Moving house (and workshop)

I'm interested to hear about anyone here who has recently moved house and workshop. We've been at the present address for 23 years and moving house is quite daunting, despite having moved roughly every 4 years beforehand.

Now I have a lot more tools, machinery and materials and I'm wondering how people go about this; do you lighten the load and sell machinery to buy again after the move? Do you scrap or give away materials? Any information or advice would be valuable.

Nor sure that I can give any real input on this. I suppose it will depend on how far you are moving. How attached are you to the machinery. Will the amount you get in sales cover the cost of replacement items and all that valuable "scrap". I am sure it will cost a lot more to replace than say move it from London to Glasgow.

regards

A bit of info might help with advice

Are you upsizing/downsizing, town to country country to town etc

We made the move from Peterborough to SW France. I only took Imperial diameter free cutting steel for my Austin 7 and brass/ bronze. All sheet material, rod ends etc I gave to the local steam club. 2 x 1/2 ton trailer loads !!!

Worn out and broken tools were discarded.

I then took Boxford lathe and accessoirise , Warcoo Economy mill and all attachments, taps dies etc, welders, home made saw bench( circa 1964 - no health and safety certificate awarded), planer thicknesser.

I also took all nuts bolts and washers. BSF,BSW,UNF,UNC,Metric and BA. hardly used the UNF/C but may do if I bought an old 'mini' - dream on Bob!

Junked all plumbing stuff as metric land is different.

Took all other tools mechanical, electrical etc.

I down sized from a double garage and workshop 5m x 3.5m and didn't really miss any material I gave away.

The move was 2 days loading up onto a 3/4 ton trailer, 3 days in transit - and I still can't find some of the tools I thought I packed up !

Piece of cake really. Be ruthless - chuck it away if you havn't used it since the last move!

Bob

Get a quote from a moving company, it should be free they will be able to advise on what they can move or not. It won't be the first time they have moved a home workshop

I had this simply moving about 6 miles! It may give you possibility:

I asked about 3 removals companies. Two thought it too much; but another, a local firm at that, did the move no problem.

I had dismantled the machines to fairly handleable bits, (" ... and the fings wot 'eld the canduls..." ) been fairly ruthless with materials etc'.

The removals firm put all that lot plus household stuff to fill the space left, in one 7-ton lorry the day before the actual date. This then went back to their depot.

On the set moving day, a 3-ton wagon collected the rest of the householdery, took that straight round and unloaded.

Next (I think next day) the 7-tonner arrived and I helped unload all that ironmongery and cart it round to the back garden. I tried not to look when one of them unknowing dragged the surface-plate face-down across the van floor, but they generally handled everything carefully.

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As for rebuilding some 3 or 4 tons of machinery of which the bigger ones won't go through the workshop door.... Lots of scaffolding, proper (not improvised!) lifting-slings and shackles, blocks-and-tackle, hand-winch.

The only lost item? The Myford mill draw-bar - but as the mill had already been still in bits on the front-room floor it's possible I'd lost that / left it behind when I bought the machine second-hand in the first place. I made a new bar, using the manual's part-drawing which revealed I could even make it self-ejecting. So I did.

I moved from Glos. to Bucks. just over 7 years ago but the memory is still vivid ! Having heard horror stories of removers and even machinery movers dropping lathes, knocking corners off mills, etc., I decided to move the workshop myself beforehand in small loads over a couple months to my daughter's garage close to target. I hired a van and driver so that I had help with the loading/unloading. It's taken me since 1966 to amass the workshop tooling so the last thing I was going to do was to part with any of it. All now safely installed in heated, converted half of the double garage as I don't enjoy the cold, and after all it is about enjoyment.

The rest of the household goods took pot luck with the removers.

The best option might be for you is to rent a small storage unit from one such as Safestore or dozens of others all over the UK. Then you can collect at your leisure

It's four years ago now since our last house move from Bedfordshire to South Yorkshire and I used Steve Cox of Landylift to move all my machines (Warco VMC mill, 9x20 lathe, Perfecto motorised shaper on substantial stand and horizontal band saw. He was very helpful, handled the move almost single-handedly and the kit was delivered and placed in the "new" garage/workshop where I wanted them. Can't recommend him highly enough. There was, a while ago, when he wasn't taking new business, I understand, but his advert is still on Home Workshop Ad site, so it might be worth a phone call or email.

I purchased about six large plastic boxes with lids to transport all my subsidiary equipment, tools etc and they went in with the domestic items in the main removal lorry, along with the bench, toolboxes etc.

John

Home Workshop Ads.

