Packing - Any Advice

The Greens · 08-01-2008, 06:01 PM

Just a few questions about packing.

I have a question to those of you who shipped your good and belonings over. Did you pack them yourselves. Well I say packed yourself, we have been told we can not pack ourselves or else it all will be checked and searched in customs??? They (Crown) will do it all? What about clothes and things though?

So what's the procedure you followed? Also Did you have to write an inventry of everything that goes into each box? Anything else we should be doing?

I know it sounds simple but some time conflicting info makes you wonder what's the best to do? So guys any help would be great. Hopefully Hubby will be out working or saying good bye to his mates, if not I'll send him to the nearest racecourse on the day, and me and the fam who are still talking to us will get it all sorted.

Thanks
EMMY:)

tonyandlynne · 08-01-2008, 07:55 PM

Hi Emmy hun, We had GB Liners in last thursday and friday packing up our worldly belongings and they do absolutely everything including clothes etc, the only was you have to list an inventory yourself is if you are insuring everything or you just list on your inventory what you want insured. The packers were brilliant apparently. There is a normal inventory of your belongings but the person who comes to see you to set up your removals will do the inventory for you all you have to do is tell them what you are taking (they will go with you to each room in your house and look) they will tell you wha you are ok to take and what isnt so you will be just fine

AndyandAlly · 08-01-2008, 09:34 PM

Hi Emmy,

Crown packed all ours and did the inventry too. (good service from the lads at the uk end)

My friend used Brittania and packed some of her boxes herself, but these were opened by AQIS and inspected...also a different company dropped her stuff off in OZ too.

Ally
x

ellie2 · 08-01-2008, 11:53 PM

Hi Emmy

We had Allied Pickfords in to do our removal and they packed everything and also did the inventory. Just sit back and relax and let them do the work, but it is weird having complete strangers going through all your things. I cannot wait to see my things again hopefully they should be there before us we leave the UK on the 8th Feb.

Good luck

Christine

calNgary · 09-01-2008, 12:55 AM

I just put everything i was taking to one side in boxes or bags and the crown guys just checked them briefly and packed them straight into their boxes.Any kids toys id kept the boxes too were repacked and put into crown boxes too.Hubbys tool box was just wrapped in crown paper,,hope this helps a little
Cal x

The Greens · 09-01-2008, 12:38 PM

Thanks for the replies Y'alllll, It's good to know we are on the same wavelength.

We will as you say just sit back and let them take the lead and see what they say. I have a friend of mine coming round to help so should all go smoothly. Fingers crossed

EMMY

AngelaCDyer · 19-01-2008, 06:28 PM

Hi Everyone,
In the stressful process of sorting through all my stuff to have it all ready for when Allied Pickfords comes to pack it next week....so found this thread very useful..I had thought I had to do a very detailed inventory (for insurance and customs purposes) "before" Allied Pickfords came so as to get a detailed insurance valuation....accompanied by photographs etc...as proof of ownership.... Sounds like this is not necessary then? (except for very expensive, or bigger items?) If so then that would be a huge relief....

Also, I had already packed quite a bit of stuff, principally clothes and DVD's/Videos, and Books (we have loads!) some into plastic tubs and some clothes (e.g. expensive suits) were packed in suitcases but each individually in plastic drycleaning bags....I did this mainly to get the stuff out of the way and up into my loft for storage until the big day...have since read that this could cause mold/mildew damage to the items during transit due to the extreme temperatures...and that nothing should be wrapped/packed in plastic....can anyone advise on this? I suppose Allied may just re-pack from the tubs into boxes?

Also with sensitive electrical equipment (to condensation), like video cameras, would these be okay in the shipment or is it advised to take these on the plane with me?

I'm looking at taking out the cheaper marine insurance from letton percival as per other forum advice, but I note that they do not cover any damage due to extreme temperatures and internal electrical damage to equipment like TVs etc...Did anyone already in Oz experience any such damage to their electrical stuff?

Good luck to the rest of you going through a similar process....no matter how organised you think you are, it is still all very stressful!!!
Thanks, Angela

Sheerluck · 19-01-2008, 10:48 PM

Angela,

We had ********* do all our shipping, and they were very efficient and quick at packing (it was just the subcontractor delivering that was the problem - see my recent thread), far quicker than we would have been. They did the inventory too, but it was a very "general" inventory - eg box 1 crockery, box 2 2nd bedroom.
For your own peace of mind you may wish to keep your own inventory and pictures in case anything does disappear. The insurance proposal we had to fill in was quite detailed, so we used that as our detailed inventory.

Our insurance didn't cover the electrical damage either, and we did worry about that particularly as our container was being shipped at an awkward time - northern hemisphere winter to southern hemisphere summer. Thankfully, when our stuff did turn up we needn't have worried because all the damage we had was physical!

AngelaCDyer · 20-01-2008, 10:23 AM

Hello,

Thanks for your response...sorry to hear you had some damages though...
Will definitely continue with my own inventory/photos then....
Best Wishes, Angela

The Broughtons · 20-01-2008, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelaCDyer

Hi Everyone,
In the stressful process of sorting through all my stuff to have it all ready for when Allied Pickfords comes to pack it next week....so found this thread very useful..I had thought I had to do a very detailed inventory (for insurance and customs purposes) "before" Allied Pickfords came so as to get a detailed insurance valuation....accompanied by photographs etc...as proof of ownership.... Sounds like this is not necessary then? (except for very expensive, or bigger items?) If so then that would be a huge relief....

Also, I had already packed quite a bit of stuff, principally clothes and DVD's/Videos, and Books (we have loads!) some into plastic tubs and some clothes (e.g. expensive suits) were packed in suitcases but each individually in plastic drycleaning bags....I did this mainly to get the stuff out of the way and up into my loft for storage until the big day...have since read that this could cause mold/mildew damage to the items during transit due to the extreme temperatures...and that nothing should be wrapped/packed in plastic....can anyone advise on this? I suppose Allied may just re-pack from the tubs into boxes?

Also with sensitive electrical equipment (to condensation), like video cameras, would these be okay in the shipment or is it advised to take these on the plane with me?

I'm looking at taking out the cheaper marine insurance from letton percival as per other forum advice, but I note that they do not cover any damage due to extreme temperatures and internal electrical damage to equipment like TVs etc...Did anyone already in Oz experience any such damage to their electrical stuff?

Good luck to the rest of you going through a similar process....no matter how organised you think you are, it is still all very stressful!!!
Thanks, Angela

I completed a form for insurance purposes which pretty much listed everything that we were taking with us but not titles of books or dvds and such like, just how much of stuff.

I had already packed some stuff in boxes myself, mainly for the big tidy when we were selling the house. We used John Mason and all the blokes did was check the box was what we said and then put my boxes inside one of their own.

We bought our laptop and video camera with us, mainly because we wanted to be sure they got here in one piece and because we'd be using them before our container arrived.

I did take extra photos of some items that were particularly valuable and irreplacable and wrote an extra detailed bit on the insurance form.

Customs opened 15 of our 86 packages. These were the garden seats, the bikes, hubbies tools, a couple of kitchen boxes and a few other boxes of bits and pieces. Everything came through with no extra charges, nothing was removed for cleaning.

Oh by the way, Masons way of completing an inventory was to list each package on a sheet with quick description of contents and each box was also colour labelled with a number and our name. When the delivery men bought my stuff they bought it into the house and told me the number, I had to tick it off on the sheet and tell them which room to put it in. My container was unloaded in less than 2 hours!!

It is a stressful process and the worry about your stuff continues until it actually makes it into your house!

Felicity:wub: