Category: Storage

Moving offices or premises provides much more challenges than a usual home removal. Not only is there usually more people to think about but there is often lots of equipment on top of the restraints of ensuring that the company doesn’t spend much time out of action. All of the following tips should help ensure that the move runs as smoothly as possible.

Professional Removal Company

Not only will using a removal company take a lot of the strain and worry from you so that you can focus on your normal business, it will also ensure that professionally trained crews will be handling your vital items. A specific member of our team will take control of the move and oversee it with you from beginning to the end of the office move.

Extra hint: Make sure your removal company is BAR verified. The British Association of Removers will provide you with extra protection if something happens with the removal.

Plan

Using a removal company or not, planning is the key to success. Setting out clear directions to where items should be moved to saves valuable time and worry after the move day. Making a floor plan of the new office is a great way to achieve this.

Extra hint: Ensure that your employees are responsible for any personal items or objects to ensure the safe move of absolutely everything.

IT Equipment

Often proving the biggest obstacle for an office move is the IT and computer equipment. If you are using a removal company then ensure that everything is communicated with them regarding the IT equipment and they will provide the professional advice required to ensure that everything is kept safe.

Protect Yourself

Bear in mind any information, paperwork or computer equipment that may harbour any confidential information. This does not want to be left behind or lost unnecessarily. Consider using storage services to ensure their safety and also back up any technology that may have the potential to lose valuable data.

Declutter

As with any removal, it is a great opportunity to have a clear out or revamp your equipment. If you decide to dispose of any paperwork or hard drives then consider professional IT or paper destruction services which can be provided by your removal company.

Extra hint: Some documents might need to be kept for record purposes for a certain number of years, consider a professional storage or archive company to ensure their safety.

In advance to a removal, there is plenty of stuff going on and to think about. Hopefully most things are arranged and sorted such as your removal company. But there will be a point where all of the belongings in your home will have to be sorted. Whether you are downsizing and wanting to cut down on your furniture or upsizing and wanting to invest in some new furniture, Holdsworth’s want to offer a few of the most safe and efficient ways of getting rid of your old household furniture.

Charity

If you are certain about getting rid of your household furniture ahead of your removal then recycling or offering your furniture to charity helps so many people out. Charities are always on the hunt for items including household furniture. It obviously helps you clear away some unwanted items while putting them into further use if they are still functional.

Recycle Now have a fantastic local recycling resource which can help you pass on unwanted items to be re-used by searching via location or per item.

Council Collection or Drop-off

There is also the option to call upon your local council. For some items and sometimes for a small fee, you can arrange for your local council to pick up any unwanted items. Alternatively, if you have the correct vehicle and pass, you can drop items off at your local council waste site.

Re-sell

In the online world, there are many platforms where you can easily upload any unwanted items for free. There is also the “old fashioned” but well-trodden way of advertising in local shops. This way provides a great opportunity to make a bit of money as part of the clear out.

Upcycle

Especially with wood furniture, upcycling has become a new way of introducing a new lease of life your furniture. Using varnishes, polishes or even just a lick of paint you can bring your old furniture to life once again maybe for a place in your new home or even just to sell-on.

Store It

If there are certainly items that you know won’t have a place in your new home but maybe hold some sentimental value or you aren’t quite ready to get rid of, container storage is an affordable and managed way of ensuring their safety right until you require them again. Read more about container storage from Holdsworth’s here.

With the UK heatwave in full swing and the Summer Solstice coming up this week, it seemed appropriate that the latest Holdsworth’s removals blog explored how summer takes effect on the removals industry as a whole. It isn’t a very well-known fact but removals is a seasonal business so to ensure that our customers are fully aware of this and can plan as much as possible, we wanted to outline how the summer months affect us as a removal company.

Let’s Get Busy

As mentioned previously, removals is a seasonal industry and the summer months are when things start to get busier. There are many reasons for this. More simply it could be put down to having better weather to carry out the move but it also could be down to the school holidays and having more time to carry out the move.

This brings slightly different approaches to the move on a customer level and as a removal company. The main difference is the advance of bookings. During the summer months removals companies can be fully booked a week or at least two weeks in advance. While in the winter you might be able to arrange, pay and carry out the removal within a few days. This is unlikely to happen in the summer so ensure that your removal can go ahead by getting organised and keeping in touch with your removal company.

Move Day

On move day itself, the brighter and warmer weather makes things a little different. Not only do our removal crews ditch their trousers for shorts but they will need plenty of hydration breaks. But this will not stop them from implementing their effort and skills when carrying and loading your items. Each of them is fully trained and has the expertise required. And we are pretty confident that they are happier in the summer weather than the winter weather!

