Can I use plastic containers many shops sell
(like these: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/431243 )
for moving long distance?
When I get them delivered from officeworks, there is always some broken. But that is when they are all stacked inserted inside each other - not stacked full of things on top of each other's lids.
So will they work as packing boxes?
The lids will snap if you stack the boxes 4 high packed with heavy items (e.g. books). If packed with e.g. clothes, they will be fine.
Protip: Try to get a bunch of small cardboard boxes (25 lt / 52 ltr capacities). You can either buy them from Bunnings (expensive) or for a free option go to a shopping center and badger the shops for packing boxes, they will usually have a heap of these as they often receive stock in cardboard.
Use small boxes for fragile items like crockery and pack non-fragile items like clothing into the larger boxes.
I still use plastic tubs for long term clothing storage, the transparent / translucent ones are good because you can see what you've stowed into them.
You can get plastic moving boxes. You see them for big office moves but they look strong and expensive compared to the brittle ones from Howards/kmart/ Suoer Cheap Auto.
Unless they the tough boxes, don’t bother. Even when moving / storing them ourselves- they often break when there is any sort of “heavier” weight in the stack. They really only useful for light storage / stack. Although, with most things, guess you get what you pay for…? (Go tough boxes).
We used heaps of these plastic storage containers when we moved from WA to Tasmania. Everything was being sent via shipping container (we self-packed it) which was going to be in a storage yard (outdoors) going into late autumn/winter here in Tassie, whilst we were househunting. Shipping containers are relatively weatherproof but of course not airtight, and we were worried about the possibility of moisture/condensation, mould forming etc as we weren't sure how long it would be in storage, so preferred to pack whatever we could in plastic containers. My husband was taking a lot of tools, shed/garage stuff etc so it also kept things a lot cleaner as well. We did use a lot of cardboard boxes too as we have heaps of books, and you can't pack those in anything too big otherwise you can't move the box - I was fortunate that I was working in a hospital at the time, as they had a constant flow of operating theatre and general supplies coming in so there was an endless supply of boxes! Because of the potential issues during storage, I ordered a heap of small silica gel sachets and put some of those in EVERY box and container, as well as getting some of these https://www.silicagel.com.au/20-foot-container-desiccant-pac… to hang throughout the container although as it turned out, we bought a place just after arriving here so in the end our stuff was only in the container for about 2 months.
We bought the plastic storage containers in a variety of sizes from Big W, Kmart, Bunnings and Officeworks, pretty much whoever had the best price for the sizes we were after. I thought most of them would end up cracking, especially the ones that had heavier items in them (those were stacked on the bottom of course, with lighter stuff on top) but to my surprise, only a couple of them did, and I think the lid on one other container cracked and that was it, the rest survived intact. We worked out what clothes we were likely to need during the first few months at least and packed the rest in those vacuum storage bags, as well as extra sheets, towels etc - they were great, as they didn't take up much room and we could just throw them up on top of the stacks of stuff in the container LOL - we also used those bags for packing our clothes and any other soft items to squash as much as possible into our two cars, as we were driving across.
if you want something strong, go willow classique.
We had 52l Starmaid containers that were used for storage in the garage for years with no cracking but the minute we moved them to the new house, all of the lids broke and some of the corners cracked - they just do not travel well.
As per the above comments, the solid plastic boxes as supplied by removalists are better for house moves. I recommend using the portable cardboard wardrobes so that you can easily move hanging clothes from wardrobe to wardrobe - saves so much time.
Try the local recycling centre…. heaps of cardboard boxes for free and sometimes u score the real ones used by removal companies.
Shipping containers get a lot of shaking on the back of a truck (potholes, road works etc) so the cardboard actual has some flexibility. Things might get squashed a bit but all good. It’s trying to be too ridge that will see ur plastic break.
Plus the real removals boxes fit in perfectly into a shipping container…. no movement at all.
Buy shipping container for $4000 and sell when ur done for $3500…. a lot cheaper than renting plus u can take ur time to pack it (first in is last out!) and unpack.
Try your local Coles or Woolworths over the next few weeks and ask if you can have some banana boxes. They're not huge but you can fit a fair bit into one and they're strong. Get enough of them and you should be right.
Cardboard boxes can be flattened after usage.
Unless you're moving around quite frequently, you're going to have to find somewhere to store those plastic boxes after moving too.
I've used cardboard boxes from Bunnings. I've found that it makes a huge difference if you get all the same size boxes (vs boxes of all different sizes).
which size do you get?
I got these ones:
https://www.bunnings.com.au/wrap-move-52l-heavy-duty-half-te…
I bought ten of them - 5 of them fit the car in one go and my mate was packing the other 5 as I drove away.
I unpacked them as soon as I got to my new place and brought back 5 empty boxes to begin the cycle again. Helps to pack each area of the house in order so they can be unpacked easily. That way, there's no boxes that remain unpacked after months.
They will break especially if you are getting removalists it. If you are moving them yourself and careful you should be fine.