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Packing up for Moving Day

FauxHall

FauxHall

Super Member
Movers are coming next Friday to put our possessions into a container and ship to our little island in the Philippines.

My wife is sure that the movers will safely disassemble and pack my precious stereo gear but I've taken the precaution of beginning he process myself. I've disconnected the music room system and packed just about everything where I have the original manufacturers' boxes.

But I've left a scratch system in the living room of stuff that will have to have other boxing - except for the Harbeth speakers and the Thorens turntable. I'll get to those the day before the movers come so I can still enjoy music and the television. This combination sounds pretty good!

Wish me luck in getting everything into my garage in Panglao Island safely.
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I did not -and still would not- trust anyone other than me to pack my stereo.

When we moved to Belize, I bought bubble-wrap, a big roll of thin foam, and boxes from U-Line and packed it all myself.
I was fortunate enough to get a nice, really heavy-duty crate from where I was working. The entire inside of the crate was lined with 1 inch foam.

Each piece of gear was individually wrapped in foam and bubble-wrap and put in a plastic bag with a couple of desiccant bags in each. The amps were at the bottom of the crate and everything else was stacked on top with layers of bubble-wrap between.

The crate spent a few months in an unheated storage unit in upstate NY -during the winter- and then several more months either in transit, in storage in Belize or in my new neighbor's garage while our house was being built. All in all the stereo was in a crate for a little over a year.

When we finally moved in, everything was in pristine condition and I had zero problems.

A small Bluetooth speaker kept my wife and I sane while we lived without the stereo.
 
I would make sure each unit is double boxed. with the interior boxed wrapped tightly in water proof plastic before being paced in the outer box with some some sort of 2 inch foam shock absorbing material.
 
Cool... That's some great looking gear and I hope that it sounds at least as good, if not better at your new place. I hate the whole moving process, particaurly moving LPs and all of the cleanup that typically needs to be done. I do like the moving in process though, which somewhat makes up for the moving out part. In a new space, one gets to be creative about how to arrange all of the furniture and the artwork and there's just something nice about seeing all of your stuff in this new context... it's as if both your old stuff and the new space are both suddenly brand new.
 
Moved from PA to MS in 2014. Didn't trust the moving company to pack any of my audio gear (even though they did an excellent job on everything else). Pack it all myself back into the original boxes in the months leading up to the move. Even transported a big portion of it myself to MS. Yes.....I'm anal retentive. :)
 
GChief said:
From someone that had movers every 3 yrs for 20 yrs, let her know that is typically not a thing. I always packed the stuff we were concerned about.

Good luck
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I only had good luck when moving back to the US from Germany... the German packers made custom boxes for all our valuable stuff, and even though I had packed my stereo equipment in the original boxes, they double then triple boxed those. Not even a Christmas ornament was damaged on both of our moves back to the U.S. (We did not have such luck going from the U.S. to Germany- lots of busted up stuff and water damage and never could get reimbursed).
 
During my last big move I didn't label the boxes good enough. I thought I somehow threw away a small box worth a couple grand containing a phono cartridge and related gear.

Took me a couple years to stumble upon the box. I packed these things in an empty Harley Davidson air filter box, then saw the box with other Harley stuff. Something in the back of my head told me I had put that filter to use, so I opened it up. What a nice surprise!

I hope your move goes as planned and nothing gets misplaced.

Sounds like a nice place to move to.
 
Good luck with the move!

When we bought a house 6 years, I had to move my 5000+ record collection. I was living on the top floor of a 3-story walkup.

Took everything out in shopping bags and moved it over a period of 2 months. Ended up being over 30 carloads of vinyl. Phew!
 
Your post caught my eye because I’m also in the middle of planning a big move—though not quite as far as the Philippines! I can totally relate to wanting to personally handle the packing of your prized gear. I had the same feeling about my own collection of guitars and amps.

Even though the moving company we’re using (which came highly recommended as one of the best moving company in our area) assured us they’d pack everything carefully, I just couldn’t leave it up to chance. I love that you’ve left a scratch system going! Music always helps during those last hectic days.
 
We moved from North Texas to Australia last May, I packed all of my audio gear in the original boxes and thankfully nothing got broken during the move. Some of the boxes were seriously battered though, e.g. my Naim amp’s box had a fork tine shaped hole in it, no marks on the amp as it looks like the tine slid an inch or so under the amp. Interesting wrinkle was insurance, the shipping company would not insure any of my gear for damage unless their packers packed it, and they wanted to charge me several hundred $ extra for each item packed this way. On the day it was clear that the packers weren’t exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer so I asked them to leave the audio gear alone and I took my chances, and saved some of the insurance premium. The packers finished and the truck left our house on 8th May. Our stuff eventually showed up in Sydney in the middle of September.

I hope your move goes well and is a little faster than ours!
 
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