Packing Services in Dubai

The materials that actually matter

Cartons do most of the work, and the difference between a good one and a bad one is the wall. A double wall carton has two layers of fluting and holds the weight of the boxes stacked above it in a truck. A single wall box bows, and once the bottom row bows the whole stack leans. We use double wall for everything heavy and everything fragile.

Supermarket boxes are the most expensive free thing in moving. They are single wall, most have been damp at some point, they are all different sizes so they will not stack square, and plenty have had food in them. They are fine for cushions and wrong for almost everything else.

The rest of the list is short and every item has a job. Wardrobe cartons have a rail inside, so hanging clothes travel on their own hangers. Bubble wrap is for glass, ceramics and screens. Clean packing paper rather than newspaper goes around crockery, because newsprint transfers onto white china in the heat. Mattress covers keep lift grime off bedding. Furniture blankets and corner guards protect the pieces too big to box, and the door frames they pass through.

The order we pack a home in

We start in the rooms you use least, usually the spare bedroom, the store and the balcony, and finish with the kitchen and the bathrooms on the morning of the move. That way you can live normally until the last moment instead of camping in your own flat for a week.

One carton is kept back and packed last, and it is the one that matters most: kettle, mugs, tea, chargers, bin bags, soap, towels, medicine and a change of clothes. It travels with you rather than on the truck. Make sure the power and the air conditioning are still on at both addresses on packing day too, because your DEWA move out and move in are yours to arrange and packing a sealed apartment in July with no cooling is hard work.

Labelling is the last thing we do to a carton and the first thing that helps at the other end. Every box gets the room it belongs to and a short note on the contents, written on the side rather than the top so it can still be read once boxes are stacked. Fragile cartons are marked and kept off the bottom of the load. The crew can then put every box in the right room without opening one, which is what stops a move ending with forty boxes in the living room.

Useful links: DEWA move in and move out.

What gets broken most often and why

Plates are the first casualty and always for the same reason. Stacked flat, a plate has nothing to absorb a knock and the whole stack cracks together. Wrapped one at a time and packed upright on edge, they behave like records in a sleeve and survive the drive. Glasses are wrapped individually and never nested, because two glasses pushed together chip each other before the truck has moved.

After crockery it is lamps, mirrors and anything with a screen. Lampshades get crushed by having something packed on top of them. Mirrors and framed pictures crack when they are laid flat, so they are taped across the glass, wrapped and carried on edge. Televisions and monitors go in their own cartons with corner protection, screen facing inward, and never face down in a truck.

Then there are the Dubai specific ones. Marble and glass table tops travel upright in a frame or a crate, never flat, because a flat stone top will break under its own weight over a speed bump. Candles and cosmetics turn to liquid in a vehicle standing in the sun, so they are packed last and travel with you. Potted plants cannot be packed at all and should go in your own car.

What to pack yourself, and what packing costs

Packing your own clothes, shoes, books, bedding and sealed kitchen items is a real saving and we are happy for you to do it. Buy proper double wall cartons, keep book boxes small, fill every carton to the top so it cannot collapse, and write the room on the side. Leave us the glassware, the crockery, the artwork, the mirrors and the screens. Those cost far more to replace than they cost to have packed, and anything you pack yourself travels at your own risk.

A packing quote is built from volume and fragility rather than from the number of rooms on a floor plan, because a two bedroom in JVC and a two bedroom in Dubai Marina can hold very different amounts of glass. These are the things that change the price: