Unoccupied Home Insurance

We should be clear here and state that we’re experts in home and office removals – not insurance!

However, due to the very nature of our business, we do have considerable experience as home and office movers plus associated insurance. As part of that, we’re sometimes asked questions by our clients about vacant properties and insurance cover. That might come about if you’ve purchased a home but can’t actually move into it for say a few weeks.

So, here are a few key points to keep: 

• If you have insurance on your new property, it may cover a period of time where the property can stand unoccupied. That’s typically somewhere around 30-45 consecutive days and is designed to cope with things such as holiday and business trip absences etc. However, it’s NOT indefinite cover.

• If your property will stand unoccupied for longer than that, you might need to take out what’s called “unoccupied property insurance” (the terminology might differ) if your cover is to be maintained;  Read more about.......Unoccupied Home Insurance.

The New Electric Supertruck Arrives

Well, after his recent shock announcement that such a thing even existed, Elon Musk and Tesla have announced and demonstrated their new electric "heavy rig" truck.

What does this mean for things like haulage and moving companies?

The original announcement

A few months back, Musk made one of his famous "oh, in passing... " type announcements. This delivered the news, with all the razzmatazz and drama that might be expected of someone saying "oh, I think it'll rain tomorrow", that he would be shortly showing an all-electric and high-tech haulage rig.

Virtually all the industry pundits were shocked and excited. Some were hugely sceptical that this was possible in the few short months between Musk's announcement and his target date for the truck being presented to the world.

For more details, please visit - http://ezinearticles.com/?The-New-Electric-Supertruck-Arrives&id=9838780

Are Your Boxes Clearly Labelled?

A recent story overseas related to a poor couple who’d had some of their household removal boxes, intended for delivery just down the road to their new home in France, sent to California instead.

These “zany stories” pop up in the news from time to time and they’re good for a laugh. No doubt the couple concerned got their possessions back and hopefully some compensation for the incompetence too! Even so, the trauma and inconvenience that results from such situations might not be trivial or a laughing matter.

Of course, as professional household and office movers,   there is no way we’re going to ship your household goods to the USA or anywhere else for that matter – unless you ask us to that is. These misdirection stories often have their origin in one of two scenarios.

For more details, please visit - https://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/are-your-boxes-clearly-labelled/

Top Tips For Lifting Boxes (etc.) Safely

Our first tip is a pretty obvious one – leave all the lifting to us!

That’s because our guys are professional Christchurch movers, so they’re also trained, strong and fit.

However, if you’re doing your own removal and loading onto a van, here are some of our top tips about how to avoid potential injury (we blogged on this a long time ago but a quick reminder never hurt anyone – unlike bad lifting techniques!).

1. Keep your back straight when lifting, with your legs very slightly apart. You’re trying to take the weight on your legs and NOT your back.

2. Wear very heavy duty boots or shoes, steel toe caps are a good idea if possible. Do NOT wear trainers or sandals etc. Foot injury is very commonplace with DIY removals due to the tendency for heavy objects to fall on them if mishandled. Read more about..... Top Tips For Lifting Boxes (etc.) Safely

Loans To Help With Removal Costs

Here at Christchurch Removals, we work very hard to try and keep our prices as competitive as possible.

You’d perhaps be amazed at how closely we monitor our costs (which of course affect our pricing) and try to drill those down as far as possible. Those benefits are passed on our clients via some of the most attractive household removals quotations that you’ll find anywhere.

However, in spite of all that, we know that moving home is expensive. Of course, a lot of that cost is nothing to do with the removals as such. It’s all the other things like legal fees, the purchase or rental of your new property, deposits and so on.

The bottom line is that we know that moving home can put a big dent in the finances and the bills from moving companies, Christchurch or anywhere else, are part of that story.

For more details, please visit - https://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/loans-to-help-with-removal-costs/

Total Care Removals

Total Care Removals changes the game, the rules and all the old accepted wisdoms. We’ve re-engineered the removals experience from top-to-bottom and made it 100% focussed on YOU!

• Gone is the uncertainty.

• Gone are all the hidden extras.

• Gone are the delays, problems, excuses and high costs.

