Thinking ahead and looking at costs just what have people managed to fit into a 20ft container?

good question i was wondering that ?

After speaking to our shipping company, they reckon when packed correctly they can get the full contents of a 3 bedroom house into a 20ft container. These containers are the size of a single garage. Good luck

Nicky & John

There's some pics on post 31 of this thread so you can see the size

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=359922

We had the shippers in about a fortnight ago. We had a three bedroom bungalow and we took everything including garden tools & mower. The 20ft container we had was packed to the point that the mattresses were squashed in at the back as the doors closed on it. We couldn't have got anything more in if we'd tried I don't think. This cost us £4,000 with PSS who brought order to our chaos at the time. The guys who packed were very courteous and very professional and if the service we receive once it gets to Oz and our new home is the same as we have received so far, we will be well chuffed.

Hi,

I have had PSS and Over's round to quote and they both state that all our stuff(4 bed house) will fit into a 20foot container -JUST!!! This is including a bloody big drum kit :scared: but not much furniture as our house has built ins in each room. Both quoted similar prices.....£3,700.

Hope this helps

xRachx

Just out of interest does this include insurance or not? Thanks!

Very useful thread. Had been trying to work this out myself!!

Pickfords, 3 bedroom house, no wardrobes though - drum kit, 2 full sets of diving gear including dry/wet suits, cylinders etc, a 16' Canadian Canoe and all the other associated crap in a 20' container. Insurance was extra based on teh value of your stuff but we didnt' take it out. One broken plate and an ear snapped off a dog statue when it got here.

Ok hear goes, we had a 20ft container, 4 bed house.

Large furniture was 2x 4 seater sofas, 1 double bed, garden table, chairs & brolly, washing machine, desk and chair, 2 bikes, 2 TVs, 2 single mattresses, 1 double mattress and wait for it 211 boxes. Container was filled to the brim!

We were happy with Doree Bonner, however we did have things missing and think it was this end they went astray. When making an insurance claim you will not be believed that anything has been stolen and they will tell you this doesn't happen and the things you say that have gone missing are unusual items to go as they aren't worth much, but stick with it because we were paid out. We had one puzzling thing happen though, one of our boxes had written one it by one of Bonners packers, rug & shoes, we didn't bring rugs and our shoes were all together in different boxes. This box had been opened by quarentine and was half full when we got it, don't know what was in there originally.

When you fill out your insurance form, if you have anything of value put that down on it's own, don't group it because if you put down for eg 4 vases £200 and one is broken or missing, you will only get £50 back, the money is split between the amount of items you put down, so if you have a vase that is worth £100, put that down on its own.

Hope this helps, also stay with the packers don't go out, be on the safe side.

Good luck everyone, we love it here in Melbourne.

Hope this helps.

Loraine

I've finally got the quote for a sole use of a 20ft container from Allied Pickfords £5,700.00. And their insurance is 3.5%.

I almost chocked on my coffee when I got their email this morning. What is going on - why is shipping becoming so expensive? We got this quote through my hubby's sponsoring company - do they charge more if you go through business channels? I thought paying £4000 was really expensive.

You should pay no more than GBP4k for a 20ft container, realistically is should be about GBP3.75k plus insurance (2.5%). Remember to add the costs when it arrives here, I think we paid about AUD450 in total. Get a quote from PSS, I can recommend them highly. They use an outfit over here called Kent who are also very good. We fitted the contents of 3x1 in a 20ft container.

Thanks,
the other quote we are waiting for is from Kent. The sponsoring company only gave us 2 shippers to get quotes from. The lady who came to quote said it would be roughly £4000 but I've got to wait for the quote to be emailed from Australia. If it end up as high as Allied's then our relocation package won't even cover it.

We used White & Co, got the entire contents of a 3-bed semi house in a 20ft for about GBP 3,400 plus insurance. Having said that, I saw a White & Co truck here the other day and it looked like it'd lived out a former existence as a cattle truck, very old and dilapidated! Hope they don't use that wagon for my stuff!

4 seater sofa
3 seater sofa
arm chair
6 dining chairs
large chunky pine dining table legs removed
3 door sideboard
glass cabinet
another cupboard
bureau
2 double beds and mattresses
1 single bed and mattress
chest freezer
upright freezer
washing machine
tuble drier
4 wardrobes flat packed
desk flat packed
dressing table
5 large chests of drawers
tall boy
2 coffee tables
large tv in crate
smaller tvs x2
dvds, vcrs
dolls house
bookshelves
microwave
lots of power tools and crap from his side
approx 50-75 boxes of this and that
and bound to be some stuff Ive forgot as it was a year ago

and still some room left, they told us we would be pushing a 20ft, but no worries.

thanks for the list...dont think ill be taking half of what you did.