englishintruder

Hi All
Just wondering what people ship, the whole house or did they sell alot before leaving and then replace when arrived.
I am looking at getting a 20ft container. But trying trying to work out if its going to be worth it. Things we are looking at taking are 2 sofa's, 4 beds, 2 x LCD TV,TV stand, PS3,home theatre, bikes x 5, bedding, clothing, few boxes of toys, few boxes of photos/baby first books ect., Crockey,cutlery and saucepans, Box of books,All my tools for work, quite a few.

Also which is best to use, companys that pack for you or packing yourself. Do does the price difference reflect them packing for you?
Any experiances and company names are welcomed
Chris

nikki dreaming

Hi

We have similar kind of things to you and we have approx 917 cubic feet of stuff, 20 ft container takes around 1000 cubic feet of goods.

I think the only potential issue you may come across re packing yourself is the insurance aspect.

I have just agreed a figure with PSS for a 20 ft sole container for £3300 door to door service from UK to Halifax, this includes all packing and wrapping this end and the other end. Other quotes were £3500, £4200 and £4300.

Its personal choice, however when we looked round at what we have, it adds up to a significantly higher sum to replace the goods than to ship them over.

This is just my thoughts and everyone has different ones on this I think

chumley

we came with two bags

personal choice but absolutely no regrets and would definitly have done exactly the same in hindsight!

£3000 goes one hell of a long way in replacing and builiding home contents in Rural NS

plus uk stuff would just not "fit" in an authentic Canadian century home

the beds here are for giants and so therefore is the bedding our sofa here is 19 feet in length which is good after 10 months of maple pancakes

the uk electricals are not comaptible so dont bother with them even my precious ghd's the only item I brought with me do not work even with a converter wotsit

we have picked up some fabby furniture lamps ancient clocks etc etc etc from yard sales for cents

we got 7 jiffy bags of documents and photo's sent by royal mail and thats the lot!!

new life new start new stuff ( and better by far and considerbly cheaper than the uk)

everything was ebayed or given away in the uk

dbd33

I suggest bringing the kitchen sink. They rarely have draining boards here so an embarassed daughter had to drag one back from vacation.

More generally, bring everything that's not electric, you don't want to piss around in Canada looking for a broom, cutlery, rugs, everyday things. And, even if you spend the time, the cost of routine things you already have is astonishing.

Electrical stuff might be made to work if you're geeky about it but it probably invalidates the insurance and you wanted a better TV anyway.

pinkmcfarquhar

We didn't ship a container, as our only good furniture was table & chairs, sofa, and bedroom set. I do regret it a bit (really miss my old bed), even though practically speaking, the furniture would not have "fit in" so well with our new house. It does take a lot more money than you think to replace things as well, and that's even after we scored with buying a pile of furniture of the lady who sold us the house. Pans, casserole dishes, tv, stereo, towels, drills, basic tools,.............. it all adds up. Also, the familiarity of your own stuff was something I didn't think I would miss, but do.

On the plus side, it is nice to finally have things which match as opposed to cobbled together dishes, towels etc.

On the whole though, I do wish we had sent a container over as it would have been cheaper in the long run and I would have liked the familiarity.

Hope that helps a wee bit.

Chookie

We brought some stuff and dumped others.

we didn't bring much furniture because it didn't seem worth it as it was all junk that we had "inherited" (ie been given) by relatives and what wasn't was the rubbishy chipboard type stuff from Argos etc. Plus we realised we would need stuff while it was "in transit" and would prob have to buy that, so why ship it all over?
We didn't bring much in the way of electricals (a laptop and that was pretty much it) because of problems with stuff not working
Books we got rid of loads but we had far too many anyhow, but did bring our faves.
we also got rid of some of the kids toys, but kept some of their favourites
The only clothes we brought were those that would fit in the suitcases
We did keep all the ornaments/personal stuff/jewellery/photos/paperwork etc
We didn't bring stuff like bedding and towels cos again what we had was either old and tatty or (in the case of bedding) wouldn't fit the beds.
We did bring decent china and glasses but got rid of the day-to-day stuff.
I also brought most of the christmas ornaments apart from the tree and the very tatty streamers.
I did bring my entire knitting stash though (if you know a knitter you probably will know what I mean - I had bags and bags (and I am talking binliners here!) of wool!

