What's in a Box? Your Guide to Moving Boxes

Posted on 06/12/2013

Gone are the days when moving house meant packing your entire house into tea crates and boxes that you got from your local grocer. The choices in moving packaging is now amazing: with a box for almost every item and eventuality. Some of them are quite brilliant inventions, so let’s look at the types of box you’re going to need for your house move.

You’ll need a good selection of large linen boxes for lightweight cloth items including duvets, sheets, towels and curtains. Then medium boxes for those everyday kitchen and bathroom items, pictures and bits and pieces. Nothing too heavy should go into these. Now, here are the rather ingenious box designs for all the other items in your home.

Wardrobe boxes – now these are clever chaps. Rather than taking all your clothes off hangers and folding them, getting them creased and taking your time while they go into linen boxes, you can now use a wardrobe box. These are tall cartons, complete with a hanging rail. They tend to be around a meter tall. So you save time: just transferring your lovely shirts, dresses, suits and more from wardrobe to box. Plus, they keep hanging throughout the move so they won’t be all creased. On arrival in the new house, you just transfer them back into the wardrobe.

Book boxes – it’s absolutely vital that heavy items like books and CDs get packed in short, smaller boxes to keep them liftable without – literally – breaking your back. The advice is to keep each box below 20 kilos. So don’t just shove those heavy items in a big linen box, because professional movers wont touch them – and if you do, you’re likely to do a lot of damage to yourself. Book boxes should have double walls so they are strong, have a capacity of about fifty litres and measure around 17” x 13” x 14” … or within an inch or two.

Glass boxes – whilst we all know that we should have kept the boxes our glassware came in for what seemed at the time as a long distant day we might need them again, this isn’t always possible or practical. But never fear: you can buy or rent glasses boxes that will safely store and transport wine glasses, mugs and champagne flutes. With cardboard partitions, these reinforced cartons keep their rigidity and protect each individual glass within. Many have a horizontal divider too, so you can have two layers of glasses, with between 30 and 40 glasses or cups per box. For extra delicate items, wrap them in bubble-wrap first and ensure the box is marked both ‘FRAGILE’ and ‘THIS WAY UP’.

Sporting goods boxes – golf clubs, rackets, cues and so forth can be worth a lot of money. They’re worth treating specially, to avoid damage. The good news is, there are special boxes for clubs and more, designed to keep them safe and unbattered throughout the moving process. Neoprene is also an excellent material for protecting club heads and tips on cues, as well as laptops and more.

Fireproof boxes – for your vital paperwork, wills and boxes, consider investing in a fireproof archive box. This is not just a good tip for moving day, but for storage in the long term. These important documents need protection from wear and tear, water and in the worst case scenario – fire. These boxes are lockable, so you are also safe from theft.

None of these cost a fortune. For a small outlay, you’ll know that your protecting your valuables, not breaking the bank or back and giving your prized possessions the ultimate protection. Look out for moving kits that include as many of these are possible.