Students

At the start and end of summer there are always students requiring moves up and down the country and sometimes internationally. Sometimes a professional removal company is not necessary for these types of move, a van hire or man and a van service can be a bit better suited. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enquire and get a free no obligation quote from us just to check. We will provide you with the advice you need.

Holdsworth’s of Leeds can also help out with student storage options as well.

At Holdsworth’s we do our very best to ensure that each of our removals runs as stress-free for each of our customers as possible. We try and call upon our near one hundred year experience and apply it to each removal in order to make it a success and this has meant that we have developed a reliable and efficient process for each move.

We have put some of this process into a set of handy resources that customers or anyone looking to move home can call upon for advice.

When you are planning to move house then there is a lot of research that is required. Whether it is regarding your house or the area that you are planning to move to – amongst many other things, the removal itself is often forgotten. So to give movers an idea of what takes to go through the removal process, we put together a brief five step guide to outline the key points of a move taking customers from finding the removal company, to getting a quote and eventually the move day.

Choosing a removal company can be the toughest part of the process. As well as cost, there are a number of additional factors to consider. A key factor being why choose a BAR (British Association of Removers) verified removal company. We summarised our credentials to ensure that you know exactly what assurances and guarantees you get when choosing Holdsworth’s of Leeds.

After you have received your quotes for the move and you have decided which removal company you would like to go with, you will be presented with a number of additional extras before paying for your move. A key decision at this point is to decide whether or not you are going to pack yourself or take up the professional packing service provided by your removal company. If it’s the former then we have a handy guide of hints and tips for packing yourself. As well as this, there are a number of insurance options and waivers on offer which will provide you with security and peace of mind. Or if you are considering storage for your belongings while you go through the move, there is a guide on how storage can help you here.

Finally, there are the steps required in the weeks and days leading up to your removal and on move day itself. Whether it’s a domestic home move or an international removal, we have put together a checklist of things to consider in preparation for and on move day. All to ensure that your removal runs as smoothly as possible.

Whether you’re a bustling business seeking a place for important documents, a student in need of savvy storage or a home owner who wants to keep their possessions safe during a big move, Holdsworths is here for you. We have a huge range of self-storage options perfect for each and every customer’s needs.

Perhaps your children are all grown up and you’ve decided it’s time to downsize your family home. Or maybe you’re moving out of one home and staying with friends or family for a while until moving into your new place. With almost 100 years of experience behind us we will take care of every aspect of the storage process. We will begin by deciding together how much space you will need and for how long, before transporting your items into their designated space. Each unit is secure, clean and dry, the areas are also CCTV monitored 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

If you’re off travelling or working away from home for a period of time, self-storage could be a great option. Contracts are simple, easy and can be tailored to your individual time constraints. If your plans change, simply get in touch with us and we will ensure any worries are eradicated.

For students in need of a place to keep their haul when their tiny halls of residence are overflowing, look no further than self-storage. Units are accessible 24/7 meaning that if you need to pop in just before that 9am lecture, or following a late-night library session you can. As well as term time options, Holdsworth’s offers shorter term leases, a great option for those that don’t want to bring a car-full home over the holidays. Friends can also group together to rent a space meaning you save both money and time.

Both large and small businesses alike could also benefit from storage. For those seeking a place to keep documents safe, our units are completely secure, and we can provide managed archiving or self storage facilities. Plus safe shredding options mean that you can destroy documents on site once they’re no longer needed, keeping your office tidy and saving you valuable time. Other businesses may benefit from a place to store stock during busy or quiet periods. For example, a seasonal business that expects additional trade during the festive season could use a place to keep that extra stock when the time comes. Online retailers who don’t have large premises for stock can use self storage to save them the cost of expensive office space – even choosing to run their business from one of our units if it works for them.

Holdsworth’s Removals were also among the first in the country to offer container storage and though we say it ourselves, we know a thing or two about it! So if you’re looking for longer term storage, Holdsworth’s will arrive at your home with our purpose-built van which will be preloaded with containers and packing materials. As each item is carefully loaded into the container, a detailed inventory is completed and you will be given a copy. Should you need to pick anything up from your container before it’s all ready to be unloaded we will use our system to quickly locate it and bring it to you. Simple!

Take a look online to check out how else Holdsworth’s could help you or to pick up a handy quote, you might be surprised!

