rivingtonpike

Before, during and after...

brookel

Hi, we're in the process of getting quotes from shipping companies to move our stuff from Congleton, Cheshire to Vancouver next January. When Anglo Pacific came round they said that any boxes that we pack ourselves we must leave open for them to inventory.....when I put it to him that it doesn't make any difference to customs who packed the boxes his reply was that they (customs) are always more suspicious of self-packed instead of company packed and will open them.

I don't have a problem with other people packing the things other than I plan to utilise every miniscule of space, and as we'll be going just after xmas I want as much done as possible by mid Dec.

Anyhoo, had 4 companies round so far, two more still to go. I'll post quotes when I've got them.

brookel

woodywoodside

They don't know who packed your stuff, I have just used a company call KFL shipping got them off this site somewhere and they were fantastic I honestly cannot praise them enough. We even got to the airport and was over weight and they couriered a box out for us. We packed our selves and it cost just under £2500.00 Devon to Vancouver. Absolutely no where on our paper work does it say who packed just a list of box numbers.
To make life easier we hired a 20ft container at a storage yard which had nice easy access then over the month we filled it two days after our house completed we then had our shipping container delivered to the storage yard and loaded from the hired container to the shipping container. This took about 2 hours. The storage yard supplied a man to help at £15.00 an hour most will do this. We have saved a small fortune doing it this way for the second time and loading over a month is so easy. I keep a full inventory of every item in every box that way when it arrives and we are in rented I can find things and doing it over a month or so means that I have time to wrap properly and do this. We also bought second hand boxes from gumtree enough for a four bed house £20.00. I printed my labels off my computer and my numbers. Honestly far less stressful than loads of guys turning up for a day throwing everything in boxes, riffling though your stuff and putting the most bizarre things in together. When we used Dorree Bonner thats just what happened. My inventory list now is around 8 pages long and I can find anything that I might need.
I hope this helps.

brookel

Hi Woodywoodside if you don't mind my asking, What sort of customs charges/fees did you pay at Vancouver port when your container arrived? Did you need/use an 'agent' there? Companies I've seen so far seem to go on about them. One of them said he'd quote us with and without using agent.
We're taking our 4x4 and I've read somewhere customs charge approx $700 CAD for this alone.
How did you unload to your residence in Vancouver?
Hope you don'y mind all of the questions, any help/info at all much appreciated

tia brookel

woodywoodside

I am happy to help. Our shipping arrives on the 24 July. All charges were included. We live in Kelowna and we plan on clearing it ourselves I know lots of people that have done this it takes approximately 10 mins but you must be present. In fact we were going to take a car with us but just proved to much hassle because of loading. The guy I deal with is as far as I know a one man band when we were looking at taking a car he called around lots of companies where we lived to see if we could use their loading bay we found a place at a local logistics company for only £50.00 as apposed to the £800.00 to hire a low loader.
Any questions just ask I am setting up a company at the moment at still using this guy I have bought some second hand equipment that he is collecting and packing for me. How is that for service

Cawsand

We went with Excess International Movers. They are coming next week and we opted for them to partially pack our house as I have 2 munchkins who love to unpack as quickly as I can pack, and I have a job interview on the same day!

We also got quotes from a few other companies. White & Co gave us the line that 'anything we packed would have to be unpacked and then re-packed by them... because customs trusted them more than us.' He even went on to say that the only guarantee to customs that we were not smuggling in drugs and arms amongst the kids toys was for them to pack. At which point I smiled politely and finished the meeting. I don't know if I caught the salesman on an off day but he was weird. And it also took them a week and half to send through a quote and nobody answered the phone at their office... not very reassuring from the start.

We also picked up our insurance through another company to save money. Thanks to all the posts on this forum, I feel like I've made a far more informed decision!

arniedog

hope you dont mind me asking but who did you get your insurance through and (this is where i get cheeky ) how much was it? Ive got pickfords , Britannia and robinsons coming next Fri to quote on 3 bed from north Essex to Toronto . Will let you all know how it goes

Cawsand

No problem. I used 'insure-your-move.com', they have been mentioned on the forum before. The premium was calculated at 1.48% of the value to replace at the destination. Good luck with everything.

nativenewyorker

We used Robinsons. Originally they quoted 2.5% for insurance, but then dropped it to 1%. Don't forget to play one off against the other

sarah.h

Hi has any body delt with pickfords or white and co. how was there service??

helcat12

White and Co have been good so far. They didn't give me any of the customs opening the boxes if they were owner packed thing, although funnily enough GB Liners did!
The container reaches Montreal tomorrow, all being well and then takes the train to Vancouver. We'll see what happens at that end.
I got my insurance separately, though and it was a lot cheaper than the removers were quoting. It is with a Liverpool firm (my home town and where the container ship sailed from, so seemed good to me!) Letton Percival.
No nonsense, no hard sell and just quick and easy to deal with.

arniedog

ive got pickfords coming next Friday to give me a quote . Ill let you know how it goes

helcat12

If you don't know where "there" is I doubt anybody will be able to give you a quote to ship your stuff to somewhere else

arniedog

very true but im here at the moment so i know where i am . I only get confused when im meant to be there

furries

Pickfords are moving our stuff now ... I cannot fault the team that packed us up and loaded the container and rushed it to get it to the boat ahead of the one we were expecting to be on ... they were really good with packing and stuff. And their price was good to ... I am not going to completely sing their praises until the stuff arrives! Will update when this happens!

I note that one poster here has spoken about packing a Hilux ... I take it that you have read up on all the challenges with exporting a used vehicle, it being legal over here and making sure its clean? (not just drive clean, but clean clean?)

After a bit of worry over the goods to follow list, when I arrived, the chap actually preferred my list over and above the Pickfords one!

Should be here later this month!