Moving
Household removals require careful wrapping and packing to avoid damage to furniture and effects, so many household policies do not cover goods in transit unless they are being packed, carried and unpacked by a professional remover. In the moving industry, when a customer packs and unpacks his own boxes it is referred to as PBO (packed by owner) and policies do not insure these goods. On PBO moves it can become a point of huge contention between the mover and the customer as to who is at fault regarding damaged items within a box. Was it packed improperly by the customer or did the mover mishandle the box?
The process of packing a van or container for a removal requires that polished surfaces are protected (usually with special blankets or cardboard). China and other fragile effects are packed in rigid boxes, originally wooden tea chests but now usually cardboard, with layers of bunched up blank newsprint commonly used to protect against scratches and chips in transit. Soft materials may be packed in bags, suitcases or boxes. Custom wooden crates are typically used when transporting large, heavy and odd shaped objects.
Removal vans will often have a Luton body, internal wooden wall bars (called raves) to which tall or heavy furniture can be secured with webbing, and a ramp or tail lift to assist in loading. Space on trucks is at a premium, so an experienced loader will pack into voids in furniture and use awkward shaped items such as ironing boards to fill narrow gaps.
Moving furniture in and out of houses, especially older properties, presents challenges; in areas where there are many older properties, furniture movers may be adept at removing and reinstalling sash window panes. Most double bed bases can be split, folded or dismantled.
Pianos are a particular problem; removals contractors will usually have specialist piano trolleys and there is a device colloquially known as a shoe which is strapped to the side of a grand piano to allow it to be rested on edge on the trolley without damaging the finish or applying excessive force to the sides of the instrument.
Read more about this topic: Moving Companies
Famous quotes containing the word moving:
“The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.”
—Edward Fitzgerald (1809–1883)
“We are all talkers
It is true, but underneath the talk lies
The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose
Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of families traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)