My present situation is that my main workshop is a stone building - the main area is 20' x 12' that's now filled to the limit with metal and wood machinery & tools + materials and there's an adjacent section with storage for rough timber, steel and garden equipment. Last year I decommissioned a room in the house that was used for full-time electronic repairs (my job) and luthiery equipment, and this is packed away/dispersed throughout the house. I also have a moderate stock of hardwood planks for instrument building.

I have another timber workshop for motorcycles and automotive stuff, plus a couple of bikes and stacker boxes full of audio valves. There's also a lean-to with spillover stuff that I could get rid of.

There's also a considerable quantity of products - specialist lubricants, finishing/repair products for musical instrument work, solvents and chemicals.

The plan is to move within the UK - maybe 130 miles or so.

Each time I come to buy materials I'm shocked at the price, so in some ways it would make economic sense to move sheets of Tufnol, aluminium and brass. I was also considering moving the BDMS, and non-ferrous bar stock, but giving away the BMS as this is mainly used for fabrication.

I don't know about the products - they occupy a lot of space and whilst some would be expensive to replace, many are infrequently used.

If you have a tow bar hire a box trailer, two days is around £80

Only moved once, but the secret looking back was buying well over 100 archive boxes.

These are all the same size, so will stack ok, keep each to 15kg and the removal people will shift them. Tape them closed so no fingers inside, but I had no problems like that.

Use an expert machinery mover to shift the machines. A half tonne lathe, 2.1/2 tonne borer, 3/4 tonne mill, grinder etc etc. Make sure you have four pieces of 3x3 timber for each machine so the shifters can put them off the floor, a pallet truck will move them then. Never assume you can pull a loaded pallet truck up any sort of slope, just not on. When I scrapped my hacksaw used the car to tow it up a minor slope, impossible otherwise.

If you are not used to shifting weight, like buying from auctions, then don't do it yourself, risk of injury one thing, but simply knowing how to lift and shift and securing a load is only learnt by experience. I now only have a 250kg stacker truck, but couldn't survive without it, the 1 tonne forklift was much better.

We moved about 100 miles. It all depends on your involvement with your workshop and the situation at the new house. In my own case whilst I had a fair bit of kit it was only a pastime. I was not involved on any lengthy project. I suppose I never really considered myself a “Proper engineer”, I just enjoyed tinkering as an interesting hobby. The new house we were moving to only had a garage, no shed or workshop. The new place also needed some general DIY work which I was looking forward to doing. Bearing all this in mind I felt that if I took the lathe etc. it would only stand idle in the garage possibly getting rusty for a couple of years. For this reason I decided to sell the lathe and all related kit before moving. 16 months on and I don’t regret the decision, I have been happily engaged pottering around the new place and doing various DIY projects. I have missed not having a bench drill but will probably get one eventually and there have been a couple of occasions when I could have used a lathe but managed to get round the job another way. It depends on how you feel yourself but that’s how it was for me, hope it helps. Best of luck with the move.

Edited By Malc on 08/09/2022 10:30:33

I moved about 160 miles a few years back, estimates from 3 different removal companies and make sure that you are sitting down when you open the envelopes, it's going to cost big time. I was lucky in that my relocation was being paid for by my new employer but it's still a daunting process. I hired about thirty plastic crates and still had to buy more to store all the small stuff in and packed those myself, the big stuff, lathe, mill etc I left to the removal company. I was amused to see on the estimate the statement "we note that you have some heavy tools", as you can imagine the removal men on the day were less than impressed by those words! However it all went smoothly spread over three days, first day three men loaded everything except for the bed, fridge and one armchair. Second day two men loaded the last items and drove to the destination and started the unload, they worked till gone seven pm and slept overnight in the van and on the third day unloaded the last items and finally finished late morning. Then of course the real work began but that's another story. I wish you well with your removal, it's not something that I ever want to go through again.

Phil

Both my mill and lathe are benchtop machines, and are easily moved by two people.

It's the other stuff that would potentially cause problems.

So, I would bin/donate/lose any bit of stock under 25mm diameter/300mm long as not being worth the effort of packing and moving. The various bits of dismantled wreckage that might come in handy would also go straight in the bin where they should always have been. Parts left over from unstarted/uncompleted projects would join them. I recently found the 3 valves I didn't bend in an engine blow-up 32 years ago; they went in the bin as do any similar parts.

Duplicates of rarely used tools would be moved on to people who could use them. My dad was a woodworker and I'm not, so keeping more than one of each type of plane/etc is already daft. Moving them would be idiotic. I would probably cull all the can't live without one of these tools that I've had for years and never used while I was at it.

The shelves of unlabelled tins full of random junk would be skipped without a second thought.

