How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hey all,

As the title implies, we are trying to figure out in real terms how much a twenty foot (20x8x8) standard container will actually hold. Has anyone used this size container, and can give us an idea of how much furniture you can fit in? We are trying to figure out whether we should ditch some bits or try and cram them in.

We don't have a lot of large furniture - 2 beds (one double, one single), a two seater sofa and armchair, drinks cabinet, chest of drawers and several bookcases. Its all the boxes of stuff that add up too - kitchen equipment, soft furnishings, books, clothes, work tools, computer equipment, personal effects etc. I am having a tough time 'getting rid' of stuff! :o

Any advice would help - if you crammed everything from a three bed house in one, I would love to know!

LL x

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

we had a 20 ft it's about the size of a normal garage, we fitted the contents of a 3 bed house plus garage and shed, plenty of room:D

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

If it helps, these are the figures we've been given for a 20ft Container.

Internal Length 5.87m
Internal Width 2.33m
Internal Height: 2.35m
Door Width: 2.09m
Door Height: 2.26m
Floor area: 13.93m2
Cubic capacity: 32.85m3


We have a room fairly similar in size which we found useful for sizing things up.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Thank you, thats very helpful!

Did you pack it yourself, or did the shipping company do it? I know there is quite a difference in price if you do it yourself, but not sure if that is a wise idea... ;)

Thanks for the measurements - sizing up a similar space in the house is a good idea!

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

shipping company did it, they know how to pack and arrange things so it all fits, cost 5100 pounds inc insurance with Britannia Robins

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

I would prefer them to pack it! :D But we are considering saving pennies where we can as the exchange rate is bad at the mo. Hope it picks up in our favour soon...

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

We had a 20ft container. We brought the majority of the contents of our 4 bed house, excluding white goods and beds (we were advised to buy new beds here as the sizes are different). It all just fitted into it with a few cm's to spare.

We were guided by the removals guy who came round to estimate for us. He just asked us to show him all we were bringing, wrote it all down and calculated the size of container. I think most of the removals firms will do this too. They tend to be the 'experts' at working out your cubic capacity based on the belongings you intend to bring.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hi
If you have not already had any surveys, then it would be wise to do so. Especially when you are unsure of actual volume. The companies may think you could do a shared container to save on costs.

If not do shop around for the best price. We are paying £5333 for a 40' container, but some of the quotes we had were anywhere between that and 9.5k.
Good luck
Stef



shippin

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Thanks guys. We are show homing our house for sale at the moment, so haven't had anyone round for quotes yet. We figured it would be easier to get an accurate quote once we pulled out our belongings from the loft again! We stripped most of our rooms of clutter to make the most of the sale. ;)

Any advice on companies to use? Personal recommendations are always helpful.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hi there. We had a 20' container which cost us under 4,000. This included them to do all the packing etc and included shipping door to door (Surrey to just outside Calgary). We were advised to allow the company to do the packing - we were told Customs are more likely to let it pass if packed by a shipping company - more likely to want to have a look and check contents otherwise, for which you can be charged. Don't know if there's any real truth to this or not but this is what we were told. Also, if the company packs it, you will have a better chance of claiming against any damages. Also, the companies are used to packing and so do a better job than what we would have done - they use specialist packing materials too - all the furniture got wrapped in a kind of heavy duty coated bubble wrap.

We had several companies around to do quotes. Prices varied a lot. I know someone earlier mentioned Britannia. There's was actually the most expensive quote we got at over 6,000. We used White & Co, based in Bournemouth. We were really pleased with their services - very efficient and no problems.

Every company that came around said a 20' container would be big enough (we were moving from a smaller three bed semi). However, when it came to it, not everything quite fitted. We were going to bring a two seater sofa (it had seen better days and was going to be used in the kids playroom) so decided to leave that behind. A couple of other odds and ends got left behind such as the kitchen bin and a plastic patio set but that was just about it. What we did bring over furniture wise was a dining room table and chairs, tall dresser, book case, coffee table, hi fi and TV cabinets, three beds and mattresses, 4 chest of drawers, 3 bedside cabinets, two wardrobes, large storage unit plus loads of other bits and bobs and boxes of stuff etc, not to mention the garden slide, various bikes and sledges etc. To be fair, for a small house, we did have a lot of stuff - with two kids, a dog and a cat, we were bursting at the seams! Chances are, from what you have listed, a 20' container would probably be enough but hopefully the removal companies will be able to advise you better once they assess the volume of stuff you have. We found some had a quick look in the loft to see what we had, others didn't.

