Timing
- Start at 7am. The truck should be loaded before noon. Afternoon is for unloading into air conditioning.
- Avoid the last weekend of the month if you can. Every mover in Houston is booked and prices go up. Mid-week, mid-month moves are cheaper and calmer.
- Watch the radar, not the forecast. Houston storms are cell-based. A "40% chance" means it will pour on your street for 20 minutes and be sunny two miles away.
What melts
Candles, crayons, chocolate, vinyl records, anything with adhesive. Don't leave those bins in the truck. Pack a "climate" bin and move it in your own car with the AC on.
What molds
Cardboard. Specifically cardboard that got damp during a shower and then sat in a garage for a week. Also: towels packed slightly damp, and any paper in a box that touched a wet truck floor. Lidded plastic bins solve most of this. They shed water, they don't wick moisture up from the ground, and they seal.
The rain plan
- Stage everything by the door the night before so loading happens in bursts between cells.
- Put a tarp or old sheets on the truck floor. Wet plywood transfers straight into cardboard.
- Keep the lidded bins for anything paper, fabric or electronic. Use the tarp for furniture.
- Have towels at the new house before the truck arrives.
Heat plan for the humans
- One gallon of water per person, minimum. Electrolytes after hour two.
- Cool the truck cab and rotate people through it.
- Roll, don't carry. A dolly with four bins is one trip with no lifting. Four cardboard boxes is four trips of bending and lifting in a sauna.
- Turn on the AC at the new place the day before. A Houston house that's been closed up takes 6+ hours to cool.
Why we started this company: a July move where the bottom of a box full of books let go on a wet driveway. Plastic bins exist. Use them.