Doing all of that would mean the new workshop could be laid out for efficient work and storage, and not only would I know what stock I had on hand but I would know where it was. While I've not needed to move my own workshop, I have done it twice for work, and the best thing I can recommend is getting the biggest skip you can dropped inside the building. It's extremely liberating to toss all the accumulated junk that's been getting in the way but no-one is prepared to take responsibility for get rid of. Saves a fortune in storage too.

Blondihacks has done exactly this, it cost a fortune and she documented it well.

Blondihacks move first video

I have considered this possibility, our adult children live near my relatives and we would want to move nearer any future grandchildren when we retired.

I think I decided that I would buy a container of a modest size and bolt the workshop into it. If I was careful with the weight I could then have it lifted intact by lorry loader and deposited in the new garden. It would have to be short in height and length obviously to qualify as a permissible shed but my current workshop is small so I would still find it spacious.

Unfortunately SWMBO is a gardener and so I won't be allowed to live in an industrial unit, a proper house will be mandated.

5 years ago I moved about 80 miles from Redditch, then last year about a further 5 miles to a house more suited to our needs and wants.

I boxed up tools and materials a month or so before the intended move and made sure the movers had seen the volume and type of stuff. This last time there was an unexpected 2-month delay as the chain fragmented and re-formed, so some stuff got unboxed, used and reboxed in the interim.

Probably small beer compared to some - I have a Warco WM250V, a BigDug workbench, a big Record vice, couple of bench grinders and a cheap and noisy 25-year-old B&Q bench drill, plus about 15 big plastic boxes of tools, materials accessories etc.

Moves themselves always went fairly well - 3 strong removal blokes seemed well able to carry the lathe into the new garage and put it down exactly where I wanted it.

I wouldn't do it again lightly, but it wasn't the stuff of nightmares.

That was the business of keeping behind the lawyers, agents and other parties...

Hi Mick, a lot of people will have many different ideas about the subject of moving and what to take or dump. At the end of the day though, it is only yourself that should decide whether you should get rid of stuff, but the main thing is to put things in order of your own importance and starting with what you definitely wish to keep and will be able to accommodate in your new workshop and whittle it down to things you can be sure that you can discard.

Regards Nick.

I moved to France nearly 18 years ago but as was living in an apartment could not have a workshop here. therefore all my tools went to my father with my old workshop. Around three years ago i bought a house with land and so started to contemplate a workshop, but this has had to go on the back burner and in the short term i am changing my garage into a workshop.

At the end of last year my father deceided he was beyond working with machine tools on larger items and so we dismantled most of the machine tools into more manageable pieces and then dimensioned them so a local carpenter could build purpose built plywood crates with pallet feet and lifting handles.

These came in flat packs and were glued and screwed together as the equipment and tooling was put into them. photos and listings made as each crate was assembled and filled. I ended up with 28 crates of between 25 and 250Kg in weight and was around three cubic meters in volume. These then had to be carried up from the workshop to the driveway garage and fortunately some local weight lifters were able to assist with this.

I found a company in Bristol that were able to come and pick all the crates up with a truck and a couple of heavy lifters. They then did all the export/import paperwork with the photographs and contents lists given to them.

Around a couple of months later the crates arrived at my house on one truck with only a driver and no tail lift or pallet truck, forklift or such. I ended up lifting the crates out of the truck with the driver and had to use ladders as slides from the truck bed to my garage for the big heavy crates which i can assure you is not fun. The crates were thankfully heavily constructed and all corners reinforced with wooden battening glued and screwed together so they survived the abuse intact.

My recomendations for anyone looking to do the same is make the crates of at least 10mm plywood and use battening on all the corners and edges. Screw and bolt down anything heavy inside the crates and fill any loose space with old rags or towels and such. Put as many handles as you can on the crates so they are easily liftable as this will make your life moving them around easier. Log the contents of each crate as it goes in and make a note of its nominal value if exporting. Note the external dimensions of each crate and weigh it when filled and the lid screwd down. Number the crates so you can relate the contents log to each and finally put the current address and shipping address on each crate.

If like me a different company to the one that picked up the crates is delivering them, send them a photograph of the delivery location aspects, so they can see the slope of driveway and gap beteen driveway gates etc. Insist they bring their own forklift or pallet truck and have a taillift as these will make unloading a lot easier. Unfortunately i myself only sent them the photographs of the aspects and thought they would work the rest out for themselves but lesson learnt!

BR Roland

The default delivery specification for pallet delivery is "curbside", even in the UK.

Any moving away from the truck needs to be clearly specified by contract with a competent company.