How To Properly Pack A Moving Truck

If you’re planning to move either across town or to another region entirely, you can save yourself a bit of time by hiring a professional moving company to safely get all of your stuff to your new residence. Of course, doing so will can be expensive — perhaps in the thousands of dollars — and maybe that kind of money isn’t in your budget.

Fortunately, there’s a more financially feasible way to move. By renting a moving truck and related moving supplies, as well as asking friends to help you, you can get from point A to point B at a tangible discount. Even so, you have to do it the right way if you don’t want to end up with broken or scuffed furniture and equipment.

What follows is a look at how to properly pack a moving truck — so that everything arrives in good shape.

Move Biggest & Heaviest Things First

Your first order of business is to load the biggest and heaviest things into the moving truck before anything else. This includes your fridge, stove, dishwasher, and washer and dryer. You should place these items against the wall that is nearest to the moving truck cab. Make sure that all of these items are positioned upright and try to balance the weight so that it’s more or less evenly distributed.

Employ Furniture Padding

The same company you rent your moving truck from will also have padding and other packing supplies that you can rent. Don’t seek to cut costs by foregoing padding since it will safeguard your stuff and keep things from rubbing against each other.

Load Longer Things

The next thing you need to do is load longer items like your bed mattresses, box springs, couches, sofas and other such things. You’ll want to position these along the longest walls in the moving truck. By so doing, you’ll give yourself more space to work with when loading the rest of your things.

Take Apart Bed Frames & Tables

It makes sense to take apart bed frames, tables, desks and lamps and then to use tape to tie things together, which will make it easier to find everything when you get to your destination. If you’re taking a carpet or rug with you, you should roll up the carpet or rug and then slide the bed frames, table legs and lamp stand inside of the carpet or rug. You can keep things from falling out by stuffing both ends with sheets.

Load Large, Heavy Boxes

After loading the longer items, you should load the biggest and weightiest boxes. You can position these boxes on top of appliances and other things as well as in any spaces or slots that are available amongst the things that are already loaded onto the moving truck.

Load Lighter Boxes

Next, you’ll want to load the lighter boxes, which you can place on top of the bigger and heavier boxes. When you’ve finished doing this, you can fill in the space between the moving truck roof and the boxes with things like clothing or sheets.

Load Fragile Items

You’ll now want to load the fragile items — after properly wrapping or boxing them up, of course. Placing them beneath chairs or tables will help to keep them protected during the move.

Fill in the Gaps

Last but not least, you should fill in any gaps that you can find. Whether using clothes, sheets or anything else, you’ll want to try to fill in spaces so that nothing moves around when the truck is in motion.

If you follow these steps, you’ll be well on your way towards safely getting your stuff to your new home. You can save money by renting a moving truck and moving your own stuff, and these steps will help you to do it right.