Professional movers use accessories that help them schlep your stuff with maximum efficiency. If you’re moving with a truck on your own, you should borrow, rent, or buy as much of that equipment as you can. According to Kit, the best gear to get before your DIY move includes:Uniformly sized cardboard boxes: Compared with a willy-nilly collection of randomly sourced containers, cardboard boxes of identical size and shape can be stacked and transported much more quickly, whether you do so on a dolly (see below) or in your arms. “Even if you’re the only one moving, loading up a truck is going to be so much faster for you if you have everything in as uniformly sized boxes as possible,” Kit said.Uniformly sized boxes will make your moving day a breeze.Dollies and/or hand trucks: Using these wheeled devices to transport your boxes to and from the truck will save you tons of time and physical exertion. “The speed of boxes on a dolly is unmatched,” Kit said. “I can roll four boxes of 100 pounds each all on the same dolly faster than I can carry one of those boxes in my arms.”By using a hand truck, you can more efficiently move multiple boxes and heavy objects at once.Moving blankets: Lightweight and easy to manipulate, these can be draped over furniture to prevent scratching. Or you can use packing tape to wrap them around large, fragile items (like antiques or heavy mirrors) to lessen the risk of breakage.For an easy and affordable way to protect your furniture from damage, use moving blankets.Ratchet straps: When you want to get your stuff from point A to point B without anything breaking along the way, compression is your friend. The easiest way to create that squeeze is with ratchet straps, which use a mechanical ratchet and pawl to lock in tension across the load. Also called tie-down straps, they come in a range of size and weight tolerances. For securing the contents of your moving truck, Kit said this four-strap set from Husky — with a working load of 500 pounds — is as serviceable as strap sets that cost three or four times as much.HighlightRatchet straps keep everything in place.
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