What size U-Haul do I need?

[utrecht]

We've all played the game where we guess how many jelly beans is in the jar, right? Who wants to guess how big a truck I need for our move? I've gone back and forth trying to estimate.

We have a 4 bedroom house but are giving away or selling a lot of our furniture.

Bedroom #1 has a desk
Bedroom #2 has a treadmill and a book case
Bedroom #3 has a 42" TV
Bedroom #4 has a king sized mattress, a chaise lounge and a blanket chest.
Other than clothes and some other junk in the closets, that is literally everything we are taking from the bedrooms.

Dining room...table, 8 chairs, a buffet, and a wine cabinet
Living room...large sectional, 2 big speakers, 60" TV and TV stand.
Kitchen....full of kitchen stuff but no table or chairs. 2 tall free standing cabinets.
Standard amount of garage and shed stuff (no lawn equip)
Patio furniture
Avg amount of knick knacks and wall hangings.
Refrigerator, washer and dryer.

Whats your guess?

 

[Moemg]

15'truck with no boxes or next size up with boxes !

 

[Lakewood90712]

Any boxes of stuff in the garage or attic ? Get the biggest thing they rent. When my brother and myself moved my aunt some years back, he rented a 14' for a 2 bedroom house ( using the estimator from U-haul. Ended up with a trailer behind, and also making a second trip with a 10' truck a week later. Big pita.

 

[Texas Proud]

Get the largest.... unless you are really good at packing stuff in a truck, it will take more room than you think....


Now, if you are good at packing... maybe one size down...

You also will need to remove legs etc. to make the things as small as possible... (ie, the table)....

 

[NW-Bound]

I said 26'. Not because I really know that's what you need, but it's what I would get to be safe. Is the price that much different between a 20' and a 26'?

 

[EastWest Gal]

Make sure it has a ramp! The smaller ones don't.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[48Fire]

Get the biggest one you can Next poll will be how many trips

 

[Tom52]

Get the biggest one you can Next poll will be how many trips

+1

How far are you moving? Across town, no problem if you have to make more than one trip. When we moved out of state last year we didn't move washer/dryer/refrigerator, but most of the rest sounded similar to us except we had a lot of garage stuff and lawn equipment. Our move required one of those LOONG moving semi trailers and it was stuffed floor to ceiling. Besides that we had to make about 6 trips with a stuffed pick up truck to get everything moved.

 

[RunningBum]

20 sounds like enough and is a lot easier to drive than a 26. But I think it'd be foolish to base your decision or even be slightly swayed on the guess of people who haven't seen your stuff and may have no idea what they're talking about.

 

[utrecht]

Its only $100 to move up from 20' to 26'. We are moving 1300 miles so two trips is out of the question. Basically we have an avg amount of "stuff" to box up but we are bringing very little large pieces of furniture. We have four bedrooms but we aren't bringing any bedroom furniture at all (except for one king sized mattress). We aren't bringing our kitchen table or chairs. No lawn equip but the shed and garage do have a fair amount of tools, camping supplies, holiday decorations and other stuff.

U-Haul says:

17' truck...2 bedroom house
20' truck...2-3 bedroom house
26' truck...4+ bedroom house

I would assume all of those different sized houses all have the same general other stuff besides the extra bedroom furniture.

 

[MichaelB]

Bigger is not better when moving stuff in a truck. Extra space lets things shift around, makes driving difficult and risks things being damaged. A nice tight fit is best.

Any chance U-Haul will let you reserve a smaller truck and change for a larger one at the last minute if needed?

 

[utrecht]

Bigger is not better when moving stuff in a truck. Extra space lets things shift around, makes driving difficult and risks things being damaged. A nice tight fit is best.

Any chance U-Haul will let you reserve a smaller truck and change for a larger one at the last minute if needed?

Maybe, but packing the whole truck and then realizing our stuff is not going to fit would be a nightmare. We would have to unpack everything, exchange trucks, and then repack everything again.

Plus we are moving on July 4th. I have no idea if thats a busy moving day with no extra trucks available or if nobody moves on a holiday.

