How to move a workshop

[Eric Porter]

Bill,
I made a similar move, will be 6 yrs. ago on the 15th of this month. Moved from Spartanburg, SC to upper East TN. I was changing jobs so the company paid for the move and movers packed, and moved all the household contents. I wasn't comfortable with them handling the shop because I have a number of large machines, tool boxes, etc. To move the shop I ended up renting a truck from Ryder because they were the only local company with liftgate trucks. The funny thing is that they would not rent a liftgate truck to an "individual". So I simply told them I was moving some machines for my new employer, which was true as because the company was paying for the move. All of my large equipment was on mobile bases so it was easy to roll them up on the liftgate, raise to the truck floor, roll them in the truck and tie them down. Same was true of the tool boxes. The rest of the shop contents were packed around the big tools as there was ample space in the truck. Turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the move.

Eric

[Jim Andrew]

One thing I'd like to point out, when SAIA delivered my new Grizzly planer and shaper, they had them tied to the side of the truck. So they couldn't fall over. When the guy backed in the yard, he got off to the side of the driveway, and I could hear some shifting going on. But everything was ok. Lot of value in tieing things up when you are moving.

[Thomas Canfield]

I moved (300 miles) my shop a little over a year ago using a POD plus moving 3+ truckloads (about 1500# each) in my pickup, and then the remainder with the household goods. I used a POD to give me the time to load at my leisure (2 weeks) and knew that things in it would need to be stored for a couple of months while having a new shop built. I made Excel spreadsheet to list my shop inventory, approximate weight, and volume to help determine what would go in the POD (7500# limit), pickup, or moving van. It would have been some cheaper probably if I could have just had the mover load and move everything, but going to storage would have required double handling, storage costs, etc, plus having everything dumped in the shop to deal with all at once. Moving companies and POD will not handle flamable material (paints, etc) and that was a reason for pickup plus I had to make several trips prior to the move to check on remodel progress on new home and find contrator for new shop. I was able to pick up a bunch(over 50) of the 6 gal size milk/water boxes at the local grocery store that were very handy for packing since they were uniform size and substantial, did not require assembly, and FREE. I was able to unload the POD in 2 days, but it took months to get things mostly situated, and still more to do a year later. Good Luck.