DIY uniting myself with my overseas household goods
June 26, 2022 7:36 AM   Subscribe

About a year ago I moved from the US to Ireland. Given the COVID-19 situation (Ireland was only just coming out of lockdown when I moved over) my employer gave me lump sum of cash to help with relocation costs but did not provide any logistical assistance with the move. As such I only brought a few suitcases over and put the rest of my belongings into storage. I am now able to retrieve my stuff from the US and move it over here, how do I go about that as a DIY project?

I am looking to move approximately a 1 bedroom apartment's worth of furniture, household goods, and other personal belongings from a self-storage unit in Seattle, WA to an apartment in Dublin, IE. I have done a number of moves within the US but this is my first international relocation.

I understand I will need someone to help me properly pack and inventory the shipment on the US side as well as get it through customs and unpacked at the destination in Ireland. What kind of moving company or service provider should I look for? What questions should I ask them about their qualifications?

Roughly how how expensive will this be? I prefer to minimize shipping costs rather than minimize shipping time (i.e., it's fine if the shipment takes the slow boat over).

How much lead time should I give myself to find the moving company and coordinate packing with them? I'll need to plan my travel back to the US accordingly.

Note: I'm aware that it is less expensive to discard some items on the US side and replace them in Ireland. The belongings I want to move over have sentimental value or are infeasible to replace locally.
posted by 4rtemis to Home & Garden (6 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: We just did this for our move from NYC to the UK, although we were home when they collected our stuff. We used MoveHub to get quotes and ended up with seven or so. The quotes came in mostly within 2 weeks, some were under 24 hours. We chose a company that had good reviews. The time to ship seemed to not really vary between companies.

Depending on the amount of furniture, you're looking at $3k-$10k in costs. We payed $3k roughly, but we only shipped a single bed frame along with an area rug, ~40 boxes, and ~10 framed pictures. If you're not getting a separate shipping container (which you probably won't, as that costs more), you'll be paying on the basis of cubic footage (or cubic meters, but same idea). You can also choose to have the shipping company pack your stuff and you probably will need them to do this for the furniture (wrapping it to prevent damage). Having them pack will increase costs, but will allow you to insure for damage and loss, not just loss.

When they can pick up your stuff really depends on the company, we had about a month and a half between sending a deposit and having our stuff picked up. We were shipping in the summer, which is the busy season, I'd recommend booking later in the year (or earlier, just avoid June-August).

The shipping company helped us get things started with the TOR, which is an UK document, since brexit I don't know what the EU version will be, but they will be familiar. (this was to avoid VAT charges on things we already owned)

Any other questions, feel free to DM me, I'm happy to talk more about the experience.
posted by Hactar at 8:26 AM on June 26, 2022 [1 favorite]


I talked to my wife about this and she said that there is also UPackWeShip, which allows you to pack the container yourself. I don't know more about this, as we didn't have a space to pack up a container in Manhattan. But if you want to competely DIY this, they, or a similar company, may be what you're looking for. Costs would definitely go down although I don't know what they'd be. They do offer door to door service, so you don't have to worry about getting things to the Seattle or Tacoma port or from wherever in Ireland things get shipped to. I wish I could be more help with this one, but it's something we looked at and decided against.
posted by Hactar at 8:35 AM on June 26, 2022


Response by poster:
I talked to my wife about this and she said that there is also UPackWeShip, which allows you to pack the container yourself. I don't know more about this, as we didn't have a space to pack up a container in Manhattan. But if you want to competely DIY this, they, or a similar company, may be what you're looking for.
Unfortunately I don't have the space to stage a shipping container for packing. I'll need someone to come to my indoor public storage unit, pack things in place there, and then move everything out. I'd prefer to have professional movers do most of the packing anyway, based on experience they can do it a lot more efficiently than I can.
posted by 4rtemis at 9:12 AM on June 26, 2022


How much lead time should I give myself to find the moving company and coordinate packing with them? I'll need to plan my travel back to the US accordingly.

Some months back we got quotes and hired movers for a within-the-US move. Of relevance to your question is that when we did this there were a number of covid- and supply chain-related delays that happened, mostly due to short staffing. The company communicated well about it, but it meant that not only did the pickup and packing get scheduled pretty far out from when we hired them, at some point quite close to the original scheduled pickup date, that date had to shift further out. That was no problem for our situation but it would have been a major headache if we were scheduling international travel around those dates. (There were more delays in transit due to a lack of truck drivers, but it sounds like you are flexible on the shipping times anyway.)

So in your shoes, if you are flying back to the US for the packing, I would make sure to discuss that with the companies you are considering and prioritize the ones that can make the strongest commitments around dates. But also, you should have a backup plan, like if a friend could be deputized to step in to be the person who lets the movers into the storage unit and sign the paperwork.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:19 AM on June 26, 2022 [1 favorite]


4rtemis, for having professional movers pack everything, definitely look at MoveHub and talk with the different companies you get quotes from about what is involved. Some will have people who do the packing, so you'll want to focus on those. Have a list of what you're shipping, as detailed as possible (you don't need to have exact book counts, but how many boxes of books, how many of kitchen supplies, etc). They will give you a quote based on the approximate cubic footage. They had us do a video tour of our apartment to get a more accurate quote, so if possible, you may want to have a friend take a video of your storage space. Either way, build a little extra wiggle room into the budget in case the space is underestimated.

Unlike Dip Flash, we did have an exact date worked out well in advance, although the shipping company told their movers the wrong amount of stuff (only the bed frame, not the 40 boxes) and showed up 5 hours late. They sent another company around for pickup first thing the next morning to get everything shipped out. I'd make sure that you have an extra day, just in case there is a screwup like ours.
posted by Hactar at 9:29 AM on June 26, 2022


I don’t have experience for the logistics part of your question, but if you go the sea shipping route, everything you send needs to be packed in a waterproof way. Otherwise issues with mold growing on everything inside your container during the long and moist sea voyage are very real. Especially for things made of wood, fabric or paper.
posted by PardonMyFrench at 10:23 AM on June 26, 2022


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