Local Moving Tips for Winter

Everyone knows summer is the peak moving season. The perfect weather conditions and the fact that your kids are probably free from school, done with the school year, make for the best time to change houses. Unfortunately, our plans don’t always align with the weather. You may be forced to relocate during the winter and it’s natural for you to be wondering about the important local moving tips.

The snow and not to mention the discomfort of freezing temperatures do make a winter move slightly daunting, but when you tackle something with the right mindset, you can achieve anything. All you need is a positive attitude and to apply the right tips and tricks so that you get the job done in the best way possible.

Here are some tips for moving locally which will make the entire process of relocating to a new place in the winters significantly easier for you.

Plan Thoroughly

Naturally, this doesn’t just apply to a winter move, but to a relocation in any weather. Regardless of how small your new house might be, how few your belongings or how much time you seemingly have to get everything done, planning it out beforehand will always be the best way to go.

To start off, make a list of all the things you need to have taken care of at least a month or two weeks prior to your move. You may even need more time, depending on your needs. Once you start off in a systematic manner, everything that comes after will flow without any major glitches. In the winters especially, leaving everything to the last minute when the roads might be blocked due to the snow can be really problematic.

Take Care of Your Utilities

Before the day of the move, the smartest thing you can do for yourself and your family will be to have the electricity, gas, and heating systems in the new house in order. Many people prefer to leave this until the last moment, even delaying it until the day of the move. This may work for some but imagine having to shift to a house with no central heating and temperatures lower than would be comfortable. That will definitely not be a pleasant experience. Your foresight in this regard will make a difficult task significantly easier.

Book an Experienced Mover

As winter is the least favourite season to change residence, moving companies will be easier to book owing to a lower demand and you may save quite a bit of money on their fees, in comparison to what you would be paying during the summers.

This, again, doesn’t mean that you should leave this task until the last minute. Moving during the winters is slightly more tricky owing to the rain and snow increasing the chances of mishaps during the loading and unloading of your belongings. To counter this, carry out a detailed research and choose movers who have experience, ensuring your move goes accident-free.

Find the Right Packing Material

While using cardboard boxes for a move is the method most people adopt, for your winter move, it’s better to use boxes made of a sturdier material. Your belongings can get ruined easily due to moisture exposure from melted snow which easily seeps through the cardboard boxes. Additionally, if any of these boxes fall due to the slick surface, it will lead to unnecessary damage.

Instead, by using metal or plastic boxes, you can ensure this doesn’t happen, keeping your belongings safe from all kinds of harm.

Give Particular Attention to Your Fragile Items

As the boxes containing your possessions are shifted from the colder temperatures outside to the relatively warmer ones inside the house, there is a possibility that the more fragile items will crack.

To prevent this, you can wrap these items in a thicker material compared to paper such as blankets or warm clothing. Using bubble wrap is also an option. Taking these steps might sound extremely tedious as packing is already a boring job, but a little effort will go a long way when it comes to getting all your possessions inside your new home in one piece.

Make All the Preparations Beforehand

Imagine you reach your new house, with the movers and their trucks in tow, only to find snow blocking your path. Not only will this frustrate you and slow you down, it might even lead to increased fees.

To avoid this, simply reach the house earlier and clear away all the snow and ice that may be blocking your driveway. This isn’t just vital for everything to move at a steady pace but is also important to prevent someone from slipping and hurting themselves during the move.

Another thing you should try and take care of is the inside of your home. You and the movers will bring snow and mud inside the house with your shoes as you go in and out, again and again, leading to a huge mess. By lining your floors with plastic sheets or old bed sheets, you can keep your house clean, but make sure you do not make the surface of the floor too slippery.

Keep All the Equipment You Might Need

This mainly relates to all the items you might need to clear away snow, any extra sheets or gloves you might require, and so on.

During the process of the move, you may need to shovel snow out of the way more than once, so make sure you have all the tools handy at all times, instead of using them once and then losing all memory of where you put them for safekeeping. If this situation arises and you don’t have the means to handle it, your move will basically come to a standstill.

Start Early

The fact that you should start as soon as the sun comes up can’t be emphasized enough.

Winter mornings are especially difficult to deal with, but moving is a lengthy process and starting late will just create problems for you later on. As the days are much smaller, the chances of your shifting being left unfinished at nightfall are greater.

This may lead to a major problem as the movers might find it difficult to navigate their way if your driveway doesn’t have sufficient lighting, again leading to a higher risk of accidents, which you obviously must avoid at all costs.

Take Out Extra Time for the Drive

During the winters, the roads are extra slippery, forcing drivers to go at a slower pace. This isn’t anything new but doesn’t forget this basic fact on the day of your move. You will already be hampered because of the slippery conditions, but if the movers are following you to your new house in their trucks, which is what normally happens, their larger vehicles will require even more time to reach compared to your car.

Factoring in the time you will spend reaching your destination is essential and as mentioned above, an early start is the only solution if you want most or all of your moving done before the end of the day.

Dress Appropriately

This may sound like a no-brainer but, in reality, in the rush of moving and getting everything organized, we often forget to take care of ourselves. Other than that, as you will probably be moving in and out of the house with the movers, you might not feel too cold and might discard your warmer clothing.

However, you will feel the effects later if you catch a cold, so try and keep your chest and ears covered during the move, making sure this new start in a new home isn’t an unpleasant one.

Another thing you need to be careful about is the kind of shoes you wear. You may discard closed shoes, appropriate for winter, for ones which are more comfortable. This may lead to you getting sick, or worse, slipping and falling on the icy ground. Avoid any such disasters by keeping the correct shoes on.

Keep Warm Drinks and Food at Hand

The entire process of moving is extremely strenuous. You may not be sweating as much as you would have in the summer heat, but you’re still going to get hungry. Make sure you have sandwiches or other such snacks available at all times, ensuring energy levels stay raised throughout.

Before you begin the day, fill up your thermos flask with a warm beverage. It will help you more than you realize over the course of your move.

Along with this, keep in mind that the temperatures are affecting the movers just as much as they are affecting you so make sure you offer them warm drinks and food as well.

Have a Positive Attitude During Your Move

The thought of moving can bring anyone down as there are always going to be many hurdles that you will have to overcome. Your aim, though, should be to get through this in the easiest way possible and the best way to do that is to focus on the positives instead of the negatives. Once you do that, your move will go much smoother than you anticipated.

Moving is not easy during the winters, but if you hire the best movers and keep all the local moving tips in mind, you can manage to make it a lot more convenient for yourself.