Need Help Moving One Piece of Furniture? Look for Single Item Movers

Sometimes, you need to move your entire household. Other times, you only need to move a single item.

This single item, however, may be very large or extremely heavy, very awkwardly shaped or extremely fragile, very delicate or extremely valuable, etc. Or the stairs in your home may be too steep, or the hallways too narrow, or the doors too small, etc. Or you may simply not have the means to transport your item to where you want it to be.

In other words, even though you’re moving only one item, you may still need help moving it.

This is where one item movers come in – they specialize in mini moves and offer single item moving services to those who need them. You can have your bulky, heavy, sensitive, or valuable item relocated by experienced professionals who have the necessary manpower, expert skill, and right equipment for the job – so you won’t need to worry about a thing. You just have to find the right single item movers for you.

Here is what to know and what to do when you need help moving one piece of furniture (or one heavy appliance, or one sensitive instrument, or one delicate valuable, etc.):

When you may need help moving one item

When you think about it, it is much more common to need to move a single item than to need to move an entire home.

The only time when you have to relocate all your belongings is when you’re moving house. There are, however, many occasions when you may need to move one item of furniture or one piece of equipment – you may want to take the bookcase from the living room to your child’s room, to move the baby grand piano upstairs, to take your old pool table to your parents’ place, to put your garden swing into storage, etc. And, yes, you may need to move just a single piece of furniture – or some other bulky or delicate item – to your new home, too.

In general, you may need to move a certain item:

• Within your home – to another room or to another story of your house;
• Across town – to your new place, to the home of a friend or a relative, to a storage facility, etc.;
• To another city or state – to your new home, to the home of a family member, etc.

Whichever the case, moving a single item seems easy enough – you just need someone to help you lift and carry the piece if it’s too large or too heavy for you to handle on your own. If you’re moving the item to another place, you also need to find a way to transport it, but that should be easy enough too – you can move the piece in your car if it fits in or borrow a pickup truck from a friend if it doesn’t (in the worst case scenario, you may have to rent a small moving van).

Yet, things are rarely as simple as they seem and it may turn out that you do need professional help even though you’re only moving a single item. Besides, there are many circumstances when using a single item moving service just makes more sense than trying to do the job yourself.

• The item you need to relocate has high financial or sentimental value and you don’t want to risk damaging it;
• The item is very delicate or very sensitive and can be easily damaged if handled improperly;
• It’s a specialty item (hot tub, pool table, big safe, etc.) that has special moving requirements;
• The item is extremely heavy and you can’t move it safely yourself, even if you have friends to help you (you risk personal injuries and property damage when moving a heavy piece without having enough experience and knowledge – and proper equipment);
• You don’t have anyone to help you lift and carry your bulky item (moving a furniture piece, for example, often requires several people, especially if you’re moving it up or down stairs or taking it out of your home and loading it onto a moving vehicle);
• You don’t have a vehicle that is big enough to fit your large item, don’t have anyone you can borrow a pickup truck from, and don’t want to deal with renting – and driving – a moving truck;
• You need to move your item across the country and can’t spare the time to drive it yourself.

In all these scenarios – and many others – single item packers and movers are your best bet. They have the quality packing supplies, specialized moving equipment, professional know-how, and rich experience required to safely and efficiently move your item. The experts will take it to where it needs to be quickly and without any risk to the piece, to your property, or to anyone’s safety. You just need to find movers willing to relocate only one item.

Can you hire movers to move one item?

Professional movers move all kinds of household items and take all kinds of moving jobs – big and small alike. But will movers move a single item?

Most moving companies offer partial load moving services, but whether they’ll agree to relocate just one item or not depends on how much work they have at the moment – it will be very difficult to find a mover willing to move a single item during peak moving season when most companies are fully booked and don’t have any extra room on their trucks.

And even if you’re moving in a less busy period (during the winter, on a weekday, etc.) and find a mover to help you relocate your single item, it will cost you:

• Local movers charge by the hour but usually have a two-to-four hour minimum. So, if you need to move one item within your home or across town and hire a local mover to do the work for you, you’ll be charged for the minimum number of hours even if your job only takes 30 minutes;
• Long distance moving costs are based on the relocation distance and the weight of the shipment. Most interstate movers, however, have a minimum weight charge, so even if your item weighs less, you’ll still have to pay the minimum charge.

See also: How much do movers charge?

To make sure that you’ll get professional moving help when you need it and to avoid paying for weight that you’re not actually moving or for time you haven’t actually used, you need to find movers that either specialize in moving single items or offer single item moving service as part of their standard services. In other words, you need to find one item movers.

What are single item movers?

Single item movers, also commonly referred to as single furniture movers (as moving one piece of furniture is the most common single item moving scenario), are movers who specialize in moving small loads – and especially in packing, transporting, and unpacking single items.

They are usually smaller than regular movers, have less overhead, and operate in smaller areas – therefore, they’re less expensive and more flexible. You can easily find a single item mover for a summer move or a weekend move, or even for a last-minute move – and you can easily afford the cost. With single item movers, you will get quality moving service exactly when you need it and you won’t break the bank.

If you need to move a single item across the country, however, one item movers may not always be able to accommodate your needs – you may have better odds with reputable long distance moving companies that offer single item moving services.

To be able to choose the best solution for your particular needs, you need to know all your options for moving a single piece of furniture – or some other specialty item – in-home, locally, and cross country.

What are your options for moving one piece of furniture locally?

If you’re moving one piece of furniture, a large appliance, a valuable antique, or some other specialty item within your home, across town, or anywhere within your area, you have lots of ways to get help:

1) Ask your friends to give you a hand

Your pals can provide you all the help you need to move a single item short distance – a couple of friends can help you lift a furniture piece (or any other item) and carry it to another room in your house or apartment, up or down the stairs, or out of your home. And if you need to transport the item to another place, they can help you load and unload it too. You just need to find a suitable vehicle – a big enough car, a pickup truck, or a small moving van.

