Tips for moving house please ...

WezV

TTony said:

WezV said:

NPP said:

Beer. 

And beer. 

And gluten free beer for Tony 

Do you guys do anything yet @WezV?  But it's a good point, I need to add a Brewdog order to the Waitrose & Majestic orders
 

Not yet, but we have a deal with Estrella so their gluten free beer is in the staff shop

TTony

octatonic said:

I'm sure I've said this in other threads but we ruled out some very nice houses because they didn't have fibre broadband.
We thought about it for a bit and didn't think it would be an issue until I throttled our home connection in London down to 2meg to see how we felt about it.
Took about an hour before we both agreed it was a non-starter.

We get 2.5mb on a good day where we currently are.  Although the village is scheduled for fibre next year.

Where we're going is the same, except it's too small to get scheduled for fibre in the foreseeable.  I think my best bet is probably EE getting the contract for emergency services 4G network, meaning that they're going to have to fill-in some of the blackspots.  I'm hoping we'll be part of that fill-in work.

octatonic said:

Is this the same house from a few months ago?
I thought you'd pulled out of that one?

On the day that we pulled out of that one, my Rightmove alert popped up with a different property.  Actually, one that we'd wanted to buy 4-5 years ago when we'd last looked at moving, but we couldn't sell ours in time and the place we wanted disappeared.

Often thought about that place ... and then karma pinged it into my inbox.

Turns out that the owners had withdrawn it for a number of reasons, but 4-5 years later, decided to try again.

We went to look at it again (just to check) 2 days after it was listed, made an asking price offer there & then (which somewhat surprised the Estate Agents) and so the deal was done.

It still needs work, but is far more manageable.  "Only" has 5 acres, but cuts my commute into the City by 20mins.  And - importantly - isn't listed !!

TTony

WezV said:

TTony said:

WezV said:

NPP said:

Beer. 

And beer. 

And gluten free beer for Tony 

Do you guys do anything yet @WezV?  But it's a good point, I need to add a Brewdog order to the Waitrose & Majestic orders
 

Not yet, but we have a deal with Estrella so their gluten free beer is in the staff shop

Ahhhh, that's my #2.  Can you ship a few cases @WezV ;???

octatonic

Some pics please.
And hurry up about it  

mudslide73

Cleaning stuff at the ready. No matter how much the vendor has done you'll still want to give it a proper scrub. Our first place was filthy despite the seller saying she'd been cleaning all week.. the second was twice as bad.

Broadband booking is easily top of the list. We had Virgin booked (new build) and the two weeks felt like two years. 

olafgarten

My Sister just moved into her flat, it was easier as she didn't need to take everything from here straight away. Unfortunately the sellers father passed away on the moving date, we told them it was OK to take their time, but they were out of the house by 3.

ArchtopDave

TTony said:

octatonic said:

Book your broadband connection day now.
It can take up to two excruciating weeks to get it turned on otherwise.

Ahhhhh ... "broadband".

The good news is that the local exchange is fibre-enabled.

Yay, welcome to the 21st century!

The bad news is that we're way too far from the local cabinet to get "superfast" or even "mildly quick".  We have copper cable over telegraph poles.  I'd pay for fibre to be run, but can't find an ISP to give me a service.

The even worse news is that we seem to be in a bit of a mobile network blackspot unless a Yagi receiver on the end of a long pole at the corner of the plot can capture a decent signal.

Else, we're on a satellite connection.

This is why God, in his wisdom, created the Pigeon!!

Regarding the day of moving, even if the removal  guys do a good job, there always seems to be a lot more for you to do than you initially think. Especially giving the place a bit of a tidy up when everything is shifted out the house.

Roland

Label each box with the name of the destination room, and put labels on the doors of the rooms. That saves you having to stand at the front door. In one move we had to number the rooms because the removeral men couldn't read.

boogieman

Get your post redirected for six months. It's amazing how many things you forget about till you get a letter from them. 

