Posted on 24/11/09, filed under News, Storage and Moving advice | No Comments
The moving market is surprisingly bouyant as home movers try to complete and be settled in time for Christmas. We have had a big upsurge in bookings for December and expect to be working right up to Xmas Eve. It is predominantly large family homes in the London area although we have seen a trend of people trading up by moving out of the London area.
The run up to the year end and xmas is always stressful and of course do you put up the decorations or pack them? Family life has to carry on and with the time between exchange and completion so short, it’s hard to know how to plan for your move.
Our advice is always to start clearing and sorting. Have an advance delivery of packing cartons, as you may as well box up those things that aren’t essential thus making the packing up of your house much easier once you get that phone call that says it’s all on.
How do you clear and sort and where should it all go? Good old Ebay is always the first place to start as the extra cash will come in handy. The alternative is to try the website Freecyle – post up your unwanted items, and give them away in return for having them collected.
The charities are always looking for stock as this is the lifeblood of their shops. Remember that they don’t want items they can’t sell – good quality clothing that you never wear, books, kids toys and bric a brac are always appreciated.
As a reputable removal company with strong ethics, we are happy to drop your donations off the local charity shop.
Posted on 21/10/09, filed under Client Testimonials | No Comments
In tough times, everyone shops around for the best deal and price is paramount. Recently one of our clients gave us a quote she had received from aonther company.
On the face of it, it did seem that our quote was double the other company. On closer inspection this is what we found buried in the small print, or not mentioned:
The quote only allowed for a “blanket wrap” meaning that every piece of furniture would only be loosely covered in a removal blanket during transit. Our service offers special, and in some cases, export wrapping for every piece of furniture. Sofas and mattress are put into special canvas covers, picture and mirrors are bubbled and carded, plasma screen tv’s get moved with a purpose-made protective cover.
Packing boxes were supplied on a deposit basis. There was no provision for white paper for wrapping crockery or bubblewrap for special pieces.
The dismantling and reassembly service was restricted to beds only, implying that the customer would have to dismantle and reassemble all the other pieces.
Storage was quoted per container however the small print suggested that there would be a requirement for 6 containers. Further down the quote was mention of a handling charge on each container however the amount was not specified.
Parking arrangements were clearly the responsibility of the customer. Wherever possible we try to make these arrangments for our moving clients.
There were a number of optional extras such as cancellation waiver, waititng time waiver and disposal. We have considered offering these charges but believe they are a bit like “extended warrantees” – not worth the paper they’re written on and really just another opportunity to make money.
At Amber Moves we pride ourselves on our transparant quoting and the fair calculation of the bill at the end of the job based on the actual work carried out. This way our clients have flexibility and can have extra or unexpected work done or perhaps, even do more preparation in advance of the move, to bring the final bill down.
