardass.
How much should I give for a tip? I tipped last time and was very generous because I had no idea. That and they had to take my stuff up a flight of really, really steep stairs.