Education Stair-Climbing Hand Trucks - Yay or Nay?

Best thing I paid for when moving house was someone else to pack and move it for me.

It was amazing, in fact possible some of the best money I have ever spent.

 

I've just PM'd you details of an excellent arcade mover, G.

 

This, I’ve moved houses more times than most travellers. Take your essentials, valuables, usually equates to a small box, plastic storage container, and go eat a meal, go shopping.

Come to new gaff and everything is in boxes, furniture in the right rooms, pure bliss.

I did find putting all the clothes back in the wardrobes took the longest amount of time, oh and making up the beds.

 

I would definitely pay for movers, but not the packing service unless you're on short notice - it's much easier to chuck out all the dross you've collected when you're packing it yourself.

 

I remember that dance last time I moved with a 75kg Toshiba CRT telly box.
I prefer to move myself (4 times in the last 10 years) rather than getting anyone in, I'm a bit anal when it comes to my stuff, the best advice I can give is to make sure you have an overlap if you can, it makes moving sooo much easier.

Fancy stair climbing do dad? If you need it you need it, don't forget to pick up some good ratchet / friction straps though.

 

Paid for movers to both pack and move. They dismantled beds, wardrobes etc and packed the whole house in no time at all. Even rebuilt the furniture the other end. We unpacked everything else.

Still worth clearing out stuff first as they will pack literally everything including rubbish.

Best money ever spent

 

My current house is the 16th address I've lived at, I've personally moved 12 times and although it's a pain I would never pay what movers ask for unless some sort of storage or scheduling issue forced my hand.

It does sound like a wonderful luxury but man, moving house is already so expensive, hiring a van or two and doing it yourself can really take the sting out of it.

 

I got quotes with and without packing last time we moved - the difference was barely there in all cases - each party explained it the same: these guys are machines when it comes to packing boxes, and the time it takes to wrap and pack stuff is nothing in comparison to the time it takes to actually do the moving in/out of the boxes.
To boot, there was no coverage for breakages if we packed ourselves, whereas if they packed it was included.

IIRC it was 10-15% extra with packing included.

OTOH... moving is already stressful enough without having to pack and load everything you own against a ticking clock, and having someone do it for you can really take the sting out of it

 

This 100% and we were told exactly the same. They also added if they pack the boxes they find packing the vans easier and as Mr T says everything is covered from an insurance perspective.

We had 7 people descend the day before moving and within 5-6 hours the whole house was packed. Some of the guys came from loading up a move round the corner about mid day, so its really efficient use of the movers labour too.

Also they provided specialty boxes for things like clothes and minor breakages were sorted really quickly. They put all the boxes in the right rooms and came back a few weeks later to collect all the boxes after we had finished with them.

 

We had something similar in a previous office but for fire escape access for wheelchair users. I had to use one once to help a wheelchair bound visitor out during a fire alarm. It was an absolute nightmare going DOWN the stairs with a load (person in my case), I'd dread to think what it'd be like using one to take something heavy up a staircase, corners or not!

 

It would have been easier, quicker and safer for all other building occupants, in the event of a genuine fire, to lift the person out of the wheelchair and hand-carry them down the building. In order to minimise discomfort on the journey down the stairs, it was slow going and we were definitely a cork in the fire escape plan bottle!

I guess time is not so much of a factor for you but, to pull whatever you intend to lift up the stairs with these, is going to be awkward. Particularly when you consider tread height, depth and if carpeted etc... Ours was an office bldg with bog standard linoleum covered stairs with shallow tread depth and edging strips - and that was difficult enough.

 

I would posit that it would be "easier" overall just to suck up the step count and do lots of small trips; rather than trying to find a "solution" to make fewer, but probably slower trips.
And for anything big/heavy find someone to assist' do it a floor at a time - take it down/up one floor, go do something easier, come back and then take it another floor - break it up.

Using something like the do-dad you've highlighted is just begging for it to go wrong/be overloaded and you lose control.
Little and often although dull af, would be best.
There's a reason why moving companies limit the weight in the boxes; yes it might mean more boxes to move, but safer all round.

That's a bit rambly, but hopefully you'll get what i'm saying

 

I moved from one place doing with with loads of it myself with friends an family and it was OK, a lot of hard work, we were all shattered as it is not what we do.

At another move, 2 guys turned up pickfords I think paid by my company, I thought to my self they'll never get this done, but they packed me and un packed me in no time at all, height of summer, didn't break a sweat, worth every penny, I won't even consider doing anything myself now. Just getting **** in and out of doors was a doddle compared to us lot, a bunch of engineers, clueless at furniture shifting

I packed some boxes myself, and of course, they were the boxes that contained a damage item and wasn't covered.

 

I did pack my main electronics (PC, AV, etc) in original boxes (one reason I horde these) as I'm paranoid and figured the original packaging is better than random packaging. Valuables we also moved in the car (the very far 15mins down the road) as they're not insured to the full value.

 

I paid for a company to pack everything - we went out for breakfast then lunch and came back to an empty house - it was awesome - you can still get rid of those things that you don't want on the unpacking side but the team they sent in were ace and nothing was broken in transit! Wouldn't do it any other way now!

 

Having moved a dozen times or more, having packed myself most of those times, the most recent time where someone else was paid to do it all for me was the best decision ever. They were German, though, so. YMMV. They clearly wanted to leave the UK ASAP, so they didn't hang about. Two bed terraced house emptied and they were gone inside two hours.

As much as I enjoy Tetris-ing a truck, **** lugging boxes around.

 

I'm surprised so many are in the "pay a man" category

Saying that, last time I moved I drove a Luton van on its bump stops half a mile up the road using a specialist route that minimised incline. There was a 340kg safe in the back of Laura's Clio for three days prior, so perhaps I'm just an idiot?

Edit: At least no-one has actually answered the original question of stair climbing hand trucks.