I used it as a good excuse to declutter

Cookie

We sold off/gave away mainly electricals and took just about everything else in a 20ft container.

We are a family of four and there is no way we could have replaced all our household items with the price of a shipping a container. Over here our beds cost $1100 each and thats without the bedding!

In most cases, your new Canadian home will be much more spacious than the one you left behind. All our old livingroom furniture is now used in our family room in the basement. Our kitchen cupboards are filled with the same utensils, etc we used in the UK. The small things really add up, so take them all.

From our garage we took racking, gardening tools, tent, 4 bicycles and tools.

We took boxes and boxes of clothes, after all we have 4 seasons here so winter coats/boots and shorts/sandals from the UK will all be used. Took all our books, DVDs/CDs, toys, boxed games, photos, pictures/prints, mirrors, ornaments, vases, computer, desk, towels, ironing board, linen baskets, 1 double bed and bedding, 3 chests of drawers, bedside cabinets (you may have extra bedrooms to furnish for guests too).

Once here, you will need to spend a lot of money replacing your electricals and buying a vehicle(s). You'll be glad not to have to start from scratch again, and I can assure you, the novelty of shopping for a household basics will wear thin pretty fast and you'll soon notice that your money will not go nearly as far as you think.

Best of all, it's the warmest feeling in the world when your shipment arrives at your new home. It's feels just like Christmas, unwrapping everything and being reunited with your personal items.

In a new country, in a new home, it's a great feeling to have some familiarity back

ann m

Excellent post YCD

Summed us up perfectly, and look at all that typing you saved me

Tangram

Ditto, see saved even more.

minimeeze

We sold just about everything off with thouse in the UK and we're starting from scratch. We are shipping about 20 boxes of personal stuff such as CD's & Dv'D's, photo albums, etc. We did pack some kitchenware but we're here long before our boxes will be so have to buy new stuff anyway. I have absolutely no regrets about not shipping more (in fact, now I'm wishing we'd not even bothered shipping half of what we are!). We brought 6 large suitcases of clothing etc with us (and my OH's beloved PRS electric guitar).

We've had great fun going out shopping and starting from scratch, but then there are only the two of us, and we brought a decent budget with us.

Buddy

Hi, we are just planning to take over personal items (photos, pictures, etc). I would estimate about 10 x boxes worth.

Can anyone tell me whether we would be able to ship such a small amount?

Many thanks

basildog

Just take some time on the internet (ikea/wallmart/sears) and work out how much it will cost to replace everything. The shipping costs don't seem so high then. We will be taking everything accept electrical goods. Hope OH does not read this I keep telling him this is the time to declutter and get rid of all his junk...

pip_is_fab

I have looked at "excess baggage" for shipping boexs over. You can do an online quote to get an estimate of costs, based on the size of boxes etc. Dont know if anyone has any experience with this company, it'd be good to know of peoples opinions before booking i guess.

englishintruder

Some electrical goods will work, Most makes of TV, a lot of chargers are fitted with universal transformers, some dont say it, like my PS3 says 120v only as I bought in New York, but it works in UK. Everything Sony will work in Canada.
I have a Samsung LCD TV that will work. If I sell it most i 'llprobably get is £300 max. To buy new in Canada on the Sears website it is $1200. That would be an expanse of £400 straight away, so I may look that its £500 to the cost of shipping. Im unsure if my Samsung side by side fridge freezer will work yet thought, got to pull it out and check the input ect.., i could probably get parts from dealer to change to Canadian voltage if not,
Is there any weight restrictions on what goes in the container?

chumley

sorry but as speaking as someone who lives in Canada I strongly advise against bring ANY electricals
for one thing it will null insurance and secondly they simply are not compatible

simply looking at Ikea/Sears sites is next to useless for the true costs

use small independant retailers in rural areas and you will find fair priced quality stuff at a third of the price in the UK

if you going to a large city and want things exactly as you had in the uk( and you can get in every large city worldwide) and you have want to spend a fortune then fair enough.....

I appreciate the decsion is a hard one and you really have no idea until you are living in Canada.

Personal choice of course but we are so glad we didnt ship ( we did not know this was the right decsion until we got here of course nobody does)
good luck all