When moving do you ......

[dms1]

When moving do you leave your tools in your rolling tool cabinets or do you pack them up in boxes?

Getting ready to move and want to know how most of you do it.

Thanks

 

[ddawg16]

Depends on who is doing the moving.

Me? I'd leave them in there....but with the drawers locked.

You don't want to end up on YouTube

 

[niget2002]

I left mine in the rolling cabinet. I put the locking bars down the front of all the drawers, locked them shut, and then attached the key to my daily key chain and the backup key to the wife's daily key chain.

I also made up a small toolbox with any tools that I had to use to take furniture apart. That toolbox made the move in the cab of my truck so that I had the tools handy to put stuff back together at the new house. This worked great as all the garage stuff was just offloaded to the garage and the toolbox was near impossible to get to for about a month after moving in.

 

[vavet]

I had a Matco 2-bay bottom box full when I moved it last time. The hard part is getting it in the truck. My driveway was steep enough that I could park the truck at the bottom and have the ramp be close to level. That makes getting the box in the truck easy. It makes stopping the box before it crashes into the back of the cab REALLY difficult.
The alternative was to park the truck just below the top of the hill and have a really steep push up the ramp but an easier time controlling it in the truck.

I used Bellhops - a college student labor force. I rented the Penske truck. They provided labor. The students they sent were very strong, but incredibly inexperienced when it came to moving things. I'm thankful I worked for a moving company one summer when I was in college so I knew the tricks of angling things, turning things in a way to get through through seemingly impossible turns.

Anyway...the two young men first request the truck at the top of the hill, but we could not get the box up the ramp with all 3 of us working at it. We went to option 1 described above and had no damage to use, the truck, or the toolbox.

If you can get a truck with a liftgate, then a lot of these problems go away.

 

[Blazinzuk]

Leave em in. But I've never been moved by movers always by myself using friends

 

[ddawg16]

Yea.....you don't want to be this guy....

 

[rsanter]

I partly emptied the heavy drawers and left the rest alone
I used ratchet straps verticle around the box&drawers to guarantee they would not come open
transported the shallower boxes in the moving truck and the deeper boxes on the trailer

bob

 

[JiminAZ]

I left most of the stuff in the rolling cabinet, but put packing material in voids to keep things from rolling around or banging into each other. Bubble wrap and newspaper.

For a cross country move where the goods were out of my control, and maybe in storage for awhile, I'd susceptable items with corrosion protection, and put a few sheets of corrosion inhibiting paper in strategic locations.

 

[xtremek]

I pull the drawers out, the load the box, then put the drawers back in, lock it up, and strap it down.

 

[bwringer]

Get the biggest box you can find, secure the bottom with one strip of clear tape, put all the tools in that, pile all your power tools, scrap iron, and some concrete blocks on top, then put one strip of tape across the top.

Then scream at the moving company guys when they tell you the box will fall apart.




At least, that's what all our clients did when I worked as a mover in college...

 

[brownbagg]

i have seen so many boxes fall over and tools go everywhere, sometime while the truck going down the road

 

[txvwnut]

Four moves and my box has stayed loaded with the exception of my line boring bars, those come out and get lovingly wrapped up and carried in the front seat with me. I’ll wrap a strap around the box top to bottom to make sure the drawers won’t come open.

 

[619DioFan]

I work in the moving and storage industry and have since 1981. over the years I have loaded and moved thousands of toolboxes of every size and brand. I have never unloaded one. I shrink wrap them ( even if the customer says it is locked ) then pad wrap it and then shrink wrap again. load it into the tier. if it has a top box I put a pair of decking bars just over it and load onto those so as to NOT dent the lid of the top box. I have never had a damage claim from moving a box that was full of tools.

 

[Max]

What 619DioFan said. I just moved three 27" craftsman lowers, two tops, and a Kennedy machinist's chest across the country (2500 miles). The tops were on the lowers for the trip. My boxes are loaded very heavily, so to get them up the ramp we had to temporarily remove some of the heavy drawers. But once on the truck they were fully loaded.

We rented a small Penske truck that I drove that carried the personal and high value stuff. The rest of our stuff we packed ourselves but we had it professionally loaded in two semi trailers. We used UPack for the trailers and were very happy with them.

My boxes came through the trip like champs except I did get some worn spots from rubbing against other stuff. If I had used good pads like 619DioFan suggests they would have been perfect. I can note that Ace Regal Red gloss rattle cans are a great match to 25 y.o. Craftsman boxes.

