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Shipping Household Goods From US To Ireland Question


Robin Of House Hill

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My wife and I are in the preliminary stages of planning to move from the US to Ireland.  Since taking everything we need on the flight over, is not possible, we will have to ship somethings and stored until we have a permanent address in Ireland.  Does anyone know if there are shippers who provide such services?

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There's a company called Pods that does that in the US.  They deliver a metal storage container to you, pick it up once you've filled it, and then take it wherever/whenever you tell them.  I know they will also store your pod for a while, but I dont know if they have internatioal shipping. 

 

Eta: also, you need to have a place at both ends where they can plunk down a big metal container.  I've seen them in metered parking spaces around Boston, though, so you may be able to make arrangements with local parking enforcment.

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Graebel and the other big moving companies offer transatlantic services, including storing your container(s) until the delivery date.  That costs extra.  

If your company offers you a relocation package, this will be included.  If you're organizing by yourself then you'll need to hunt around for a selection of vendors.  Most US moving companies won't have a transatlantic service -- generally just the big ones who do a lot of corporate relocations. 

If your shipping items aren't huge, e.g. boxes of personal effects rather than a houseful of furniture, then you could ship them with UPS or FedEx and ask them for a delayed delivery (keeping the stuff in their warehouse).  If they decline, you might have to lease a personal storage space until your new address is known.  Perhaps you could lease a storage space in the US and arrange to have a friend open it for the UPS pick-up when you are settled.  That might be easier than finding a storage unit in Ireland before you travel there. 

Best of luck. 

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7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

So this is getting serious?

Sorry, don't know the answer to your question...

It's serious to the point that my wife has requested all the documents she needs to get her Irish passport, and will apply for it as soon as she has them.  The move is still at least a year in the future, but we're making sure we have all our ducks in a row, so when we do it, there won't be any problems.  The biggest problem is that our 12 year old dog will cost more than the both of us traveling there, and there are some screwy regulations the require jumping through hoops a few days before leaving.

I should point out to those who are providing info on shipping our stuff, that we plan to sell off everything we can, and ship only those things that we want to keep  A lot of places in Ireland are available furnished, which will enable us to cut shipping costs.  Maybe pods, or other large containers would be overkill.  She has family there, so it might be advantageous to see if one of them could receive a few cartons and hold them till we find a place.

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8 hours ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

Maybe pods, or other large containers would be overkill.  She has family there, so it might be advantageous to see if one of them could receive a few cartons and hold them till we find a place.

Pods, and other similar services have containers in a range of sizes.  From huge freight train boxes, all the way down to large closet size.  When I was looking into moving my shit across country it seemed like many of the big name truck rental companies were getting in on the personal storage/moving container gig as well, each with a variety of container shapes/sizes/rates, so there will be options. 

Ultimately the best method really depends on exactly what you plan on taking with you.  If at's all just stuff that can be easily packed into a cardboard box or ten, then mailing them individually to a relative is probably  the easiest, if not the cheapest way.  But if you've got a pile of boxes and one large piece of furniture you might think about a container.  In any case, you probably need to dial in a little closer to exactly what your needs are in terms of volume and type of items to be shipped before any of our advice is helpful. 

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Furniture is not going, TVs are not going.  Most electronic items aren't going.  It will be mostly things like clothes and shoes we can't carry with us, Our collection of blu ray discs will be removed from their cases and put in something designed to carry just the discs, to save space and weight.  The rest will be determined by the cost of shipping vs. the cost of replacing.

 

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Sounds like Isk's UPS/fedex suggestion would be best then.  I would only add that if you need to arrange pick-up at storage place you might just be able to have the site manager let them into your unit, without having to rally a friend to do it.

Also, though likely cheaper, bulk shipping/delivery companies may want all of your individual boxes stacked and wrapped on a pallet in a way that they are easily moved and loaded from a curbside pick-up location by forklift or pallet-jack.  I would think UPS/Fedex are more likely to accept a bunch of individual boxes in a storage unit. 

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With any electronics check if they will handle Irish voltage and network frequency.

Does Bluray come with region locks? I am so out of the loop on that. If so keep that in mind as well.

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I'm aware of the voltage/frequency issue and there are converters available for the few electronic items we plan on taking. Fortunately our computers have dual voltage power supplies and will be less costly to ship than replace.  Blu rays are region coded, but there are "all region" players available.  They cost more, but our movie library is nearly 500 movies, so it pays to pay a little more for a player.

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Is there any chance you can digitize the library?  

As someone who has moved abroad and back and cross country several times, I echo the advice to use the mail system to ship boxes if you don't have a need to send furniture or vehicles.  Start early with purging and selling.  Look into what types of prices for certain goods each mailer will charge.  For example, usps has an extremely low rate for things like books and dvds if those are all that's in the boxes (not sure if the rate applies to international shipping).  You might find that shipping through several different companies significantly decreases your costs.  

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