They’ve all been replaced with our total professionalism born out of decades of experience. Read more about...... Total Care Removals.

What’s Involved In Warehousing / Storage?

For some of our clients, it simply isn’t possible to load up their household belongings one day and then take delivery of them the next.

There might be many reasons why you’ll find that the case, including:

• you’re selling your house a few days or weeks before you will be able to take possession of your new home;

• your exit and move-in dates unfortunately overlap with your holiday;

• you’re going to rent for a short period to give yourself more time to look around for the right property to purchase;

In terms of furniture removals, Christchurch and elsewhere, such situations are fairly commonplace.

The solution, of course, is to put your items into storage until such time as you need them. In passing, we prefer the term “storage” to “warehousing” even though you will sometimes hear the latter. “Warehousing” has connotations of your items sitting neglected in the middle of a vast warehouse full of machine parts whereas, in fact, it’s nothing like that at all.

We will only use facilities that provide modern, self-contained units reserved for your/our use. The facilities are sound (i.e. no leaks!), modern and also most importantly, secure. Read more about Warehousing / Storage.

Moving Office Technology – Hoe To Avoid Chaos

Many business people, unless they’re IT literate, often break out in a cold sweat of apprehension at the thought of moving their technology from one office to another.

Now that’s not entirely irrational because there have been some disasters in this domain, some of which have actually made the news.  Yet it really doesn’t have to be a problem and the vast majority of such moves go forward smoothly.

However, that’s not by accident. So, although we’re relocation specialists not IT gurus, here are a few top tips:

• Get an IT expert in relocations in to help assess your installation and plan for its removal. If you have one in-house fine. If not, be prepared to spend some money on this – it’ll be small potatoes in the scheme of things and insignificant when measured against the costs of a potential IT debacle in your new premises on day-1.

• Put someone ‘heavyweight’ in charge of making sure that the IT plan is part of the overall relocation plan and that together they’re tightly managed as an integrated whole. It’s not unknown to find companies that have two entirely separate plans (one for IT) and the result can be chaos.

• If you can, try to get your IT kit set up in the new location as the first step and tested thoroughly. It takes a little doing (and perhaps some weekend working) but it’s far easier getting the IT right when there aren’t desks, copiers, chairs and pot plants in the way making access to cables, servers and routers difficult etc.

For more details, please visit - http://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/moving-office-technology-how-to-avoid-chaos/

Preparing Your Drive For Removals Day

If your domestic property is one with a drive our van can get up, then that’s great.

To be frank, it makes our job typically easier than if we’re parked on street with all the complications of passing traffic and pedestrians to cope with (though as professional relocation specialists, we’re very used to doing so!).

To prepare for our arrival, there are a few things we’d normally recommend:

Try to make sure that all obstructions are moved or cleared away. Please remember also that a van is likely to be considerably taller than your car.

Typically, that means things like flower pots, troughs and garden furniture. It might though more rarely include items such as ornamental free-standing trees, gazebos and statues.

Of course, we can help if need be and we’ll try and highlight any potential access issues if we visit beforehand.

We’ve mentioned before in blogs that children, pets and manoeuvring trucks, don’t always sit happily together! So, it would normally be advisable if kids, dogs and cats could be kept safely away from the vehicle at all times.

For more details, please visit - http://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/preparing-your-drive-for-removals-day/

How to Make a Household Removals Damage Insurance Claim

If something of yours is damaged while you’re moving home, what should you do about it?

In the advice that follows, please remember that a lot will depend upon the exact conditions of any insurance policies you have in place plus your own national, state or regional laws.

The nature of removals insurance

Broadly speaking, removals insurance cover comes under two headings:

• cover that moving companies, NZ and elsewhere, might have as part of their own liability insurance protection;

• cover you have taken out yourself.

In the case of the first, keep in mind that your removals company has cover that is designed primarily to protect them – not you.

To give a crude example, if they reverse their truck over a piece of your furniture then you can probably claim against their insurance. If you drop something or have a delay that means you incur vehicle waiting charges and unexpected overnight stays, you probably can’t.