Using friends’ help is the cheapest way to move one piece of furniture in-home and locally – you’ll only need to buy your pals lunch and drinks to thank them for their help and to pay for the fuel required to transport your item (and to also pay the truck rental fee, if applicable).

2) Hire room-to-room movers

If you need help rearranging the furniture in your home and your friends can’t offer the necessary assistance for one reason or another, you can always hire room-to-room movers to do the job for you. The pros will complete the task in a safe and efficient manner and will save you a lot of time and effort.

3) Use moving labor services

If you’re moving a heavy piece across town and don’t have friends to help you, you can hire moving labor to load and unload the furniture. Keep in mind though that it will be up to you to find a suitable moving vehicle and transport the item to the place where it needs to go.

4) Hire a local moving company

Local movers are the ones to call when you need help moving one piece of furniture locally. They have the expertise and the resources to complete the job in the best way possible, but they will likely have a minimum hour charge, so you may end up paying for time you haven’t actually used (as explained above).

5) Find single item movers

Single item movers are your best bet for moving a single piece of furniture in-home, in town, or anywhere within your area. They are experienced professionals who have specialized moving equipment and expert moving skills and they specialize in moving single items. Best of all, they will only charge you for the actual time it takes them to complete the job.

What are your options for moving one piece of furniture long distance?

When moving across the country, you can’t do without professional help – no matter whether you’re moving just a few pieces of furniture or the contents of a four-bedroom home. Fortunately, it’s not difficult to find long distance relocation assistance – even when you need to move only a single item.

1) Take advantage of long distance movers’ consolidated shipping practices

Long-distance movers use big trailers to transport household goods across the country so they can take big loads and relocate as many items at once as possible. In order to be efficient, though, they need to fill the trucks to their maximum capacity.

Moving partial loads allows them to achieve that, so they’re willing to pick up single items along the way when they have extra space in the truck.

Therefore, there is a good chance that cross-country movers will agree to include your single piece of furniture (or any other single item you need to move) in a haul they’re already doing along the same route. You’ll be sharing the moving truck space with other customers’ items and will be paying only for the space that your item takes up (though there may be minimum shipment requirements or minimum weight requirements, or the cost per pound may be higher than if you were moving an entire house to compensate for the inconvenience of picking up such a small amount).

Keep in mind, however, that you won’t get a guaranteed delivery date – it may take a while for the moving truck to pick up and deliver all the shipments.

Good to remember: When shipping a single piece of furniture on a large truck transporting other customers’ goods, be sure to clearly label your item with your name and final destination (together with any necessary handling instructions) – this will help prevent mixing your item with other people’s belongings traveling in the same truck. And don’t forget to get proper moving insurance for your item, especially if it’s a valuable piece – just to be on the safe side.

2) Use small moving services

Small scale movers provide a very advantageous option for moving small loads – and single items – across the country.

Small load moving works in a similar way as shared load moving – the movers combine several shipments going along the same route in one large moving truck. The key difference is the cost – there is no minimum weight requirement, so you pay only for the weight of your item. (Small moving costs are based on the weight of the shipment, the relocation distance, and the required extra services.)

3) Use freight moving services

Many freight companies offer residential moving services and are willing to take single items in order to fill all the space in their trucks. Therefore, you can use freight service to ship one piece of furniture across the country.

Keep in mind though that freight companies provide transportation only, so it will be your responsibility to pack your furniture piece, load it onto the truck, and then unload and unpack it upon delivery. And your item may not be as well secured and protected during transit as it would be when shipped with a professional moving company.

The price of shipping a single item with a freight company is based on the distance to the final destination and the freight class of the item (determined by its weight, value, and susceptibility to damage).

4) Use a pod moving service

If you’re moving just a few pieces of furniture – or a single large item – across the country, you can use a pod moving service. A small portable moving container will be dropped off in front of your home and once you’ve loaded your furniture in it, the pod will be picked up by the pod moving company and transported to your final destination.

It’s a convenient moving option but the cost may be too high for relocating only one item.

All things considered, it’s best to find single item movers for your single item moving needs.

How to find single item movers

So, you need help moving one piece of furniture – or some other heavy, bulky, delicate, or valuable item – and you’ve decided to use a single item moving service. In that case, you need to find the best single item movers for you:

• Ask around for recommendations and read moving reviews to find reputable single item movers near you;
• Get single item moving quotes from three or four highly-rated moving companies and discuss the details of your move with them (required extra services, specific handling requirements, insurance options, pick-up and delivery times, etc.);
• Research the one item movers that seem to best suit your needs – check their licensing and insurance information, their ratings with the BBB, their track records and complaint histories, etc. (See also: How to avoid moving scams);
• Compare the offers and choose the best one-item movers for you – experienced and reliable professionals that offer quality services at reasonable prices.

Bonus tip: If you have worked with professional movers before and remained happy with their services, or if you have reliable recommendations for a good moving company, call the movers and ask them if they would be willing to move a single item for you – and how much it would cost you. If the movers say yes and the price is affordable, you won’t have to research other moving companies and will have peace of mind that your item is in good hands.

Frequently Asked Questions

Even if you’re moving only one item, if it’s large, heavy, or delicate, it’s best to use professional moving help. Whether it’s a piano, a grandfather clock, an antique, a bulky appliance, or a heavy furniture piece, your special item requires special care – and single item movers have the specialized expertise and specialized equipment to take proper care of your treasured possession. Your item will be at its rightful place intact and unscathed and you will have saved yourself a lot of time, effort, and headaches. Sounds good, doesn’t it?