Little Man Moves

Little Man Moves handles moving and packing in the St. George area. Packing is the part of a move customers most often take on themselves, and the difference between packing that survives a truck and packing that does not comes down to a few principles that are not obvious.

Worth knowing

The first is that boxes are sized for weight, not for volume. Heavy things go in small boxes and light things in large ones, which is why books are the classic failure - a large box of books is beyond what a person can safely lift and beyond what the box itself is rated to hold, so it fails at the bottom while being carried. The second is that a box must be full and firm. Empty space lets contents shift and the box collapse under whatever is stacked on it, so voids get filled with paper even when nothing else needs to go in.

The third governs fragile items and is genuinely counterintuitive: the aim is to immobilize the item and to keep it away from the walls of the box, because damage in transit comes from the item striking the box wall or another item rather than from the box being handled roughly. Plates travel on edge rather than stacked flat, since a plate is far stronger across its edge than across its face. Glasses are individually wrapped and stand upright. Cushioning goes on the bottom, between every item and around every side. Then labeling, which matters at the destination rather than the origin - the room the box is going to and a note of the contents, written on the side rather than the top where it disappears under the next box, is what determines whether unpacking takes days or weeks.

See also shipping and postal services and furniture stores. See every listing under Moving Companies.