I wish you all the best. :)

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Funny enough we were told the same by the shipping companies and thought that it was a point worth considering. They decided rather than going directly to re-routed it via US and off loaded it and reloaded it on another ship. Guess what happens - US customs decide to inspect it so we get asked to pay a bill for landing in a country that we didn't even agree that they would go to and still have a risk of customs inspection when it arrives in Canada. When we point out how unreasonable this was as their decision to reroute it has incurred this charge and double the risk of damage (they tell you to get it insured as the most likely time for damage is loading and off loading) they now say that 80% of containers entering US / Canada and 100% entering Australia get inspected! Not sure if that is true or it just suits them to say but either way it would be nice if they were consistent! :frown::curse::mad:

In summary if what they are now saying is true, I don't think that it makes a lot of difference who packs it with regard to customs actually inspecting the container.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

We had a 20 ft container which arrived a few weeks back in Calgary. We fitted the contents of our 3 bed house.. I threw nothing away and was so glad we didnt..

If you have the time I would suggest packing yourself as it does save you a fortune! We spent about fifty pounds on bubble wrap and those big rolls of cling film.. ( I thought hubby had an obsession with it he wrapped everything.) inc.. Beds, Sofas etc The advantage of this was that when we loaded everything it kind of stuck together and gave the boxes strength and of course waterproof as the container was a bit wet inside when it arrived:eek: Not a thing moved in that container and no breakages:)

We did have more room and could have fitted more in.. they are fairly deceptive because of course you can fill it to the ceiling..:)

Good luck..


Top Cat:)

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

That's awful :thumbdown: Our's got shipped to the east coast somewhere and then came by train to Calgary where it then cleared Customs with no problems whatsoever. The shipping company this end then just held on to it at no extra cost until we had bought our house and were ready to have everything delivered to our house. We moved nearly 18 months ago now and, at the time, the shipping companies told us that the containers coming to Canada rarely got opened; some even went so far as to say they'd never had any opened upon reaching Canada. If it's true that they are now opening around 80% of them, that's not good and will probably result extra unforseen cost for many people. Let's just hope it's not the case. :fingerscrossed:

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

I have posted this before but if you have a good local moving company then ask them. If they are a reasonable size then they can probably sort it with no hassle. We used a local Norwich company who were connected with a good Canadian company etc. The huge advantage was having local guys who we knew, who were flexible, who weren't coming a long distance to pack etc etc. so we were able to pack up over a few days and they held our stuff locally until the ship was sailing. They also matched our best quote.
Whoever you go with this should be a very simple process. I have done it a few times both ways with no hassle and only one thing every broken.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Can you get/use containers smaller than 20ft? Ie, can you use 15ft or even 10ft containers? We only have a small 1 bedroom flat, so other than a sofa, bed, desk, wardrobe, coffee table, TV & other small bits there isn't really that much we would need to move. If so, has anyone used a small container and how much did it cost (We would need it Newcastle upon Tyne to Vancouver)?

Also someone mentioned storage at the other end. How much have people paid for the shipping company to hold on to the stuff for a few weeks/months until we got a house/condo sorted? Also is there a time limit on how long you can keep stuff in storage with the shipping companies?

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

20ft is a standard shipping container (Actually called a "Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit or TEU). There is nothing smaller so if you are only shipping a partial container you make what is called a groupage or consolidated shipment. Your shipper/removal company will consolidate your shipment with other shipments going to the same or nearby destinations. That way you only pay for what you need. The downside is that consolidated shipments usually take longer as time is required to receive, consolidate, load, ship, unload, deconsolidate and then deliver goods. As there is more handling involved there is arguably more risk of damge but this can be minimised by good packaging.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hi LL,

We normally say as a guide the average contents of a 3 bed house would fit in a 20ft container, but then everyone is different right? depends how much stuff you like to have! If it helps I have an excel spreadsheet that you can put all your items into and it will tell you the total volume, 1050 cubic feet is what we suggest will fit in a 20ft container (actual capacity is more i.e. if you fill it with water, but we allow for the awkward spaces between furniture etc).

Send me your email address by private message if you'd like me to send it over to you? There is another version on our website which is a webpage rather than excel if you'd rather that, but this involves submitting your details for a free quotation so depends if you're at that stage yet?

hope that helps!

