Your life in a box
 

:lecture: Question for all the bods who've made the move to Canada.

How much from your previous home did you take with you when you immigrated ? Clothes and personal stuff is a must I guess, but did you sell the rest and then buy replacements when you got settled? (ie furniture, electrical goods etc)

Just interested to see if shipping your possesions worked out better than buying it out in Canada.

Hye,
That is a million dollar question. We are immigrating in two weeks and are faced with the same predicament. We are taking all that we can by plane. Books etc we are sending by post. So, I guess you need to it work out yourself. Also depends from whre you are immigating and whether it is cheper to sell the stuff there.
Cheers

We too are in a similar predicament and we are working it out on the basis of what is usable out in Canada and is it cheaper to ship it or buy new. For example we always thought that we wouldn't take furniture with us but now we are having a rethink about it and wondering if it might be the cheaper option. Especially as I'm not confident of selling our stuff here for all that much.

Re: Your life in a box
 

As another one going out in 2 weeks time I'm going through this now too.

I've decided I need to take part of me with me (and my furniture is a part of me). As someone who has had to clear two other places in the last 2 years believe me you get nothing for it when you sell. Secondly, although Canada may be cheaper to buy new goods it is unlikely you will find the same things out there. Most furniture out there seems to be big and ugly (but then again the places are bigger). I've actually even decided to take my bed as it has 4 large storage drawers and I'm not sure you can get those types of beds out there.

Electrical, I've not bothered with except for my sewing machines which are of a very high-value and quality anyway.

Hi
we are off to Canada in 3 months or so but have sold our house last year and had a good sort out then.Taking most of our furniture inc beds as the stuff generally available out in N.S. seems very dated.We have even just bought two new sofas and are having them shipped out.Buying new Duvets/covers etc for the same reason.
I was pleasantly surprised when we started selling a lot of our stuff, as how much people would pay on e-bay for what i considered junk/throwable i.e. old pair of loafers,£42!,Scalextic set got more than i bought it for!
Old childrens clothes,bundle them up they go for a fortune.
Bringing over,decent stereo as i will buy a transformer.
Computer as you can change the input.
In our new house i will also get an electrician to put a 240v plug in the garage so i can charge up various electrical items.
tri band phone....yes
Walk about home phones......yes (just need an adaptor)
multi region dvd.....yes
T.V.'s.........no
computer monitor........no
Kitchen appliances big/small........no
Wife.........maybe
Garden pots etc.....no
garden tools.......Yes (steam cleaning and bleaching them)
Old clothes....not much as casual ware is v.cheap.
hope this helps
mike

Re: Your life in a box
 

We decided to take it all with us and are glad we did. We had the kids toys to take which would have cost a fortune to replace and the kids were kind of attached to anyway! By the time we worked out all the stuff we really wanted to take with us, it was cheaper just to take all of it. We didn't think we would get much if we sold it anyway!

There isn't a great deal of choice out here unless you like big, dark and ugly!

If I was doing it again, I would buy more duvet covers etc. as they are hard to find out here and the choice is limited.

Obviously we didn't take the electrical things with us!

We brought some items of furniture - sofa, kids beds, pictures, etc. Furniture here is catching up or I'm getting used to it - doesn't look so ugly 70's retro anymore.

Brought all of the kids stuff - toys, posters, etc, so that they would feel settled.

We left in the middle of the foot & mouth crisis (little trays of disinfectant to walk through at the airport), so we didn't bring any gardening stuff. Garden tools are cheap here anyway.

We brought our computers - they're relatively expensive once you're earning Canadian dollars.

We brought clothes, although Brit clothes don't survive long in Canadian washers - anyone else expeienced that one?

In hindsight I would have brought everything, including more electrical stuff - you can always dump it when you get here.

Ok I brought nearly everything….

Even the TV… yes I needed to build a PSU to drive it, as it required 240v at 50Hz but that cost me approx $300.. and I have a UK wide screen TV with 100Hz scan… better than most of what you can buy here…and it does both PAL and NTSC !! best of both in one (its even linked into the satellite) along with a region free DVD (easier to find in the UK) and a NTSC/PAL video recorder…

Brought the HiFi.. just a transformer required here… and I will be converting the internal transformers gradually to dual voltage..

Computer yes why sell something that has virtually no value but you know really well and are expensive to replace… check the back of your box most are dual voltage the rest are switchable.. check the monitor to be sure…

Left the microwave as they're only about $60 over here and it would be too expensive to convert…

Brought the Kettle…yep it’s a little slower to boil but still works… just changed the plug and and I am in the process of converting the lamps over to screw fittings…..

Brought the phone and the power tools…. Again a transformer works well here.. and it's cheaper to buy the transformer than to sell the tools and buy new ones…

Oh and to the guy planning to get a 240 socket fitted in Canada… check!! in Canada they have 220v sockets as standard for cookers and dryer’s…. but they’re dual phase… not suitable for UK appliances which require 220-240v single phase.

But to be fair it is my second time in Canada

What's the cost of the transformers Mike? Are they easy to get hold of?

When we originally moved to Canada, we maxed out our Air Canada baggage allowance and then had about 6 or 7 large boxes shipped out via UPS.

I brought my old computer, but that is used as a server now and has since been replaced. UPS shipped my nice monitor from England, but it got damaged in transit - so ended up picking up a used one in a hurry from Computer Outlet.

Other than that, it was mainly personal possesions. Fortunately, my wife still had a hunk of stuff such as TV, DVD and furniture stored at her parents house in Canada - so we didn't have to bring anything like that.

--
RE the clothes.

Most of my original English stuff is still fairing quite well, and I continue to buy clothes via my parents in England, since I prefer UK clothes over Canadian.

Not had too many issues with washing them, but we used to use the inlaws washing machine which enjoyed shredding up clothes, regardless of origin!

I got the ones I use from Lunn Polly in Leicester - don't know if they would take a power tool, but they're fine for smaller ietms.

Thanks Glaswegian. I'm assuming that you mean the travel adaptors. I've seen them in various places for sale, some are for Europe and others for the USA/Canada and so on. Am I on the right track here?

Yup - I've been using one for my laptop for almost three years - works fine.

A 115v to 230v 1000va transformer costs approx $100 CAN
these are much bigger than travel adaptors and weight as much as 4kg's try this site http://www.a1parts.com/transformers/index.htm look up Hammond_Isolating_Line_Step_Up_Transformers_298_Se ries from this list.....this will give you an idea of size etc..

These come in a range of sizes from 250va to 1500va (va=watts)

If your appliance states 220-250v 50/60hz then you can usally use a transformer....

Be careful with anything that’s state only 50hz!!! These will sometimes fail on 60hz mains.... motors will run faster ands hotter... (but they will run… I can’t comment on for how long…..I’ve actually ran a Dyson on 115v 60hz… it runs at about 70% without the transformer)

Some electronics use the mains freq to clock internal circuits.. clocks will not always run at the correct time...

Also its worth noting that some appliances such as TV’s surge at switch on and pull much more power for a couple of seconds so its worth considering a transformer that’s rated at twice your nominal power consumption… it avoids that nasty smoking effect…

Slightly O/T:

I know very little about electricity, but is there a way to stop the lights in our apartment from dimming every time my wife uses the hairdryer, or when the microwave is in use.

It's happened everywhere we've lived in Canada, but never happened in the UK! I guess it has something to do with 120v vs 240?