 

[REWahoo]

Maybe, but packing the whole truck and then realizing our stuff is not going to fit would be a nightmare.

Not sure why you bothered with a poll since the answer is obvious.

 

[travelover]

There are some good videos on You Tube on how to properly pack a truck. It is important not only to save space, but also to keep an item from moving around and damaging itself or other items.

 

[utrecht]

Not sure why you bothered with a poll since the answer is obvious.

Obviously I could just get the biggest truck, but I would feel like a moron if everything fits in half the truck. The U-Haul sizing estimator says a 17' truck will move a 2 bedroom house. I assume a 2 bedroom house has most of same things that a 4 bedroom house has, other than maybe it only has one table (not a dining and kitchen table). Other than the stuff in the 4 closets you could call our house a 1 bedroom as far as the furniture.

 

[MRG]

Maybe, but packing the whole truck and then realizing our stuff is not going to fit would be a nightmare. We would have to unpack everything, exchange trucks, and then repack everything again.

Plus we are moving on July 4th. I have no idea if thats a busy moving day with no extra trucks available or if nobody moves on a holiday.

Funny that's your date, we moved 1500 miles from home July 4, 1978. The trip was an experience, as we had to call service 3 times the first day. That killed at least 8 hours. In the area we moved from there was an abundance of trucks so we could have exchanged vehicles. Much like you we didn't want to double pack.

Best advice, pack very well, a 20' may do well as long as you are diligent in your packing.

 

[bld999]

Loading hh goods in a van is a nesting puzzle. A little measuring and a couple sheets of paper will help you think about how to strategically load it to maximize density and protect the goods at the same time. Or, just get a large truck and bail it all in 3' deep.
u-Hauls' 2 bed 3 bed house guide is a chainsaw vs knowing what you actually have and measuring it [scalpel]

 

[samclem]

There's no way that the U-Haul "bedroom to truck size" estimator is any more than a rough WAG--people just differ too much in what they have. With all the other stresses involved in moving, I would get the biggest truck I might conceivably need just to remove the stress of running out of room. I'd go room by room and estimate the cu ft of furniture and boxes, then see what the trucks hold.
Get extra straps (rent them, buy cheap ones at Harbor Freight, etc, or use rope/cord if necessary) to secure the load periodically to the tie-down points on the walls/floor of the truck to minimize shifting and damage. And don't scrimp on the pads/moving blankets if you have furniture you want to protect. Hire/borrow help on both ends unless the amount of stuff is really small.

 

[ivinsfan]

When you say "junk in the closets do you really mean junk? Why would you move junk? Maybe you should have a pile of "probably could leave this behind if the truck is getting full"... bigger truck, more expense, probably more gas, maybe a pain to drive...

Also how old is your fridge, we have never had luck moving old fridges, something about the movement and the period they are unplugged always causes problems later.

I can see you are going to have a busy week!

 

[cantlogin]

There's no way that the U-Haul "bedroom to truck size" estimator is any more than a rough WAG--people just differ too much in what they have. With all the other stresses involved in moving, I would get the biggest truck I might conceivably need just to remove the stress of running out of room. I'd go room by room and estimate the cu ft of furniture and boxes, then see what the trucks hold.
Get extra straps (rent them, buy cheap ones at Harbor Freight, etc, or use rope/cord if necessary) to secure the load periodically to the tie-down points on the walls/floor of the truck to minimize shifting and damage. And don't scrimp on the pads/moving blankets if you have furniture you want to protect. Hire/borrow help on both ends unless the amount of stuff is really small.

This is the best answer.

It's essential that the load be secured and protected from motion. It will be much, much, easier to load and unload a van that has excess room. There will be less planning and puzzle piece fitting if you have the room to walk in and just put the stuff on the floor where it fits.
Get the biggest truck you can.

 

[utrecht]

When you say "junk in the closets do you really mean junk? Why would you move junk? Maybe you should have a pile of "probably could leave this behind if the truck is getting full"... bigger truck, more expense, probably more gas, maybe a pain to drive...

