How To Pack A Moving Truck

How To Pack A Moving Truck

Are you packing your own moving truck? If you’ve done it before you’ll know that making the best use of the space available is a bit like tetris! Here are some tips from the experts.

Multiple trips back and forth between your old home and your new home is no fun!  You will want to minimise the back and forth as much as possible to make moving day as quick and easy as possible. The best way to limit the time spent moving is to get as much packed into your moving truck as you possibly can.

The 3 tonne moving pantech truck is a standard moving truck used to move moderate loads, 2-3 bedroom townhouses or apartments or small 3 bedroom houses. The volume inside the truck is 20m3.

Hiring a pantech truck is the most convenient way to move yourself, even if you do need to make a couple of trips to complete the move. Our packing tips will help you organise your load so that you need less trips.

Planning Your Move With A Hire Truck

You can set yourself up for success in the planning stage long before you are staring into the back of an empty truck. Some of the ways you can help the moving process include:

• Use boxes and containers that easily fit together and stack so that there is less dead space between them
• Create three distinct categories of boxes
  • Heavy
  • Light
  • Fragile

and mark your boxes accordingly. When you’re packing your truck you will want to make sure that the heavy boxes are on the bottom, with lighter and fragile boxes on the top

• Disassemble any furniture that you can ahead of time, while this can seem like an annoying task and you may be right in thinking that it will fit in the truck without disassembling, you will most likely find that it won’t fit through the doorway on the way out of your place or on the way in to your new home
• Having a supply of old blankets and towels to protect your furniture from scratches is also a good idea
• For your really heavy items you will need either a trolley or a hydraulic lift on the back of the truck (Easy Truck Rental Trucks have a 750kg tailgate lift – visit our truck specs page for more information)

What Goes Where When Packing Your Moving Truck?

When packing a truck break up your contents into the following groups:

• Heavy items
• Cubes
• Loose items

Lay them out behind the truck with your heavy items ready to go in first, followed by cubes and then the remaining loose items. Loose items are packed in a way that fills the dead space.

Packing Your Hire Truck With Heavy Items

The type of items we are referring to when in the “heavy” category include the following:

• Beds
• Mattresses
• Couches
• Sofas and sofa beds
• Chest of drawers
• Refrigerator

Pack your heaviest furniture and belongings at the front of the truck. It’s important to place the heavy items over the engine and centred in the truck. They also tend to take up a lot of space and cause dead space (air pockets). To make the best use of the available space we will fill the dead space with loose items. The objective is to leave no dead space as you work back to the barn doors of the truck.

Try to keep the weight even across the truck. It’s very important that you don’t load all the heavy items on the driver’s side or the passenger side. Keep the weight distribution as even as possible as you pack the truck.

Pack Your Hire Truck With Cubes

The type of items we are referring to when in the “cubes” category of moving often include the following:

• Packing boxes
• Washer
• Dryer
• Square shaped bedroom side tables/drawers

Packing boxes will be the predominant items in this category.  Before moving day you will most likely have packed a lot of boxes with your clothes and personal effects. It’s a good idea to label the boxes so that you know what the boxes contain. It makes for safer stacking of boxes with items that cannot be damaged placed on the bottom. It also means that you know which room to place the box in at your destination. Even something as simple as “main bedroom clothes” written on a box helps both you and your helpers to pack your hire truck in the best way.

We pack these boxes and white goods next as they are cubes, rectangular and don’t create dead space. Be sure to pack them as high as you can allowing for stability and keeping in mind the contents of the boxes. Again, fill any dead space with loose items.

Packing Loose Items Into Your Hire Truck

The type of items we are referring to when in the “loose items” category of moving often include the following:

• Small outdoor setting
• Outdoor chairs
• Pot plants
• Soft furnishings eg. cushions
• Laundry Items
• Vacuum cleaner
• Mower 
• Gardening equipment

This final category of items tend to be the most awkward items that don’t fit neatly so we try to pack them into the dead space around the heavy items and the cubes. Any of these items that don’t fit into the dead space will be placed at the back of the truck. This means that they are easily accessible when you reach your destination. Moving these awkward items first when you get to your destination will be a welcome thing and it will ensure that the rest of the items are moved more easily.

Packing your truck this way will ensure that you have made the most of every inch inside the truck and hopefully negated the need for a second or third trip.

What Shouldn’t You Pack In A Hired Moving Truck?

When you rent a truck you should be provided with a list of non-allowables by the truck rental company. A moving truck should never be packed with flammable or hazardous items. 

What items are considered hazardous in a moving truck?

Items that are considered either flammable or hazardous include:

• Acids
• Ammunition
• Cleaning solvents
• Aerosols
• Fire extinguishers
• Fireworks
• Matches
• Paint and paint thinner
• Pesticides

Avoid packing perishable items in a moving truck

We also recommend that you avoid packing perishable items in your moving truck unless you are only traveling a short distance.  Perishable items include:

• Refrigerated foods
• Frozen foods
• Plants

We also recommend that you don’t use a moving truck to move your pets, even for a short distance. We know this seems like a no brainer but people don’t always think about how they will move their dogs, fish tank or their guinea pigs!  

If you follow the principles outlined above you should have no problem getting the most out of the space in your moving truck. Try not to get lazy with the space, use up as much space as you can, stacking boxes onto furniture, keep the dead space to a minimum by filling it up with all those loose items that don’t fit into a box.  Check out our video below to see how we utilize the space in our moving trucks.