How I moved my shop-

[Mr_Mike]

Wow! $10k, makes me want to sell stuff instead.

[mongo]

skizzo said:

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[blockquote]Mr_Mike said:

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Thanks.

I'm considering buying sea container for my move in a couple of years.

Just buy a 40' and load it up and have it shipped. Perhaps liquidate the container on the other end, perhaps not.

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Thanks for the post. I'm a bit sooner than Mike in an upcoming cross-country move and have been researching quite a few options. It's nice to know about something like PODS but with more weight capacity. I'm somewhere closer to 20,000 pounds, unfortunately.

I'm looking at ABF, which is similar logistically but drops off a small semi-trailer (22-25') for a week to load, then another week to unload on the other end. You fill up the amount of space you need (they charge by volume and distance, not weight), install a locked interior barrier at the end of the space you use, and they fill up the rest of the container with LTL cargo. That ensures you're the only homeowner who has access to the interior.

I should be able to get almost all of my shop and house items into one container that they can then pull across the country. A downside is that it is an elevated trailer bed so will need a forklift or similar to lift much of the stuff to height.

EDIT: A thread on another forum of a guy who moved a filled ABF trailer from Virginia to Oregon said the ABF cost was something like $8500, plus he hired professional movers on both ends to load and unload, so he was a bit less than $10K garage-to-garage.

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[/blockquote]

I spent a LOT less than 10K but I didnt hire movers. You might price out the Packrat containers. They can stagger the delivery.

[skizzo]

- Priced a PODS and it was $3600. Multiply that by five containers doesn't work.

- Talked with movers and they don't have a way to handle loading/unloading the heavy stuff, nor anchoring it inside the trailer. Initial estimates $15K+ even if they could.

- I already hauled one 4K lb trailer load at four days on the road each way, hotels and gas >$1500. Plan to pull at least one more load of large volume, lower weight stuff, to leave heavy weight low volume stuff for shipping.

- Planned for a long time to sell off here and buy replacement back east, so have been watching CL pricing and availability there for a year. Availability is very scarce and used prices when available are typically double what I'd get selling here, on the rare occasion when comparable replacement comes up.

No good options in any case, still trying to sort it out.

To the OP, thanks for the post as it's helpful to see another option.

[mongo]

skizzo said:

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- Priced a PODS and it was $3600. Multiply that by five containers doesn't work.

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Pods was just about 2x more expensive than packrat when I was looking.

[Bob10]

Any chance you can find someone with a loading dock with an empty bay for loading?

seems using a forklift to load your tools would be time consuming unless you had it all crated on pallets so once in the end of the truck you could use a pallet jack to roll it to the front

[skizzo]

mongo said:

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[blockquote]skizzo said:

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- Priced a PODS and it was $3600. Multiply that by five containers doesn't work.

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Pods was just about 2x more expensive than packrat when I was looking.

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[/blockquote]
BTW, sorry if we hijacked your thread, it's very timely and helpful.

Great info, especially with the higher weight capacity as double benefit. Were there any time constraints on dropoff, transit, or unloading? Is there any way to strap equipment to the sides/tiedowns or bolt skids to the bottom? One concern I had with the PODS is flimsy sides and limited tie-down capability. The cost is also very affected by distance, as I'm looking at 2500 miles.

Bob, I will have plenty of time to disassemble, crate and palletize as needed for a relatively fast load and unload if I need to do that, including renting a forklift for a few hours on this end.

[Mr_Mike]

My (admittedly not well scoped out yet) plan is to buy a 40" sea container and palletize shop and household good.

I assume I can get a sea container delivered curbside here and a short ramp and pallet jack would suffice. I'd just ship the pallet jack in the end of the container.

The far end will be rural, so locating the container is trivial.

As far as weight, a 40' container is good for a net of like 50k lbs. I'm more worried about volume than weight.

I'm thinking of buying a cell phone and using it as a container tracker too. Cut a hole in the roof and cover with a plastic panel and add a lead acid battery for additional run time.

[skizzo]

Mr_Mike said:

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The far end will be rural, so locating the container is trivial.

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Assuming the shipper can get back to your place. I've seen some of your site ideas.

[mongo]

skizzo said:

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Were there any time constraints on dropoff, transit, or unloading? Is there any way to strap equipment to the sides/tiedowns or bolt skids to the bottom?

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lots of places to tie into the sides.... hence the 60 ratchet straps. There are vertical steel runners on the side of the container you can strap to. Nothing on the floor but the floor is plywood.

Every thing rolled in and out pretty easy. up and down the ramp. I would say that the ability to roll into your house is going to depend on the driveway and where your tools are going. Mine were going garage to garage.

[Bob10]

You can find 20' containers for around $1500 from what I have been seeing I haven't researched it. I might know a guy that has a 40' he wants gone if he hasn't already cut it up. If I were to do a move like that I would crate the machines so I could stack household stuff on top and reduce wasted space. Couches and the like don't weigh much yet take up a lot of space.