what sized boxes

[welwynrose]

I've got a few days off work soon so we are planning to box up some of the items clothing etc that we will want to take to NZ with us, which we will put in the garage so that we can clear space for the house to be decorated but we are unsure what size boxes we should get I've found a good website where I can get the boxes from but is there an ideal size

Moving Boxes | Cardboard Boxes | Mad4Boxes

[MotherBear]

Hi Rose,

I'm very much into boxes and packing, having moved around all over the place. Seem to have spent half the last 10 years hanging upside down in boxes, either dropping things in or hauling them out and am just about to start again.

If you're only talking about clothes, I wouldn't tend to go for the wardrobe boxes. They sound fantastic - unhook from your wardrobe and slot them into the box, then do it in reverse at the other end. The reality was something else. The flexing of the boxes and weight of the clothes ripped out the fixings for the hanging bars in some of ours and all the clothes fell in an untidy, crumpled heap in the bottom so they all had to be ironed and re-hung up. I don't think we had one wardrobe box where the clothes were all still hanging nicely.

Apart from this type of box we were lucky enough to have several long but not very high boxes (100 cm long x 30 high x 46wide) which were also intended for clothing. If you lay the clothes out as smoothly as possible and fill the boxes to the top so nothing can shift about, they might just stay that way. I don't see any boxes this size or similar on the site you posted.

[welwynrose]

It'll mainly be clothes, shoes & some nick nacks plus a lot of the OH's comic collection, I'm not that bothered about having to re-iron when the clothes get there - I see this as a necessary evil as the stuff could be packed up for some time but I can't see the point in keeping my summer clothes & ski geat hanging around the house

[Ginabridget]

Hiya, I've spoken to a removals firm who want to charge me ?8/box for a tea chest/carton box which is 61cmx51cmx41cm. To me that seems expensive for a cardboard box, but apparently they're chemically hardened. This firm use one other size of box which is a 'book box carton' and is 51cmx41cmx31cm. I'm not sure if you can use your own boxes, but I think it's definitely worth another phone call to find out, that's if I can find their number again.

I'm moving house before we move to NZ and ideally I want to use the first move as a practice run for what we're going to be taking with us to NZ.

[MotherBear]

Originally Posted by Ginabridget

To me that seems expensive for a cardboard box, but apparently they're chemically hardened.

Yes, take care that the boxes have what they call a triple wall. We got some cheapo biggish boxes in the UK to ship some of my stuff here and, by the time the boxes arrived, they were sadly the worse for wear. At the same time we had bought a few good strong but smaller boxes from the shipper (they didn't have big ones) and they were still firm and intact when they arrived.

[ebianca]

Just wondering how you will be getting your things to NZ?

We are moving house (into the FIL's) before we move to NZ so are having to box our things up temporarily.

However we will be doing a shared container to get our things to NZ when we are ready and the shipping company will be re-packing all our things to ensure they are packed and protected correctly and so they can make an inventory of all our items.

If this is similar to what you will be doing then it won't really matter what you put your things in for now- the shipping company you use will supply the packing materials you need when you are ready for shipping.

Hope that helps.
Beth

[welwynrose]

we wont be shipping anything until we're settled in NZ as we're doing the old going on a 6 month holiday then trying to get jobs/visa things once we are there - we've decided that even then we won't be shipping any really large item so everything we do want to take will have to be put in storage until we've settled in NZ - so I suppose you're right about the boxes

[Burgundy21]

We used boxes we got ourselves ( new wine boxes of varied sizes, but v strong) . We thenshipped them using an air freight company recommended by Singapore Air. So far, so good. But....because we are "visitors" we should not have brought in any household items, and believe me trying to say a Habitat steamer is for holiday use is not easy!! If you come with PR you can bring what you want, but if not you may have a duty. Our customs man was vair kind, as the new rule had come into play on the Thursday and our boxes arrived Tuesday he let us have them duty free. Mother Bear knows more about this but beware the rules are changing all the time. Also now we have the stuff we don't want it as NZ has loads of posh shops selling steamers!

[KiwiHopeful]

You may want to be in touch with your removals company about box sizes. They may have some recommendations or restrictions.

Most of our stuff was packed by our movers, but I wanted to box up my books before hand, since I ultimately had 15 boxes worth it cut back on their time considerably. I was instructed to make sure that the books I packed were put into book boxes in order to keep the weight of the individual boxes reasonable and ensure that the boxes would not come apart during shipping. I was also told not to seal the boxes, since they would be itemized for customs purposes.

[welwynrose]

we haven't got a removal company yet - the man reason for the boxes is to pack up anything that we are not using at the moment but will want to take with us so that we can clear the house & get it on the market - it's amazing how much junk you accumulate over the years