cryos

We moved out to Pittsburgh, PA in 2007 and used Anglo Pacific. I quite honestly cannot think of anything good to say about them. They failed to keep us up to date, were just under three months late in delivering our stuff, lost quite a few bits, broke somewhere in the region of 40% of what we shipped...

I would say be very careful who you use. We used their Manchester based office as we moved from Sheffield. I thought they were absolute amateurs. We got rid of most of our stuff and only shipped what we really wanted to keep. Then I ended up fighting with them over about two months, solicitors letters etc before they refunded some of the money.

Watch them really carefully when they are packing etc. It seems our "packers" were not that skilled at packing. Never heard of bubble wrap, even managed to break a large wooden cabinet, computer in original packing crate, granite place mats... My friend was unhappy over a couple of wine glasses breaking when she moved! I never realised a company could be so bad, and fail so completely to deal with the complaints/insurance claim afterwards.

Good luck! It seems horror stories like mine are far more common than you might think though. It was quite some time ago now, but I do not look forward to having to do it again.

Pipmeister

I did this same move (Essex to Houston) in October. My "house" arrived in December. It all went smoothly apart from the UK company employing some Eastern European to deal with the admin (another story!).

The problem was the truck turned up at 9;15am with my stuff in 5 HUGE!!! pallets several were 8ft by 8f by 8ft. I hadn't paid the extra £500 for them to break the stuck down and put into my house as it was all going to go into storage (they would only deliver to a house address not a storage facility).

Problem was they only sent one young guy to offload the pallets and they only gave him this pathetic little lift trolley. He couldn't even get them off the truck as it only had a 3ft tail lift.

It took us till nearly 4pm to get the pallets off and I was left unpacking in the street much to the amusement of the neighbours, especially when it rained.

So, my advice - clearly think through where you are going to put your stuff and how you will practically get it there. I ended up putting my back out and having to visit a specialist - thank goodness I had health insurance!

megalaser

I used Fox International, they were very good - Just under 5 grand for a full 20 foot container with packing in the UK then unloading into the garage of my house in Florida, transit time was only 3 weeks door to door.

Pipmeister

True - the company I used offered to do this for me but that would have taken my 20ft container and packing cost to £5k as well (instead of £4k) - maybe I should have paid the money!