Before the van
- One box size, mostly. Uniform medium boxes stack five high and fill a unit like brickwork. A medium box takes about 0.4 sq ft of floor, which is how our size calculator counts.
- Weight rule: books in small boxes, linen in big ones. If you cannot carry it at arm's length, repack it.
- Label two sides and the top, facing outward when stacked. "Kitchen 3 of 6" beats "misc".
- Inventory as you seal: one line per box in your notes app. Thirty seconds a box, an hour saved per retrieval.
The loading order
- Back wall: the things you are sure about: furniture you will not visit, boxes marked "next house".
- Middle: the bulk of the boxes, heavy low, five high, labels out.
- One corridor down the centre if the unit is 25 sq ft or more. It costs 3 sq ft and repays itself the first time you need the back wall.
- Front: anything with a return date: the seasonal kit, the maybe-sell pile, the vacuum you will absolutely come back for.
Protecting the stack
Pallets or bearers under the first row if the store is a container site; mattresses on edge in covers, never flat under boxes; sofa cushions bagged inside the sofa's own footprint; a blanket between any two wooden surfaces. Nothing in direct contact with plastic sheeting that can sweat.
If all of this reads like a Saturday you would rather keep: a collection service packs the van, stacks the warehouse and keeps the inventory for you. That is half of what the fee buys.