Moving homes will provide you with one hell of a workout! There’s so much to do – and so many things to move from one place to another. It’s amazing how much stuff piles up in your home over the years, and it all gets thrust into boxes that end up weighing a tonne. Add heavy furniture to the equation and you’ve got a lot of weight to shift. Keep in mind that 21% of workplace injuries are directly attributed to manual handling activities, and moving house suddenly becomes a bit more dangerous. Most of what you’ll be doing will involve manual handling, so how can you avoid injuries during the removal process? Here are some of our top removal tips to avoid injuries when moving home.
Lighten your moving boxes
Try to avoid overpacking moving boxes with too much stuff. It’s better to have things spread across 10 lighter boxes than to bung them all into 4 or 5 heavy ones. The lighter a box is, the less chance there is of you injuring yourself when picking it up. Sure, it means you have more boxes to move, but it’s a worthwhile trade-off to avoid manual handling injuries.
One moving house packing tip is to avoid mixing items between rooms. Have boxes for the kitchen stuff, boxes for the living room, etc. It helps you spread the load while keeping everything nicely organised.
Get some handy removal equipment
Your life is infinitely easier (and considerably safer) when you utilise removal equipment during the moving process. A stack trucker or trolley will help you stack multiple boxes and wheel them with ease. It saves you from making multiple trips and constantly bending down to pick things up.
You’ll see great products like the furniture skates by Evo Supplies that will drastically reduce the chances of injuries when moving home. Furniture skates are heavy-duty planks with wheels that fit under heavy pieces of furniture. As a result, you can now push the furniture out of your home instead of needing to pick it up and move it the whole way. It’s a very safe and injury-free way of moving things like dining tables, armchairs, etc.
Hire a removal truck
You can move a lot of things alone – most of your boxes and small pieces of furniture can be taken in your car, though it could take multiple trips. Nevertheless, larger items of furniture are too big for your vehicle, so it makes sense to hire a removal truck.
A company can come along and provide a big truck with a ramp or lift to help you load everything. You get more hands on deck, plus the ramp/lifting platform prevents the need to raise things. You put yourself under less stress and are unlikely to suffer from manual handling injuries.
With the right preparation, mixed with the right equipment, moving to your dream home doesn’t have to be painful. Avoid overloading boxes and carrying heavy things by hand. You want to start life in your new home on a positive foot, rather than spending the first week or so bed-bound with a back injury!
We hope you enjoyed this post of our top removal tips to avoid injuries when moving home.
Featured Image by AshirvadPackers from Pixabay
