Stonefamily

We are planning a move to France after buying a gite business to run as our main income. is it easy to organise a self pack container to ship our stuff (loads of it too) and what sort of price should I build into my budget. To cover it?

GeniB

Welcome to the forum Stonefamily..Where are you coming from? Wouldn't a removal company do the job? or are you coming from further afield.Need more info before we can help

Stonefamily

Thanks for quick reply. We are in UK (Bournemouth) and have a fairly large 3bed house plus 3 cars. We can drive the cars down, but are fit and happy to pack a container ourselves as we have heard horror stories of removal firms. We want to move to Poitou Charente area after purchasing a gite business. It's early days for us as we plan to move in 18 months or so, once we find the right property. But we want to plan properly, ensure we've covered all the bases and know our cost base for the venture. Is this a good idea or should we rely on removal firms?

mikelincs

Just use a removal firm, using a shipping company will take much longer, I assume, and be no cheaper, and, if you read the stories on here, there are ass many problems with shipping companies as removal firms.

dmu

Hi, and welcome to the Forum!
You might do well to post again on the France Forum (sub-forum in the Europe Section) where there are plenty of folk who can advise you on your gîte venture (presuming that you haven't already purchased the property). The general consensus being that running a gîte doesn't generate enough income to live on.
But post again, giving more info on who "we" are (children? older parents?) and your family situation (married or "partners"?) and we'll do our best to advise on the various aspects involved.

Vic Flange

From personal experience I would urge you to avoid using Interdean. I believe that they've changed their name to Santa Fe. We used them to ship our property over from London to the US. Our goods were picked up in late December and in April were still sitting in their warehouse.

We eventually took delivery of our items in July.

Pulaski

A removal company will fill a moving van, send their staff to your new home, and unload it for you. You will be paying the cost and employees time for the van returning empty.

With a shipped container you will be at the mercy of whoever the local agent is to get your container delivered. Loading and unloading a container sounds easy, but it will be about 5ft off the ground and you will have to haul everything up and down a ramp. ..... As well and wrap everything in protective foam sheets or moving blankets. Oh, and that assumes you can park a freight container/trailer at/outside your home - for many homes in Britain that is completely impossible, so the pros would take your stuff in their van and transfer it to a container at their depot. Not sure how you might handle this.

I hear that you get as little as two hours to load and two hours to unload, and then get charged time for use of the container. I wouldn't expect two people to load a half container (20ft/6m) in less than four hours even if they had experience. Add two more people and you might knock an hour off that. If they're novices, you could probably double the time (8hrs/6hrs). If you get a 40ft container (a standard European ar-tic trailer size, you should plan on it taking most of a day no matter what, and to be pretty exhausted by the time it is fully loaded. ..... Then you have the unloading to look forward to!

I loaded and unloaded trucks when I was a student, and have loaded half-container sized trucks (UK = Class 3 HGV) when we moved ourselves (twice, four truck loads total). I would not recommend loading your things yourself unless (i) you are fit and healthy, and (ii) know how to pack a container so that nothing has room to move. .... Expertise in using Lego would be a minimum qualification - no I am not joking, one of the warehouse foremen where I used to work said to me one day, while admiring my work, "I bet you liked Lego when you were a kid." .... He was exactly right!

quiltman

Look for local removals firms that specialise in European moves. Ensure they are members of BHRA or similar. If you can find one that has a contract with the military then you should have no problems. The one I know and can recommend regretfully are in Lincolnshire! They move all the military to/from Europe on a weekly basis and got all our stuff here to the Philippines with only one cracked mirror! All my wifes Crown Derby arrived intact.

Here you go;
Armishaws Removals Bournemouth | UK & International Removals | FREE Quote

hope this helps.

quiltman

Sorry left of that they are members of BAR AND FEDEMAC which is the European specialist movers association.This means they have proper insurance!

ottotheboar

Space permitting you can have the container dropped off and load it. This is done when a deck is being built in the container for two rows of motorcycles or cars in a Hi-cap for example. It will cost more but will be less stressful than trying to do the job in two to three hours.
The issue I could see is where the empty container will go after it is unloaded in France. You may have to pay to have it trucked empty to the docks.
The cost should be based on distance euros per kilometer.