hannah1001

So the flights are booked and we'll be arriving in the Okanagan at the start of August! All very exciting - particularly as I sit at work in a grey Glastonbury, and check the Okanagan webcams so see beautiful sunshine (a compulsive habit I've developed!). The dog is now sorted (thanks to all who replied on my previous thread about him) and will join us (via luxury transport!) in September.

I now have the quandary of what to ship over! We had thought to ship pretty much everything over, except white goods, but was wondering if anyone had any advice on this? [LIST][*]

1. Do we bring everything - crockery, cutlery, cushions, sofas, beds etc - basically a 3 bed house?
2. Are we right in selling white goods/electrical appliances, or should we bring them over too - will they work on Canadian voltage? What about radios, hair driers etc?
3. Would it be cheaper to sell here and buy everything new when we get there? (I can't imagine this could be right, but I have been known to be wrong occasionally!)
4. Someone had suggested that it's not worth bringing beds, as the bed siz

es in Canada are different and it causes hassle - is this true?

We will be living in a fully furnished house for the first 10 months, so won't need any of our stuff immediately (so shipping times will be fine), but we will need to furnish a house after that.

Has anyone any advice or experience of this? Are there things you took but regret it now, or things you wish you'd taken??

Thanks

snoopdawg

Hi Hannah
I'll try to help a bit.
We moved 8 years ago but I'll give you my thoughts.
We moved from a very old house in the UK with matching furniture. We had collected it for years. It wouldn't have survived the Okanagan. Most houses are air conditioned and the climate is dry anyway. I think it would have cracked and looked awful.
Plus we changed our tastes somewhat. Modern houses/styles seem to fit better here. Our furniture would have looked very "wrong". Anything that was more modern looking that we brought over has all been sold. I think all that remains is a very nice glass desk from John Lewis in one son's room plus a very old Ikea bed in our spare room with matching M&S bedroom furniture. Its more modern than the rest of our old stuff as it was in an annex in the UK.
If I could turn back time , I would only have brought those bits.
White goods- tend to be sold with a house- but we gutted ours so bought new. Without transformers not sure they would work- but I know nothing about electrics- I leave that for experts!
We brought some TVs that were also compatible over here and had dual voltage.
Kettles/toasters- etc- all new.
Hairdryers only if dual voltage.
Pots/pans/crockery/cushions- I'd bring those.
Towels, good bedding, dog beds all came.
Sofas if nice and have some life to them
Stinky says no DIY tools as they don't work- he bought new and says they are cheaper- old ones went to recycling.
Garden tools ok if scrubbed- we used Jeyes.
One worry for me is storage costs. They will rapidly mount up over 10 months- I would want to storage as little as possible.
HTH

scilly

As snoopdawg said ........

........ houses, apartments, condos over here usually all come with fridge, stove, often microwave, and usually washer and dryer. That applies whether you are buying or renting.

I'd save your money, and leave those at home.

You should note that the term "white goods" is not used here ............. I'm not even sure that most Canadians would know what it means. I'm English but have been here almost 49 years, I'd never heard the term before I left England, and the first time I heard it I assumed it meant household cotton items such as bed sheets.


Double beds are a slightly different size over here ............ we have a Scandinavian bed, bought here, and we have to buy either specially ordered extra long sheets, or buy Queen size. We had a few English sheets and they fitted it perfectly. Queen and king are about the same size here and there.

Electric appliances will need a transformer ...... I've seen the guys on here say that it is perfectly easy to get those transformers and that they work well. Personally, I'd rather buy new over here. I think you can buy them for cheaper than in the UK, if you shop around.

Remember you will have plenty of time to look around if you are in a fully furnished house, as it should have at least the minimum amount of small appliances that you need, such as toaster or toaster oven ............. check out the sales, discount stores, etc. You might not find an electric mixer, electric coffee pot, waffle maker or such "luxury" items supplied, but buy them slowly after you get here.

snoopdawg

Having had another think!
Bring lots of towels/ bed linen
The quality here is awful, even " show me the best you have" at the Bay yields rubbish.Even IKEA beats the local offerings. Maybe expensive shops in the likes of Vancouver can do better but you'll pay crazy prices.
Good quality M&S and John Lewis towels /bed linen from many years ago are still going strong. "Top quality stuff " from here has been binned several times.
I haven't found bed sizes too much of an issue if I'm careful. Mattress height is my main problem.
I'm sticking to M&S from now on, even imported it's still cheaper than local offerings and much better quality.

hannah1001

Great tips, thanks guys!
OK... I'll go ahead with selling our electrical goods, but keep the beds. I best fit in a trip to John Lewis for some more towels too!