Kirsty

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

If you don't have that much furniture, you should be able to arrange it quite nicely inside the 20' container, a bit like an trendy IKEA studio showroom. Pack plenty of sandwiches, and save yourself the airfares by going across inside your container.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

I understand that you can only get modules of 20 & 40 ft which is so that they can stack them on the ships. You can get smaller containers smaller but I don't think the shipping companies use them.

We had a forty foot container and we ask for storage costs prior to placing our booking (highly recommended as it allows you to still negotiate with them) and they quoted two costs. An initial cost to offload into storage (from memory @$400/lump sum) and a storage cost (again from memory @$450/month). Others quoted highly and lower prices but they were all about the same give or take 10%. A 20ft should be cheaper.

One thing worth considering is that if you have a small amount of good, it might be worth selling / gifting items rather than shipping them as the cost of the container might be more than replacing them (we worked out how much our goods were worth and then used a Canadian Website (try the Brick - http://www1.thebrick.com/brickb2c/js...FRBsgwodgXYHDQ) to see how much it would cost to replace our goods. Obviously having your goods avoids having to shop straight away. A lot of UK items such as sofas are smaller than Canadian ones and sometimes seem lost in the bigger homes that you find in Canada.

Hope this helps.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hi
Presumably you would not...in that case....forget to take some oxygen cylinders with you...as they are AIRTIGHT.....unless you get a broken old one....If air and daylight can get in....so will water.....not clever when travelling by sea.......but I do know you woz joking though!!!!!
lol.....lol.....lol:rofl::rofl:
Stef

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hi,

We had a 20ft container and managed to fit the contents of a 3 bedroomed house into it. The only thing we did not take were items with plugs on them. It is amazing how much stuff you can fit into one. :ohmy: and with 2 kids, lots of toys came too.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

We had a 20ft container, it was delivered last Friday. Customs never looked sideways at us. We packed probably about half the small things ourselves, not only does it save money but was we were both done working and we were really bored!
Customs was great, they only asked if any alcohol/seeds/tabacco as we had none, said no, they stamped it again and whoosh out the door. We did take our 2 yr old grand daughter and she got more attention then our container did lol

We took about 70% of our things from a 3 bedroom house. and still had a bit of room left over. No breakages and everything went like clock work

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Hi, we did this just last month (boat arrives next week yippee!) and none of the companies I saw (RObinson, Doree Bonner and one other I forget the name) would allow us to pack for ourselves if we also wanted insurance. I guess it's their neck on the line if you smuggle in illegal marmite. We fitted a 3 bed house with a lifetimes worth of tat in boxes in a 20ft but I would caution that the packers don't really make best use of space, so flat pack everything possible or else they will carefully wrap round every bookcase, leave cupboards and drawers empty etc.. I filled every nook and cranny and then left them open to for the guys to have a poke around. They didn't really bother so I did manage some marmite and half empty bottles of sherry after all ;)

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

The reason for them not allowing insurance is correct. To get insurance you need the container to be packed and accounted for by a professional packer.

There are also options to use freight forwarders instead of the moving companies you mention. I am working on this possibilty with my company who have multiple containers from the UK to Canada each week to be able to offer these services from door to door. It looks like there are a lot of people on this site who could use this freight service. Once I have more info together about how we can help I will post a message on here.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

We've had a quote from the US back to UK for $5,950 for a 20' which includes loading and unloading, door to door plus the terminal handling charge at the US end.

Insurance isn't covered and a zero deductible is 3.95% so for say $15,000 is another $600, 1% or $150 less for $500 deductible..... I have a question, is ther any cheaper way to get insurance? Travel insurance or similar?

Also, any idea of what the terminal handling charge will be at the UK end as that's not covered either?

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

When we emigrated, we did not fill a 20' container, so our local shipping company rented part of the container, maybe a quarter of it. It duly arrived in Vancouver 6 weeks later.

The answer to your other question, how long can you keep stuff in storage, is surely as long as you go on paying for the storage.

Brian

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Sorry if this is a silly question but does the container arrive in the street to be filled?

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Not a silly question at all! There are two ways really, and will depend on the move plan (i.e. when you need your items collected, when the sailing date is etc) and the access at your property (i.e. will a container lorry fit, can it get near enough to the house for loading and can it park for long enough to load it?) so the mover will either load on site if its accessible or if not they might take your items back to their depot and move them onto the container lorry there. Ask when you get a quote how the mover plans to do this and they should be happy to explain the options with you. Hope that helps!