As the song goes, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. But in amongst all the wrapping, cooking and the giving & receiving of gifts, you accumulate a lot of extra stuff and waste. Christmas can also be a dangerous time in terms of theft and especially identity theft. Even down to the addressed packages and envelopes, someone looking to fraud your identity could use this information to their advantage. So here are some ideas on how Holdsworths’ can help you with the post-Christmas sort out.

Shredding Sacks

Holdsworth’s aim to provide a completely secure document disposal service and one way in which we do that is with our paper shredding sacks. You can purchase these sacks and take them home to fill up yourself. Whether its addressed envelopes or something a bit more confidential such as personal records, bank statements etc, you can fill our shredding sacks and seal them yourselves and they will go straight into our shredder inside the sacks – so at no point will your documents be removed from the sack.

Drop off in-store

You can also avoid the shredding sacks by sorting through your items at home and putting them into boxes or bags. The difference here is that your documents will have to be removed from the bags and boxes to be shredded as our shredder cannot process plastic bags or large boxes. This doesn’t compromise their confidentiality however as all of our shredding staff are fully trained and monitored.

Storage Options

Maybe part of your post-Christmas clear-out doesn’t involved disposing of stuff. If you are wanting to fulfil the de-cluttering that is required in your home but have some items that have a certain amount of value so that you don’t want to through them away the Holdworth’s storage solutions could be ideal for you. Container storage would be ideal for valuable items that you don’t need immediate access to be want to keep safe away from your home in a fully secure area. You can fill one of our containers and it will be forklifted into our warehouse for safe keeping.

If you want to declutter items that you might need immediate access to over time then self-storage is the best option for you. This is great for items like Christmas decorations that you might not have space for at your home but might need access to next year and you can also fill your unit with other bits and bobs that you can use a lock and key or our 24/7 PIN service to get access to.

Christmas is a time for celebration and holidays. But it can easily become a time of worry and stress as town centres and roads get busier and busier. Whatever your situation, storage solutions from Holdsworths might be able to help you feel at ease as we enter the festive period. Here are just some of the ways in which container and self-storage options might help out this Christmas.

De-Clutter

Whether it’s a temporary de-cluttering for family and friends coming to stay over the festive holiday period or just a long overdue clear out, storage can be a great way to ensure that those items that you aren’t ready to throw away or need to be kept safe are out of the way from your home and kept safe. Container storage or self-storage will ensure that your items are kept safe and secure while self-storage with Holdsworth’s will provide 24/7 PIN access to the items should you require them. So if you looking to have a Christmas clear out then make sure you get a quote from Holdsworth’s.

Businesses

Christmas is a peak time of year for retail and online sellers. This can often result in extra orders of stock which can exceed your current stock holdings. If you are a seasonal business then self-storage options could be really helpful to your business to ensure that your extra stock is kept safe and secure while providing full access should you require any emergency access. And affordable rates, it can be a cheap and helpful addition to your business this festive period.

Students

In many major university cities, thousands of students will be on the lead up to Christmas in order to spend the festive period at home. The Christmas period can vary in length for students and the distances in which some of those who study away from home can be large. Therefore many students will only travel home with essential items and leave many things at their university house. This can often be preyed upon by burglars who know student housing areas. To avoid this then leaving your items in secure storage over the festive period at a student price could be a good option to ensure the safety of your belongings.

Use Less Stuff Day has been promoted by organisations such as Greenpeace for a few years.  It was established with the Earth and our impact on it in mind. This is not just concerning the condition of the Earth and its atmosphere but also us as residents of it. Its aim is for us to consider whether we really need to use the items that we use on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s a disposable coffee cup or buying bottled water, Use Less Stuff Day is promoting thoughts of “Do I Actually Need That?”. At Holdsworth’s we wanted to focus this on an area where we spend a lot of our time – the workplace. So here are a few hints and tips on how to implement Use Less Stuff Day in your office:

Recycle

This is may seem an obvious one but it is a hint that needs to be re-emphasised. We as humans produce a lot of waste and having the relevant bins in place makes it a whole lot easier for people to filter their waste between what’s recyclable and what’s not. Having the bins in the office alone should promote the idea.

Printing

In an age of emails, tablets and on-screen presentations, many companies are going paperless in a bid to limit the amount of unnecessary waste that we accumulate on a day to day basis. Going paperless isn’t always achievable but enforcing it as much as possible will act as an easy way to cut waste. Where it isn’t necessary, it could be worth considering a one-print rule and looking into document storage options to ensure that duplicate copies aren’t printed.

