Moving across the country

February 3, 2023

I recently moved from Aachen to Berlin. I learned some things I wished I had known before, so here we go. I wrote this post in 30 minutes.

The distance between Aachen and Berlin almost 700 km which was the main factor making this moving difficult. Note that I won’t get into finding a flat in Berlin in this post, which was a challenge on its own.

Do you need a professional moving company?

Yes.

I had considered doing it myself / with friends and family, but after having done the math I decided to go for a professional moving company. My basic calculation was: how much does it cost me to rent the biggest delivery truck I can drive with my driver's license (3.5 tonnes) and how often would I have to drive it.

I came to the conclusion that I would have to pay around 700 € for each ride from Aachen to Berlin (renting the truck one-way, fuel, riding back using the train) and it would cost be at least 2 days each time. Estimating that I’d have to ride at least three times, this would amount to at least 2100€.

Also: Moving a whole flat can be stressful enough on its own and the help from the moving company was a great relief. They were fast, careful and nothing seemed too heavy for them to carry.

I chose a moving company directly instead of going for a platform like Movinga. I had requested multiple offers from different companies, including Movinga. They differed quite a lot regarding the price: from around 2800€ to 5500€.

Most moving companies offered to do a video call where you could show them your flat, and they’d estimate the volume to transport based on that. This was quite convenient, though the volume estimates differed quite a lot (>30%).

The offer I chose was at the same time the cheapest and had a sufficiently large truck – which turned out to be a good choice. They were able to make that offer because they could combine my moving it with another moving in the opposite direction and I was quite flexible regarding the date.

The truck a 12 t / 44 m3 truck that would get loaded by the moving company in Aachen and arrive one day later in Berlin. The truck ended up being around 70-80% filled with the stuff from our 2 person, 52 m^2 flat and the basement + bicycles.

We drove by car and arrived at the same evening in Berlin.

Things I hadn’t expected before

• As I moved during winter time, the truck froze during the ride. This destroyed some of my plants as well as my coffee machine (probably the pipes containing water bursted).

• It’s quite valuable to have a lot of moving boxes. We had 60 for our flat, and we used all of them. Having some spare moving boxes is a good idea though.

• Pack your boxes well as in: try to fit in as much as possible unless the box gets way to heavy (heavier than a box of books).

• Packing every single item and dismantle every single furniture piece took quite some time. It is a little bit stressful to have everything ready once the moving company arrives.

• The moving company people carry furniture like a chest of drawers as a whole, leaving the drawers in. This means all drawers should be empty.

• You can’t bet on things being carried strictly way up at all times. The moving company people will carry things laying on their shoulders, etc.

• Stretch wrap is extremely helpful to pack smaller items (also like multiple shelf floors) together, to keep cupboards shut during transport, etc. It doesn’t leave any traces when removed and even helps to give items more grip to be easier to carry.