You’ve already thought out packing for most of your home, but when it comes to your yard and gardening tools, you’re just tired. It can be tempting to just start packing yard tools away without caring where they end up. You’ll deal with it when you get to your new home, right?
Unfortunately, this typically leads to frustration later on when unpacking, and you can’t find the tools you know you packed. Additionally, throwing your yard equipment in boxes can dramatically increase your chances of damaging it. So, let’s get into how to pack your yard tools for your move.
Organize Your Yard Tools
Start by sorting through your tools and establish which of them you’ll use in your new home and which you won’t need. Also, include anything you cannot move with — like gasoline, fertilizers, harsh cleaners, and herbicides or pesticides — in your “not taking with us” pile.
After establishing which tools you want to move, group them into piles for packing. We recommend grouping similar tools and opting for groups of similarly sized tools because this will make packing much more manageable.
Prepare Your Materials
Before you begin packing your tools up, make sure you have suitable packing materials. You’ll need the following:
- Sturdy boxes or designated toolboxes
- Packing materials — like paper and bubble wrap
- Small bags to contain small loose items
- Packing tape
- Twine or rope
- Moving blankets
Clean Your Tools
Do your cleaning before you pack everything away, instead of when you are unpacking at your new home. Trust us, yard tools left alone in the garage, shed, or storage chests are heaven for creepy crawlies.
Also, ensure you remove any fuels, oils, and batteries from any powered tools, like leaf blowers or lawnmowers, as a part of this process, as moving tools with fuel in them is unsafe, and batteries can become damaged and ruin the tools if left inside.
Packing Your Yard Tools
Most of us have various yard tools — such as hand shovels, leaf blowers, and rakes. Unfortunately, this variety can make packing your yard tools seem harder than it needs to be. Luckily, there are some quick and easy ways to ensure your tools are packed safely.
Hand tools
We’ll start with hand tools because they are typically the largest category, and you’ll likely have various tools to pack away. Thankfully, all you need to do for hand tools is:
- grab a sturdy box,
- put some packing paper at the bottom to prevent too much moving around during moving,
- carefully pack your tools into the box — make sure to test the weight of the box periodically,
- add more packing paper to the top to fill the gaps, and
- seal up your box and label it.
If you have sharp tools, like shears, we recommend carefully wrapping the sharp edges with packing material (ideally something like bubble wrap).
Long tools
The next category of tools to pack will be your long-handled tools — such as rakes, hoes, and shovels. To pack these effectively, we recommend the following:
- bundling them together,
- rolling them up in your moving blankets, and
- securing the bundles with twine or rope.
This way, you can move all your longer tools in one go!
Power tools
Most of us only have a few yard-related power tools, if any. Luckily, moving these tools is quite simple. All you’ll want to do is:
- detach any removable parts — including any batteries,
- store those smaller parts in the proper storage locations on your power tool or separately in a small bag, and
- wrap the power tool in your packing material or a moving blanket.
If you are moving a large tool that uses fuel, like a lawn mower, ensure the fuel tank is empty before moving it. Keep in mind that if you must move extensive, heavy, or awkward tools, you’ll need expert help as these can be unsafe to move on your own.
Want to Know the Best Way to Move Your Yard Tools? Hire Smooth Move!
Moving is stressful enough without worrying about carefully packing your belongings. So, leave all the packing and moving to your trusted local mover, Smooth Move!
We can ensure that your belongings are moved carefully and securely to your new home so you can focus on the other important aspects of your move. Contact us today to get a free quote on your move!