For more details,please visit - http://totalcareremovals.weebly.com/blog/how-to-make-a-household-removals-damage-insurance-claim

Some Top Packing Tips – For Unpacking

It’s not unusual to find that you’re simply too exhausted to unpack everything the day you move in.

While some people throw themselves into things and unpack non-stop in one go, for many others, unpacking is something done over a few days. That latter might particularly be the case if, for example, you’re also working during the day.

However, at the risk of stating the obvious, that means you’ll need to think a little when packing about what you’ll need to unpack and in what priority. For example, being unable to find your toiletries and cosmetics for a few days might be a problem!

So here are a few everyday tips about unpacking after furniture removals:

• colour code or otherwise very clearly distinguish, those cartons that need to be unpacked ‘PDQ’ upon arrival. Don’t leave this to a faint pen mark that you’ll be struggling to see – make your marks bold;

• number your cartons and keep a book where you note down what’s in each. If you don’t do this, you’ll end up needing to open virtually every carton immediately on arrival to try and remember what’s in them;

• remember that the first thing you’ll probably need to unpack are your tea/coffee making facilities plus perhaps a few snacks. Dare we say it but loo paper might be pretty important to get out fast as well;

For more details, please visit - http://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/some-top-packing-tips-for-unpacking/

Our Policies On Pets

This is an area that we’re fairly regularly asked about, so here’s a quick summary of our approach again.

As a broad principle, we don’t carry pets as part of a furniture removals job.  By that we mean we regret that we are unable to accept things such as cats, dogs, horses and goats (etc.) for transport in our vehicles. There are safety, responsibility, practicality and insurance reasons why that is the case.

It is true that there may be some exceptions. For example, it’s always worth discussing with us if you have certain types of fully enclosed pet, with examples perhaps being something like a hamster. Providing it’s adequately packed away then subject to each individual case being examined on its own merits, we may be able to assist, though the carriage will need to be strictly at your risk.

If you’re trying to transport larger animals such as some of those mentioned at the outset, it’s usually required and indeed desirable to make special arrangements. As a general rule, we’d advise transporting dogs and cats yourself in your own vehicle, having taken all appropriate precautions.

It is possible to arrange third party transport in some cases too. Horses can usually be transported in specialised horse boxes and there are similar trailers available for different forms of pet/livestock such as goats etc.  We can put you in touch with such specialists if it would help or in some cases may be able to make arrangements on your behalf. Read more https://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/our-policies-on-pets/

FAQS – Moving Expensive Furniture

Here are a few of the questions we received when we’re being asked to engage in furniture removals, Christchurch and elsewhere, that involve expensive furniture items.

Can you make special packing arrangements for precious furniture?

Yes, that would be absolutely no problem.

Although we always pack and protect to exceptional standards, we also know that sometimes very special measures are required. So, for example, in some cases we can arrange for a rare and expensive item to be crated in a bespoke wooden container ready for shipment.

Will these items always be insured?

Yes but there is always the need to discuss your insurance requirements.

In the cases of items of exceptional antique (or other) value, special insurance arrangements may be required.  We’ll be happy to discuss all that with you at the time we’re preparing your quotation.

What happens if my furniture is damaged?

For more Details, please visit - http://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/faqs-moving-expensive-furniture/

How to Save Money on Packing Materials

In the past, we’ve blogged about the dangers of economising on packing materials.

However, some of our customers who’ve decided to do their own packing still ask us for tips on this subject – so here are a few thoughts:

• talk to us. As relocation specialists, we may be able to supply you with top-quality packing materials and at an attractive price even if we’re not doing the packing for you;

• talk to us. As relocation specialists, we may be able to supply you with top-quality packing materials and at an attractive price even if we’re not doing the packing for you;

• you can made some good packing materials if you buy/rent/borrow a paper shredder and shred all the piles of ancient and useless paperwork we all store in our houses for year after year;

• if you’re re-using cartons you may be able to save a lot of money over purchasing new ones. However, invest in some really good quality and heavy-duty tape to secure them with, as it may help add a little security and robustness to them;

For more details, please visit - http://www.totalcareremovals.co.nz/how-to-save-money-on-packing-materials/