Moving house: hire removalists or DIY?

You look around your house. With the exception of a few heavy items, you reckon you could pack everything up and move it yourself. Are you being overly confident? Have you considered the pros and cons of paying more for a professional moving service? Before you start the heavy lifting, pick up a piece of paper and a pencil and take a walk around the house.

Your DIY to-do list

The first things to go on your house-moving list will probably be the big things like sofas, beds, tables and your fridge. You may need to hire a hand truck and get some mates to help you, but it’s doable. Just to be sure, itemise them and try to determine how many trips back and forth to your new house it’s going to take to move them all.

Now it’s time to start looking at all the smaller items. Go into your kitchen and open the cupboards. All of those fragile plates, cups and glasses are going to have to be carefully packed before you can move them. How many boxes will you need for those?

As you move through the house, you will probably realise that the most time-consuming part of moving is packing all those boxes.

Is taking the DIY approach still worth it to you? If so, move on to the next step.

Professional moving services: pros and cons

Now that you’ve made a realistic assessment of what DIY moving really involves, consider the pros and cons of hiring a professional moving service. What are the pros?

• A professional moving team can do in a day what could easily take you a week to accomplish if you have to do your packing in the evenings after work.
• Professional movers guarantee their services. If anything breaks in transit, it’s their responsibility to pay for it.
• Professional movers often also offer cleaning services. They can leave your old house as clean as a whistle and have your new house ready for you to enjoy as soon as you walk in the door.

What are the cons to professional moving services? Usually, the main con is the cost of the service. To save money, you can elect to do some jobs yourself. You can always get a man with a van on Gumtree to do the main moving for a reasonable cost.

Ultimately, the decision is yours, but just to be sure, get quotes from removalists before you make your final decision. And remember: you can always choose to do some of the work yourself and leave the heavy lifting to them.