Shred It

In some industries such as law, health and accountancy, paperless is not possible due to laws regarding the time that documents have to be kept for. Document storage is a great option for companies in this sector. But for any office that requires a lot of paper printing should ensure that it is disposed of in the best way. Shredding services not only ensure that all documents are destroyed securely therefore protecting your personal information. But, providing that you use an amicable company, the shredding company should ensure that all paper waste is recycled properly so it can go into the making of everyday items such as toilet paper.

Big Switch Off

Using less stuff doesn’t always apply to a handheld object. Using less energy and power is also a vital part of enforcing a more environmentally friendly workplace. Turning your computer or laptop off at the end of each work day has more benefits than leaving it overnight.

Make It a Team Effort

Getting the whole office on board and colleagues working to support each other a great way to make sure that these ideas are put into place. It could even extend out into car sharing to work which takes a car off the road.

The 15^th October marks World Student’s Day. Originally it was a day of commemoration of students at the University of Prague that lost their lives in World War II. The day has grown to become an occasion to celebrate the acts of students all over the world and their contributions to society. At Holdsworth’s, we wanted to show how we can help students get through a life-defining period of life on World Student’s Day

Student Storage

Life as a student can often mean moving lots of belongings around at the start and end of term time which is often a rather laborious task – especially if you live a long way from where you study and cannot be helped by parents. Holdsworth’s have an easy solution to that issue with short term storage options in our container or self-storage units. Our location in Leeds makes us ideal for those studying at Leeds University, Leeds Metropolitan University and Leeds Trinity University whose family home is further afield.

Removals

When living in a new city like Leeds, it can often mean moving between halls of residence and student houses. This can be a slightly tough task and could take a couple of days to complete. While using a removal service might seem like a pricey option, clubbing together with housemates for a removal service could be a quick and easy way to get through this with little stress. Holdsworths’ removals quotes are put together after a free visit from one of our move coordinators. Given a student move is often simply personal belongings rather than heavy and big materials, it might be cheaper than you think.

International Removals

Leeds University alone attracts over six thousand international students to the city every year. Holdsworth’s expertise in the field of international removals is ideal to help these students move their belongings across the world. Holdsworth’s can draw from experience and a network of partners not only in Europe but further afield to help make an international move as easy as possible.

Shredding

Student life can also lead to a lot of paper being generated that could be used for identity fraud. It doesn’t take much for a fraudster to find what they need in waste and not disposing of something as simple as a letter from your university could provide them with the information they need. Ensuring that documents like this are disposed of is a Holdsworth’s speciality once it has been destroyed; you have the presence of mind that your confidential information is safe while also helping the environment.

Moving home can be one of the more worrying periods in life. Holdsworth’s aim to make any move as smooth and carefree as possible by providing advice and expertise to all of our customers. But a home removal is a big moment and can throw up a lot of opportunities to make changes in your life as well as moving your home.

Declutter

Any home removal, whether you have taken up a packing service or not, essentially forces people to go through their belongings. This provides the perfect opportunity to have a clear out of anything that you may no longer need before taking it into a new home. Either during packing or before the packing service, make sure there is a box or bag ready for any items that you want to throw away or give to charity. There is also the option of taking any items that you no longer display or keep around the house and moving them into a secure storage unit. All this is with the aim of decluttering before moving into a new home in mind.

Make Savings

Moving home also forces movers to look into their utility bills and providers due to arranging a change of address. This can present opportunities to look at providers that you have been using for some time and weigh up whether a better deal is available.

There is also an opportunity in terms of energy saving.

Moving into a new home provides the opportunity to ensure that it is properly insulated, windows are efficiently glazed and also to ensure that energy-efficient fittings are added around the new home. It’s the perfect time to make a fresh start in terms of your carbon footprint.

Have an Office Clear-out

When living in a home for some time, it is inevitable that a large amount of paperwork, letters and statements can build up, especially if you have a study in which to keep them. Moving home gives you the perfect opportunity to delve into these records and have a bit of a clear out. But given that these often contain confidential data that can be used for identity fraud it is best to use a professional paper shredding service to dispose of the confidential waste.

Make a Life Change

There is no doubting that moving home is a huge life change in itself which can provoke a bit of stress.

But new research by the University of Bath suggests that big upheavals can be a great time to ditch a bad habit.

The research showed that a behaviour change is more likely to be effective during a major life change. So whether it is smoking, weight loss or any other habit that you want to curb, a home removal could be the perfect time to go for it.