This move is costing a fortune (how much for PNP application?! 😲) so any money saving tips are hugely appreciated!

rivingtonpike

Well, for what it's worth, unless it's the difference between a 20ft container and a 40ft container, I would advocate bringing everything you can. I agree Dishwashers, fridges and stoves and the like are likely already in whatever house you're going to end up in. Plus they might sweeten the deal if you're selling in the UK and you include them in the sale. As for tools, yes you may well need a transformer to push the voltage up to 220 volts (in my case, turned out I had a 220 volt outlet in my garage already anyway). I have no idea of second hand values in the UK, but I would suspect not very high. Just for fun, make a list of all your power tools, leaf blowers etc. Then go on Canadian Tire or Lowes and just see how much it would cost to replace them.

withabix

10 months storage for a 3 bedroom house full in Kelowna will cost you about $3000. Anything made of wood shaped or bent wood will suffer in the low humidity. We have a collection of antique 'cottage' chairs and some of those suffered whilst in storage in Kelowna.

Forget your UK white goods - they will be useless over here.

If your radios are DAB, forget those as well. There is no DAB over here - they tried it some time ago and binned it, so it won't be coming back....

Kettles, toasters and irons will be no good, even if you get a transformer - they will take out your breakers as soon as you switch them on. Canadian ones are HALF the power. And are all crap. Without exception.

Get rid of your DIY power tools - same reason. Also things with motors will usually not last long even with a transformer - UK leccy is 50hz, Canadian leccy is 60hz.

We've still got one UK bed. The rest are 'Canadian' from IKEA. People keep telling me that there are size issues - but that only applies to beds that aren't 5' or 6' wide.

A UK King is basically a Canadian Queen. Double beds are the same size. Single beds aren't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_size

rivingtonpike

Presumably you left or sold all your power tools before you came to Canada - so how do you know they wouldn't work? I brought all mine, and I'm still using some of them after more than 7 years. I have 2 drills (one is a double handled "big" one), jigsaw, rotary sanders. hot air paint stripper and an electric leaf blower (I admit I've recently replaced the leaf blower, but it was over 10 years old and I wanted a gas one because of the distances involved). I also replaced the pressure washer thingy with a gas one because I needed the portability and extra umph.

I'm sorry, but it's just not true they won't work. With a power source of 220v, they will. Whether they work as well I honestly couldn't say, but if your intention is to drill a hole - and it drills a hole - then as far as I can see it has worked.

scilly

Surely if the UK tool does not work as well, and has to be replaced within a couple of years, then one should consider whether it is worth the cost of bringing?

R I C H

As part of the cost of a shipping container it's a negligible amount, so why leave them behind? Many of the tools I shipped worked fine - removing the need to pay out $1000's to replace them with all the other inevitable settling in expenses incurred is common sense.

rivingtonpike

There is no cost to bringing power tools. If you are going from a 20ft container to a 40ft container for the sake of an electric screwdriver then yes, I would question whether it's worth it. But if you have the space? I'm still using some UK tools to this day and they're running fine.

Stinkypup

Im sure that there is an echo in this thread

hannah1001

I love that you're all so concerned with power tools! To be honest they hadn't crossed my mind! I'll pass your thoughts on to my husband (though I'm not sure he'll be too concerned either) 😉. The coffee machine on the other hand.....

Stinkypup

That was partly my fault when I talked to Snoopdawg- boys toys and all that -

I nearly was the cause of WW3...never mind Trump and Kim-jong-un

To be honest-we brought so much stuff in our 40 foot container which I really regret-particularly furniture made of wood, the beautifully dry atmosphere in the Okanagan as people have already said basically makes even decent furniture fall apart.
We brought a set of beautiful teak garden furniture which to be honest is now worth next to nothing and is fairly high maintenance. I will need to at least try and clean this up a little bit before trying to sell it for probably not a lot of money.

hannah1001

Great advice regarding wooden furniture, thanks. Lots of our furniture is wood though - will none of it survive? Is everything plastic out there? (I'm thinking bookcases, dressers, chest of drawers?)