Also how old is your fridge, we have never had luck moving old fridges, something about the movement and the period they are unplugged always causes problems later.

I can see you are going to have a busy week!

Its not really junk in the closets. Its just stuff. Vacuum cleaner, umbrellas, extra pillows, craft supplies....you know...all the stuff you dont want out in the garage.

 

[karen1972]

If you really have a lot of stuff, I'd go one size bigger than Uhaul recommends as its estimating an average # of boxes plus your furniture and it assumes a 2 bedroom house, not downsizing from a larger home..so your rooms are likely bigger than a typical 2 bedroom and you likely have more "extras" than expected. We downsized from 3 bedrooms to 2 bedroom apartment, but we had a living room, family room, and a full basement plus full 2 car garage..vs. they are assuming a small living room, plus eat in kitchen and small kitchen at that. I probably had double the kitchen items they have budgeted.


As for moving, you may want to get professional movers (I know U-Haul provides a full list), they would be much more experienced loading/unloading and moving items around for you. It is really all about weighting the truck properly. FYI, good luck with the treadmill (hope its really small) as the professional movers wouldnt' touch it and we moved one out of the basement and it pretty much killed my siblings...even though it was a folding treadmill it wasn't easy as the weight is all on one end.


Good luck on the move. The professionals make it look so easy as they have a ridiculous amount of tarps to wrap things in and unlimited supply of plastic wrap. We couldn't move our stuff, our bedroom furniture was way too well built (ie. real wood weighs a ton)..even the movers kept asking .. is this thing empty?? are you sure?? Try to get rid of everything you can before the move.. many charities will pick up so its worth a second look around to make your life easier.

 

[utrecht]

Originally when planning the move I was going to get a 17' truck based on U-Hauls description. Then when I actually reserved the truck I decided to go with a 20'. We have now boxed everything up and stacked it all in the dining room which is the closest room to the front door in preparation for loading the truck on Sat. The boxes take up 2/3 of a 10x10 room so I decided to upgrade to the 26' truck. I just cant believe we need one that big. I guess I will see how it all fits in there in a couple days.

I did get a sheet of paper and cut it to the exact dimensions of the truck and plotted out where the furniture would go, trying to see how much floor space the furniture would take up. It looked like if most of the furniture was on the floor (not stacked) that the floor space would all be used up in the 20' truck. I wasnt sure how high I wanted boxes stacked which I why I decided I wanted more floor space and went to the 26'.

Our treadmill moves pretty easily. We've moved it around a few times when we had guests over. It does fold up, but I think we will leave it unfolded so we can stack boxes on top of it in the truck. Theres also no chance it will tip over that way.

 

[utrecht]

We got the 26' truck. We had an army of friends helping us load up this morning. This is hard for me to believe but is was apparent early on that everything wasn't going to fit. I cant believe a 4 bedroom house with virtually no bedroom furniture wont fit in a 26' truck. We had to leave all of our patio furniture, the treadmill, a desk that I made myself, a wine cabinet that I mead myself, ladder, shop vac, box springs (which we didnt need anyway but were almost brand new), a router table and quite a few other odds and ends. Amazing!

We are safely in Monroe, La after finishing the first leg of a 3 day journey to Coral Springs, FL.

 

[ERD50]

... I cant believe a 4 bedroom house with virtually no bedroom furniture wont fit in a 26' truck. ...

What led you to believe that? Did you actually measure your stuff?

I have absolutely no idea how big of a truck is needed for our stuff. I'd have to give it some serious thought. Can't begin to guestimate, wouldn't know where to start w/o measuring.

I wonder if you are a victim of 'anchoring'? That's where a number is thrown out, and that number becomes an 'anchor' for your estimates. The 'Freakonomics' guys do a good review of this. You probably 'anchored' on the middle value offered. But it has little relevance. An actual measurement has relevance, not what some other people may have averaged, or wherever those numbers came from.

It doesn't seem to be surprising based on the poll. Hope the rest of the move goes well!

-ERD50