Due to the logistics I also had a small tool box that I kept essential tools in. It saved my bacon many times not just for the new house but also in getting the old house done as well. I think that a strap around the box is good insurance as well, although mine were fine without one. Plastic wrap done right with pads will also hold them in well.

Good luck on your move!

Max

 

[Kage]

We just went through this (moved last weekend) and did a combination of what's already been said. Mostly it just boiled down to making things light enough that I could move them around myself easily without damage to myself or property.

In the end, that meant pulling tools out of the upper cabinets of things that rolled around to keep the center of gravity lower, and making it easier/safer to move things around.

I'm older (and wiser?) now than I was when I was younger and have come to realize that my back/body is much happier to make 20 light trips rather than 1 trip that is 20 times heavier

Also - Label the **** out of everything! We're down to the 'mystery' boxes at this point which ***** to go through. Taking the 2 seconds to write on the outside of a box what the approximate contents are will make your future self soooo much happier when you start unpacking things!

 

[NUTTSGT]

I work in the moving and storage industry and have since 1981. over the years I have loaded and moved thousands of toolboxes of every size and brand. I have never unloaded one. I shrink wrap them ( even if the customer says it is locked ) then pad wrap it and then shrink wrap again. load it into the tier. if it has a top box I put a pair of decking bars just over it and load onto those so as to NOT dent the lid of the top box. I have never had a damage claim from moving a box that was full of tools.

That comes from experience and pride of doing a good job.




The price of shrink wrap is actually dirt cheap. IMHO, cheap enough that just about everybody should have a roll on hand. You can buy a 20"x1000' or 17.5"x1500' for about $20.

 

[artrem]

I have two large cabinets full of mostly mechanics tools. When we moved, the toolboxes had to be rolled up a steep hill from the basement. At the risk of seeming too OCD, I got several boxes of heavy gallon ziplock freezer bags and bagged everything, packing all the bags in 18"x18"x12" heavy duty boxes. Each box and bag were labeled with drawer/section so it was easy to refill the tool cabinets at the destination. Worked for me.


I also went through a lot of plastic film, wrapping the machine tools after securing everything to the extent possible. That stuff's great.

 

[nes999]

I always unload it. The risk vs reward just isn't there for me. The last time we moved the company paid for movers. They individually wraped everything down to single sockets and drill bits.



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[jp828108]

I have unloaded my box the few times i have had to move it. Probably didnt need to. But felt better knowing it wasnt bouncing around fully loaded down with tools.

 

[Hollywood D]

I moved about 6 months ago. I left everything in the drawers and moved it myself

 

[engineer2]

When I moved I left everythig in the box. Probably 500 lbs. A guy with legs the size of tree trunks put it on his back with mover's straps and carried it to my basement like it was nothing.

 

[JUNK-MAN]

When I moved, I only had my truck so I emptied the box into milk crates and me and a buddy lifted the empty box into my truck, if I had, had a trailer with ramps I'd probably have left it full and just locked it up and strapped it well.

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[saryon7]

I rented the trucks with the lift gate on it. I simply rolled the box onto the lift, hit the button and raised it up. ( If I did it again, I would rent the bigger lift though, just for additional safety. This helps when the truck isn't perfectly level. ) Then I just tie strapped the boxes to the side of the van with foam between the walls and the box so that it wouldn't scratch em.

 

[dms1]

Thanks for all the replies, I am going to leave the toolboxes Loaded.

 

[langss]

I pull the drawers out, the load the box, then put the drawers back in, lock it up, and strap it down.

this is exactly what I have done every time I have had to move a toolbox. It might take a little longer, but it sure is easy moving an empty box.

 

[atthebeach]

I've had the experience of making several runs with a tailgate lift truck to first transport all my possessions and then load everything into a 40 foot long shipping container mounted on a truck trailer. I locked my toolbox without emptying it and secured it to the shipping container wall. The container was then trucked to the harbor and eventually stacked on a container ship to go overseas. After a week at sea, the container was unloaded and then loaded on a truck trailer and trucked to my new house.

I personally had packed the shipping container and there was no damage to anything including my toolbox and its contents. Even my table saw made the trip safely as it was also secured to the shipping container wall. I imagine the shipping container may have gotten bumped around a bit during loading and unloading; but it didn't rollover or fall off the ship in the middle of the ocean as can happen sometimes. I did have a marine insurance policy in effect while everything was on board ship.

 

[Doug]

Under the blue tarp on the trailer is my rollaway tool box (loaded) and my upright air compressor. After proper tarping I moved this stuff 800 miles. None of the tools moved worth mentioning.

