Lilywolf

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone can recommend a reliable and less expensive moving company that they have used to move from the UK to the US. I've seen loads of posts for New Zealand movers but haven't been able to find any from UK to US. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

dunroving

I'm pretty sure there was a thread on this within the last month.

I recommended against Britannia.

dunroving

Here's the thread: http://www.britishexpats.com/forum/s...d.php?t=275280

sibsie

I'd recommend you don't use GB Liners or any company that uses Deliver USA on the American end. It took them over five months to get my shipment here and another five months on and I'm still battling the insurance claim.

bored-silly

We used Abels in the UK who then used Paramount transportation in the US. Abels were fab - came and packed everything very cafefully. They have a Royal charter thingy so I doubt they are cheap but my husbands company paid so I don't know how much they were.
Paramount were less cafeful but despite this, we had no breakages and everything made it safely over.

nxylas

I used Binoray - very reasonable rates and nothing got broken or lost.

DaveC

I see that Big D recommended Crown Relocations. I'd second that, we used them to move from Scotland to Texas and we were happy with the service. There was a slight niggle when the Dallas office tried to charge us extra for something we'd paid for with the UK office but it wasn't anything that a couple of e-mails couldn't sort out.

Lilywolf

Thanks very much for the info everyone. Nxylas and DaveC, could you give a rough estimate on how much it cost in relation to the storage space provided by the two companies (ex: £1500/300 cubic feet). We're basically trying to see whether it's worth it to have our things (bed/furniture/etc) shipped or to sell it here and just rebuy when we move to the states.

nxylas

It cost me about £800 to move my personal effects - can't remember the cubic footage, sorry.

DaveC

Crown gave us 2 options for shipping 460 cubic feet of our stuff. Option one was for a consolidated container shipment (sharing with someone else) and it was £2900. Option 2 was having our own exclusive container and the quote was £3800. We liked Crown because we were dealing with one company for the entire trip.

The prices quoted may be higher than normal because we got them to quote for delivering 100cft to our temporary residence and then delivering the remainder when we bought our permanent house. We went for option 2. Hope this helps, PM me if you have any other questions.

For info, check this website out. I think it just covers US domestic moving companies but it might be useful to you - and hopefully not too scary!

http://www.movingscam.com/

dunroving

How many cubic ft are there in a 20 ft container? I think people have posted quotes on here for a whole (20 ft) container that weren't much less than the 3800 GBP you mention.... anyone shed light on this?

DaveC

I had a quick surf and an ISO standard 20 foot freight container has inside dimensions of 19'5" (length) by 7'8" (wide) by 7'9.5" (high) and a volume of 1165 cubic feet.

Lilywolf

Hi, thanks again for all the info. I've sent off a few quote requests and hopefully come back with some good ones. When having things sent by sea roughly how many weeks does it take before they arrive stateside from the UK?

Big D

We were very pleased with the Crown service both in the UK and here. Can't remember the exact amount - around the 4k mark I think. We had the whole container but didn't manage to fill it! Some friends have used Allied Pickfords and been very disappointed - Crown's insurance and inventory for US Customs seems better than others too.

Lilywolf

[QUOTE=Big D]We were very pleased with the Crown service both in the UK and here. Can't remember the exact amount - around the 4k mark I think. QUOTE]

Hi BigD, was that 4k in $ or £?