Flanging_Fred

When we moved we found we had to go and buy some cheap plates, a teaspoon and a tea towel.  

When we arrived at the house there was a box on the doorstep from our mortgage lender with a bunch of really useful stuff inside, mugs teabags, radiator keys, washing up liquid etc etc. It was a very welcome and useful surprise.

p90fool

The last time I moved house I put my clothes in a bin bag, my guitar over my shoulder and my passport in my pocket.

I'd hate to have to do it now, I'd need three months prep and half a dozen skips. 

ESBlonde

Colour tag the boxes with big stickers top and side(s)

Colour denotes the room (can also be written) but is obvious when stacked if a blue label appears in a stack of red ones. And Put a Cross (or not) on critical contents boxes. If you need to hunt for key/urgent stuff you want to search the fewest boxes (I know you have a speadsheet) but books and china niknaks can be unpacked at leisure days or even weeks later while Ipads, kettles, cutlery etc are needed day one.
Delegate - give ownership of tasks to individuals (removalists or family/friends) and only get involved if they ask for help, you can live with the results anyway and being relieved of the task makes you more efficient.

Pace yourself, take 5 for a coffee/tea and a kitKat while you facebook some pointless shyte before getting back to it. No point being manic only to collapse the next morning and be usless for a week!

TTony

ESBlonde said:

And Put a Cross (or not) on critical contents boxes. If you need to hunt for key/urgent stuff you want to search the fewest boxes

Ahhhhh - now, that's a neat idea that I'd not thought of.

Some boxes will be asterisked ...

Thanks

Winny_Pooh

I've just moved and will need to do so shortly. Pack a backpack with essentials as if you were going on a 5 day trip. Don't pack the coffee machine, leave it in the car.

TTony

Winny_Pooh said:

Pack a backpack with essentials as if you were going on a 5 day trip.

It's not quite a backpack, but it's the same principle ... we'll be packing the van as if we were going on holiday.  So;

• dogs
• clothes for a few days
• easy food / drinks (for us & dogs!)
• music source (essentials)
• iPads & all the chargers
• etc

That way, if the removal trucks get lost or delayed, we can survive.  If there's a last minute problem with getting access, we'll just decamp to a friends / hotel until it's sorted, etc ...

FX_Munkee

Get a skip.
Now is the ideal time to get rid of all that crap.

TTony

FX_Munkee said:

Get a skip.
Now is the ideal time to get rid of all that crap.

Already done.


And the "won't need that for the first couple of months" stuff is all in a storage container so we don't have to hunt through unnecessary boxes in the first days/weeks/months in the new place.

ToneControl

ToneControl said:

had to get satellite internet for 2 years

We may well be stuck with that too @tonecontrol - any views on how that worked??
 

it was more than 10 years ago. used Astra 19.2 and old analog ue sky dish
first firm was good. They lost their deal with Astra
second was flaky as hell, needed reconfiguring every day
3rd was Italian firm, was 15 euro a month,  free PCI card  too. 
Uploads were all through dialup

What about 4G and those local  schemes using wireless?
or using some kind of  repeater from a  good connection  a mile away?

ToneControl

boogieman said:

Get your post redirected for six months. It's amazing how many things you forget about till you get a letter from them. 

18 months

TTony

ToneControl said:

What about 4G and those local  schemes using wireless?
or using some kind of  repeater from a  good connection  a mile away?

@ToneControl ;
We've got flaky mobile reception on EE & 3 (nothing on Voda & O2), probably not helped by being on the edge of a mast's broadcast range and an abundance of trees.  Looking at getting a decent phone signal aerial on a chimney (or tree) and wiring that into a (legal) repeater in the house.  If we can get a reliable 4G signal, that's our best bet but it's a big IF.

It might be covered by a local wireless system but (a) it's limited to 8mbps and (b) it's again subject to site survey due to being on the edge of their current range (and the trees may interfere again).

Hence satellite is currently our safest fallback option ...