 

[finn]

I left the drawers filled when I moved myself 440 miles.

I won’t make that mistake again. The CG is too high, and I had more work cleaning up the mess than it would have taken me to box up at least the upper drawers.

 

[artrem]

I've moved my two rolling cabinets of tools twice in 3 years and both times, I packed the tools in small boxes with each drawer section in a separate heavy duty ziplock bag. The boxes/bags are then numbered in order so it's easy to put things back where they were. I did it this way because we hired movers and both times the boxes had to go up or down a steep hill to get to/from my workshop and it's a lot easier and safer to move them empty.

 

[niget2002]

I left mine in the rolling cabinet. I put the locking bars down the front of all the drawers, locked them shut, and then attached the key to my daily key chain and the backup key to the wife's daily key chain.

I also made up a small toolbox with any tools that I had to use to take furniture apart. That toolbox made the move in the cab of my truck so that I had the tools handy to put stuff back together at the new house. This worked great as all the garage stuff was just offloaded to the garage and the toolbox was near impossible to get to for about a month after moving in.

Since we're digging up old threads... I have since moved a second time. Did this exact same thing again. Worked perfectly just like the first time.

 

[CoogarXR]

I have a ****-ton more tools than I had last time I moved. Last time, I left my boxes loaded. Now, I would worry about the strain on the rails from the heavy drawers bouncing down the road. I'd probably unload my socket/ratchet drawers, and my air tool drawers, and any other heavy-*** drawers. The drawers with lighter stuff would stay loaded. Higher-quality boxes probably don't have those worries, but some of my boxes are fine sitting still, but feel kinda chintzy when I have to move them.

 

[Bessy]

I'm gearing up for an eventual move to Illinois (from Southern Ontario, Canada) for work, and I've been thinking alot about this topic as of the last few months. It's probably a much less daunting task than I am making it out to be in my head, but given that we don't have a firm timeline yet I'm trying to prepare myself as much as possible.

My Craftsman stack I'm not that attached to, to the point I might sell it before I go and just replace with a US General upon arrival. For the contents of that box (hammers, power tools, wrenches, clamps, etc) I may just invest in some of those black and yellow HDX boxes from HD, which I can reuse for household supplies and storage at a later date.

My 42" SPG and my little Beach box will move mostly loaded, which leads me to my inquiry: What do people think about foam peanuts? Sockets and ratchets, etc. will be coming out of my top drawer and getting boxed up, because it's only got the single set of slides, but for other drawers where things are lighter and could move around some, I'm really wondering about foam peanuts or something similar to keep things from moving too much? I'd think foam peanuts and maybe some plastic wrap should do the trick?

Then there's all of the other stuff to think about: 3D printer, welder, heavy items, camping gear, bicycles, misc hardware, in process projects, etc. I'm considering crating the 3D printer in half inch plywood or similar, such that I might be able to reuse it for an eventual cabinet for the printer when we reach our destination.

Can you tell I'm a bit anxious about this?

 

[Sumboodie]

Likely to destroy the box if it's a long move and it's loaded heavy.

 

[mmb617]

I think the decision would depend on what equipment you have available for the move. My son recently started a new job at a different dealership. A friend of his at the old job has a tilt trailer with winch and helped him move his box. He left it loaded and the move was uneventful.

 

[nadogail]

My last move, 1988, I rolled the box 6 level city blocks from the old shop to my forever garage.

 

[Mike in Ohio]

Not helpful to the op but the last 2 times I moved were both just a bit over a mile I loaded my 3 box stack and compressor into the backhoe bucket, tilted it back enough so the drawers couldn't open, and ran a ratchet strap around them. Got some looks crossing the main road!!

 

[NUTTSGT]

Back from the dead warning by a now banned spammer.

 

[brownbagg]

they going be really top heavy and the boxes will tip over cause damage to the drawer, or if they come unlock and you lose yout tools down the highway. I would crate the tools

 

[GarretMadagan]

I pack all my stuff in boxes. I recommend signing each box. So you will know what is where. I usually need about 4-5 boxes for one room. As for the furniture, we take it apart if possible. We transport it in large trucks if it's impossible to disassemble it. Oh, moving is very challenging. We are planning to move from New York to Los Angeles in two months. Because the distance is so long, we will use a moving company services https://sekamoving.com/moving/long-distance-movers/movers-from-nyc-to-la/. If you are planning on moving, make sure you have extra help.

 

[dcg9381]

I left mine in the boxes.