{"id":1046,"date":"2009-09-17T10:34:22","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T10:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=1046"},"modified":"2018-02-08T19:43:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T19:43:21","slug":"diy-house-move-with-a-renault-trafic-i-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/1046","title":{"rendered":"DIY House Move With A Renault Trafic – I Did It!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our DIY Removals Guide<\/a> is one of the most popular pages on the site – it’s based on my own experience of moving house for myself. However, it has been a few years since I last moved, so I thought it was time to refresh my experience and put my money where my mouth is.<\/p>\n

Luckily enough, my sister was due to move recently, so I offered my help in the form of a hired van<\/a> and my labour for the day. As she was living in a furnished, rented house, she did not have a lot of furniture or appliances – so I opted for a medium van<\/a> from my local rental company. The van in question turned out to be a Renault Trafic – a hugely popular model<\/a> that is also sold as the Vauxhall Vivaro and Nissan Primastar.<\/p>\n

\"Renault

Renault Trafic<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a snapshot of the inside, empty:<\/p>\n

\"Inside

Inside an empty Renault Trafic<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s what it looked like when we had finished loading:<\/p>\n

\"Renault

Renault Trafic loaded up and ready to go<\/p><\/div>\n

The lesson here is that, correctly packed, you can get a surprising amount in a van of this size. I could have booked the next size up, but I would then have had a lot more space than I needed and would have had to restrain the load to stop it all moving about while I was driving.<\/p>\n

There are a few additional tips I would like to share:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • A lot of the stuff was packed in identical boxes. I could stack these against the bulkhead neatly and efficiently – if the boxes had all been different sizes, this would have been less convenient and stable.<\/li>\n
  • Start at the front, with the heavy, stackable stuff. Stack hard against the bulkhead and work your way back.<\/li>\n
  • Anything like flatpack furniture or table tops can be stacked against a side wall and then boxed in so it can’t move – use an old blanket or sheet to protect any unboxed furniture from being scratched.<\/li>\n
  • Drive carefully – with the van this full, I did feel the extra weight<\/li>\n
  • Make sure your tyres are inflated correctly – mine all looked okay before I loaded the van, but one was badly underinflated and after the van was loaded it was visibly flat. I pumped it up at the first garage I came to.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    I’m pleased to report that nothing moved and nothing was damaged during the move – which was over a distance of about 190 miles, many of which were on winding, country roads. Of course, I did take care and took the corners slower than I would have in an empty van (or car).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Moving house with a Renault Trafic rental van.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[459,713,711,712],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10839,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/10839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}