UKH

Hi all,

looking at the best way (cheapest I guess) to send stuff (about half a small van load) from one end of the country to the other - any experience of this?

current plan is train down then self drive/hire one back and that’s looking at about £260 for a one way rental plus fuel

other options out there? 

many thanks as always 

Toby 

Rent a one way, van. You save on train fare and a lot of arsing about.

Have you looked at hiring the van at home and doing return trip in it rather than train and one way rental? The one-way part is often what hikes the cost as they have to factor-in the repatriation of the vehicle afterwards.

A couple of weeks ago we had to pick up a similar amount 333 miles away, then bring it home. We drove in the end, but we did look at DHL delivery (which is cheaper depot to depot rather than door to door) before we went. DHL would have been much cheaper, but we decided we wanted to make the journey anyway, for fun, even though it cost more

Is it worth a look at DHL for you, maybe? Of course it depends on the stuff you have to shift

If in no immediate hurry, one option could be to use a reputable removal company/other transport company depending on what your shifting. Jobs where they can add to other part loads, or an empty return journey used to be available reasonably if time was flexible.

Long time ago admittedly I last did this, but worked out fine. Make sure you take out extra insurance if necessary is the load is important or of value to you.

If it's on pallet(s), lots of places will take it as part of a load. Random items will be a pain to transport, but a pallet is a standard unit.

I’ve done this once before but really don’t fancy a round trip (4 days of  driving) out of 7 days spare - 

it’s looking like the one way hire is probably the best option just now 

I used shiply to move some furniture. It worked well.

Looking at old email I see it cost me just £18 in 2014 to move a sideboard from Sunderland to Glasgow. 

There's almost certainly a white van with space doing roughly the journey you require.

https://www.shiply.com/freight-haulage/part-load-removals.php

Don't ask for a bid as an experiment to get a feel for what is available as if you decline the bids that shows you are a time/money waster and you won't get any further bids. I made that mistake.

However I remedied this by paying £4.99 to advertise the requirement as that shows you are now serious.

CORRECTION - £18 did sound to good to be true so I logged on to Shiply.

It was £18 then £70 later (on delivery?).

£88 total

Might be just cheapest to rent a van locally and drive there and back. When I moved house last summer we only had a few large items to take so rented a large van for £60 for 24 hours and did it myself. Was quite surprised how cheap it was!

It would be 4 days of continuous driving - there and back for just one driver (me) I’ve only got a week spare so train down - drive back is plan A -  however have a quote from Shiply that means they’ll do the pick up/drop off so considering that also

Thanks - have a few interests on Shiply already, I kept the date as ‘flexible’ so so far no ones offer has been accepted but they all seem pretty casual about it.

Thanks for the tip!

Ah.. my idea of one end of the country to the other must have been quite conservative! Hope you manage to get it sorted. 

9hrs non stop - Aberdeen to Southend - not gunna want to try that solo there n back in 24hrs!