Kirsty

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Thanks very much Kirsty just got a quote from EVL and they say they come with the container and have to pack it all..

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

I recently had a 20ft container, Liverpool to Calgary. Packed everything myself and loaded the container for £2500. I brought everything apart that wasn't nailed down apart from 'white goods' and there was loads of room left so I wouldn't worry. Customs didn't check ours either, just looked at the packing list and stamped it so I don't think it makes a difference who packs it. I just made sure my packing list was extremely detailed. I also made sure that my son's bike and a tool kit was placed at the entrance of the container just in case customs wanted to check them but they didn't.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

We have a self storage facility and use 10, 20 & 30ft containers all the time, the amount you can fit in acontainer is all down to who packs it, we work with 3 different removers and there work differs widely, I have seen one company move a customer in to storage and use 2 x 20ft containers and the the other company come and manage to fit 2 into 1, I would never have thought of filling and packing someones belongings as an Art but it is, a skillfull remover /packer can map out your entire home contents in his mind and pack the whole container in his head, the £7 per hour muppets just load the heavy stuff first and then bung everyting else on top, For my money its well worth asking the question "Who will be packing my goods ?" If its 2 boys in a van then ask if there time served because the lads who turn up here are full of muscle and short on brains !!!! Give me an older Gent who has 20 years under his belt anyday, a well packed box = no damage, We are sending our own containers out to Vancouver and we are starting the pack now with bits and bobs migrating into storage as we decluter the house ready for the estate agents,( we head for vancouver over chreistmas) a new " One trip" container will cost you £1900 more or less dropped to your door in most cases,We can supply if you like, Most of the shipping companys would rather you rented there containers but DHL frieght will move the seacan for you. and then you have it at the other end for storage.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

I would advise when packing containers to carefully consider how the contents will fit and react with each other. During the handling and sea passage the container will experience up/down/sideways/rocking motions, as well as sudden forces. So it is important to "pack" the space and consolidate the items together to minimise the free space and ability to allow items to move. Plywood can be used for this. I have seen many containers were the good have shifted as they were not suitably packed for sea passage. Due to temperature differences it is possible to suffer condensation and water sensitive items should be wrapped to protect from this.

I hope this helps.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Good post, karma given :)

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

That is helpful :) What is the best thing to wrap the boxes computers are in?

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Without a doubt it always best to wrap all your goods with at the very least plastic sheeting and then taped, its also worth packing any empty spaces with cardboard, bedding,bubble wrap what ever you have left laying around, even stuff you hadnt planned in taking, because empty space means room for movement and air, dead air space is how you get condinsation inside these containers, most seacans are dark coloured, green,blue,rusty red and as a result they absord heat when the sun is on them and your goods get nice and warm inside the box, then if the weather turns cooler the cooling metal roof starts to turn that internal warm air into beads of sweat , that start to drip onto your goods, normaly when a container is at rest the beads dont fall , they just evaporate the next day when the sun comes up but in transit the jiggling around makes them rain down, you should always pack right to the roof, even if its just empty boxes to kill the dead air, and also wrap well with clear polythene and bubble wrapp for the delicates, try to avoid wrapping in paper and storeing stuff on top.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

So can you use 10ft containers for shipping? If so, any idea how much a 10ft container is likely to cost, including packing from the North East UK to Vancouver?

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

10ft containers are very much a speciality product, believe it or not it cost about the same as shipping a 20 foot,because they are odd sized in the stack you dont save anything, you are much much cheaper to go groupage, I have just opened an acount with MAERSK the shipping company and should have my log in details within 2/3 days, when Im online I should be able to give you real time ideas on what you should be looking to pay.

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Brilliant advice.

:)

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

Thanks for that. I imagine when we make the move, a 20ft container will be more than enough (We only live in a small 1 bed apartment) so sharing a container may be the way forward. How does this work in terms of loading and unloading?

Re: How much will a 20ft container hold?
 

We used Ewepack and self packed our 20ft container. We paid under £4000 which included delivery to and removal guys to unload at the other end.
We had to go to customs at Saint John and the removal guys followed us back with the container. Customs didn't ask to open the container and we have had no breakages at all.
We used a huge roll of bubble wrap and a huge roll of corrugated cardboard and mountains of tape and none of the furniture we wrapped was marked in any way.
We packed the container ourselves but were very methodical and it took us just under 2 hours to pack.
I was worried about the space factor but in the end we were only about 3/4 full.
Would recommend Ewepack :)