Anybody Used PODS to move?

Mag and I are planning to move across the country once we sell our home in Ohio. Since we have no residence in our new home state of Washington, we are thinking of using PODS for the move. That would allow us to pack at our own pace and store most of our stuff with PODS until we have a permanent home. I received a quote of around nine grand for the move, including three months of storage for two 16-foot pods.

A possible benefit of moving this way is that we would be free to drive across the country and tick a bunch of bucket boxes.

If anyone here has experience moving this way, Mag and I would appreciate whatever feedback you could give. I can tell you more about our situation if that helps.

Thanks in advance.

 

My fiance at the time we moved in together used a similar company and it was fine. We loaded it ourselves and offloaded without issue, though her stuff only moved about 40 miles.

 

GOOD luck with the relocation, J!! You'll see more of us with this move ... you are forewarned!!

 

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. I have no experience with PODS but I can see the benefits. We plan to move to the MS Gulf Coast within a year. I'll keep this idea in mind. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

 

PODS sound so logical, the price seems right for the service provided.

If you are doing this all your self and are not experienced at packing......and have any questions I would be glad to help if I could. I was in the relocation business for over twenty years. There is an art to moving and packing, it all ends up in the same place, but there are a lot of tips to make sure the trip is easier.

There are things to not cheap out on, tools for the move, loading and tie down gear, packing products.

Residential moving is different in some ways from corporate, my area, though we did do residential. The first difference is emotional, no one ever cares about the lunch room couch as much as they are about the couch Aunt Tudy gave you that now lives in the garage. If it's not used now....it won't be then.

Check the Craigslist price at destination for anything you might be on the fence about taking. A seldmom used elyptical trainer for example is is not worth the time and space to load if you can replace it for fifty bucks later. Those things take up so much move space.


>My number one tip is sell/donate everything that is not a family heirloom.
>Number two.......find a source if you can for used commercial auto bottom moving boxes, all the same size.
>Big sharpies to mark the boxes....on the ends, not the tops.
>Have blankets and two kinds of tape, clear packing tape for the blankets, and wide blue painters tape for going on furniture.
> Real mover tools.....a big-tire strong lite hand-truck, and a couple pro four wheel mover dollies, and lots of quality tie down rope if PODS have tie downs.

........a tightly packed well wrapped container yields very little room to shift, so the less open space you have the safer the move.

Universally sized boxes are the key to sanity in my experience, with no open tops.

....anyway, didn't mean to preach to the choir is you are a mover.......let me know if I can help.
Rusty

 

Sounds like a great solution for you, my only suggestion would be to ensure any pod our worldly possessions would be going into was "heat blasted" before loading.

 

Outstanding advice Rusty. Having cartons of the same size will allow them to stack uniformly in the truck. I used to pick up 4 liter wine boxes from liquor stores, these were big and made of a heavy corrugate. Anything not tied down will act as a ping pong ball on the trip.

I have never used PODS, but there is a similar service from ABF Trucking. A buddy of mine used PODS when he was going through a divorce, he ordered a his and hers and it worked out well.

 

Terrific advice, Rusty.

I'm pretty good a getting stuff to fit into a vehicle because of our many winters in Florida. The last time we moved, we were 18 years younger. It was only a 12-mile move, and we had both houses for a month, so we packed haphazardly and took everything. Much of it we carried in our car, making 8 or 10 trips with breakables and whatever else fit. When crunch time came, I hired a guy I know in the business for one packing day, and he got a van and a crew for the moving day. Cost $1200 cash and an ancient Toyota. Won't be able to pull that off this time.

The POD does have tiedowns spaced along the body of the unit. I have a sturdy Harper 2-wheeler but I noticed that the moving guys use lighter ones.

I never considered using uniformly sized boxes but it makes a lot of sense. We have a bunch of boxes left over from our move and my brother's recent move, but they're different sizes. Whatever I buy in addition to those I will make one size.

My nephew gets the big woodworking tools and we plan to junk or sell most of the furniture. Anybody want to buy a treadmill?

 

The key to making money at moving was " never touch anything twice".....the logic there being picking things up, moving things out of your way, or placing them in the truck only to move them again took time, thus, lost profit.

Certainly not as much of a deal for a residential self move, but saved time is saved frustration. The way I loaded a truck was to first pack everything in the house-garage-out buildings in shape for loading..... then slowly wander through the boxes and furniture and mentally apply it to the truck space.

Like Tetris Big squares first, then little squares.

If you are moving dressers with drawers that have clothes in them it is pretty easy to use the blue painters tape to seal the drawers closed, that way saves packing and unpacking time on both ends of the move. With furniture with doors or drawers tape them shut, or wrap them in a pad and place the drawer side against the wall of the POD.

There will always be odd shaped stuff, coat racks, lamps, vacuums.....we called that "flotsam" and it fills in the cracks. One thing to remember is leave a little space on the end of the POD for the moving gear and the boom box

Super fragile stuff and unpackables like lampshades we usually had the owners take in their cars if it was not cross country. Same with framed art.....but if you are moving framed art in the POD try wrapping in bubble wrap, and pack upright, not laying down as it can bounce, then bow, and crack the glass. Same with flatscreen televisions.

When dealing with exterior stairs at either end it sometimes helps to use a ramp.....you can rent them for a decent price and come in various lenghts, the longer the less angle. Inside stairs or outdoor flights of stairs are just nasty no matter what. I will suggest putting cardboard corner covers on the first few corners inside the house, never fun having to patch walls.....also cover stair railings as they often get dinged.

Clearly mark the boxes on each end, and mark the rooms too, the "helpers" are not there to think, they are there to hump your stuff

Have a homeowner at the door to aid in distribution.....master that way, spare room that way, den that way. Offload takes about a quarter of the time the load does, if not less. You will be alone in a sea of cardbaord before you know it !

.....and don't forget the pizza, beer, and gatorade for the helpers.

Anything else.....just ask

 

I don't think you left out any details, Camp Rusty!

The Alperts are staying put for the foreseeable future, but I've bookmarked this for future reference.
Thanks for sharing your expertise!

RICHARD

 

Again, many thanks! Loading a van with everything is rather different from loading a car with what you need for 3 months in a furnished rental. I won't be shy about asking if something comes up.

We are concerned about several antiques, notably my great-aunt's 7-foot cherry breakfront hutch with wavy glass doors. Probably about 150 years old. It's not super sturdy, especially the odd way the top and bottom are joined. We took it apart for the last move, but I was thinking that it might ship better across country if we left it assembled with its back to the wall and well wrapped in blankets. What do you think?

 

Our experience with PODS was not so good. We also had two that we used to ship two bedrooms, dining room, living room, kitchen and a couple of TVs.
I bought two bundles of blankets on line (48) for $6 each. All of Camp Rusty's advice is right on target.
Take all the legs off all the furniture especially tables as you want no empty space for things to move around.
The way they pick up and move the PODS around means that things will shift if not secured. Our PODS had no tie downs and everything shifted all over.
We hired people to load the PODS and they didn't know what they were doing. Luckily we only had one item broken and I was able to repair it.
We moved three years later and I hired a moving company as I was not happy with the PODS.
Make sure the PODS have plenty of tie downs, use nets if you can find/afford them. Good luck on your move.

 

We used PODS two years ago to relocate from Texas to Idaho and it worked great. The PODS were in storage for two months while we looked for a house to buy. We were also able to drive our vehicles and not worry about moving trucks. If you are moving and don't have a place to call home when you get there, PODS is the way to go. I would use them again.

 

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, everybody.