Materials & Equipment

Getting the Right Packing Materials

Before you tape up a single box, it’s worth making sure you have everything you need. Running out of packing paper halfway through the kitchen or discovering your tape won’t stick properly on moving day morning — these are avoidable problems that cost you time and stress.

Every house is different, so the exact quantities will vary. If you’re unsure how much you’ll need, book in for a free home assessment and we’ll give you a tailored list based on the size of your property and what needs packing. But as a general overview, here’s what you’ll need and why each item matters.

Essential Packing Materials

Packing Paper

This is your workhorse material — you’ll use it more than anything else. Packing paper is unprinted newspaper, so it doesn’t transfer ink onto your belongings. It’s used primarily in the kitchen for wrapping glassware, crockery, and ceramics, but you’ll also use it to fill gaps in boxes and create cushioning layers between items.

A single ream (roughly 500 sheets) costs around £20 and is usually enough for a standard-sized kitchen with some to spare. For a full house pack, you may need two reams.

Bubble Wrap

Bubble wrap is reserved for your larger fragile items — things that won’t fit neatly into a box wrapped in paper. Think mirrors, framed pictures, ornaments, and decorative ceramics. You won’t need as much of this as you might expect, since packing paper handles most of the day-to-day wrapping.

A 50-metre roll is a good starting point for most homes. If you have a lot of artwork or oversized fragile items, consider a second roll.

Boxes — Two Sizes Are All You Need

This is where many people go wrong. You don’t need five different box sizes — two will cover almost everything in your home.

Small/heavy box (approx. 30cm × 50cm): This is your go-to box for heavy items like books, tools, tinned food, and anything dense. It’s also the box you’ll use for fragile kitchen items — glasses, plates, and crockery wrapped in packing paper. The smaller size means that even when fully packed, it stays within a safe weight for one person to lift. Pack these as full as possible to prevent items shifting during transit.

Large/general box (approx. 40cm × 60cm): This is for everything else — bedding, towels, clothing, toys, lampshades, and lighter household items. The extra space gives you room to work with, but resist the temptation to fill it with heavy items. A large box packed with books becomes dangerously heavy and the base can give way.

The golden rule with boxes: always buy double-walled. Double-walled boxes have two layers of corrugated cardboard, giving them roughly twice the strength of single-walled alternatives. You can spot the difference by looking at the edge of the cardboard — a double-walled box shows two distinct wave patterns.

Single-walled boxes are cheaper, but they crumple under weight, buckle when stacked, and offer far less protection for your belongings. We see the results of cheap boxes on almost every move — crushed corners, collapsed stacks, and damaged contents. The price difference is small, but the protection difference is enormous.

Tape

Invest in good quality packing tape. The cheap stuff from pound shops might seem like a bargain, but it peels off too easily — especially in cold weather. During winter months, low-quality adhesive can fail completely, leaving your boxes unsealed and your items exposed.

You’ll also want a roll of fragile tape — the bright printed tape that clearly marks which boxes need careful handling. This makes a real difference on moving day when your removal team is working quickly and needs to spot fragile boxes at a glance.

Useful Tools

• Scissors — essential for cutting bubble wrap and packing paper to size.
• A thick marker pen — for labelling boxes if you don’t have printed labels. We’ll cover labelling systems in detail in Lesson 6.
• A tape gun — not essential, but if you’re taping up 80 to 100+ boxes, it saves a huge amount of time and keeps tape cuts clean. You can pick one up online for around £10, and it’s one of those tools you’ll wonder how you managed without.

When You Might Need Specialist Materials

For most household items, the materials above are all you’ll need. But some belongings require extra attention:

Large flat-screen TVs are increasingly thin and fragile. The original box is always the best option — if you’ve kept it, use it. If not, we can provide specialist TV boxes or use padded corner protectors and export-grade wrapping to keep it safe.

Antique furniture with delicate surfaces, veneers, or carved details may need padded blankets, corner protectors, or full export wrapping to prevent scratches and dents during transit.

Mirrors and large framed artwork benefit from purpose-built picture boxes or custom bubble-wrap protection.

If you have items like these in your home, get in touch before you start packing — we’ll advise on the best way to prepare them for transport, or we can handle it for you as part of our professional packing service.

How Many Boxes Do You Need?

As a rough guide based on our experience with Bristol homes:

• 1-bed flat: 20–30 boxes
• 2-bed house: 30–50 boxes
• 3-bed house: 50–80 boxes
• 4-bed house: 80–120 boxes

These numbers vary depending on how much you own and how thoroughly you’ve decluttered (see Lesson 1). A home assessment gives you an accurate count, so you don’t end up with too many or — worse — too few.

Where to Buy Packing Materials

You can order boxes and materials online from specialist moving supply companies, or purchase them directly from us. We supply the same professional-grade double-walled boxes and materials our team uses on every move, and we can deliver them to your door.

Avoid picking up used boxes from supermarkets. They’re almost always single-walled, they’ve already been weakened by previous use, and they come in inconsistent sizes that make stacking difficult and waste space on the van.

Pro Tip from Jay

“I see people turn up with boxes from the supermarket, thin as cardboard from a cereal box, and wonder why they're falling apart. Double-walled boxes are the single most important thing you can buy for your move. Everything else — tape, paper, bubble wrap — it all depends on those boxes doing their job.”

— Jay Newton, Director