How to Find Out What Size Moving Truck You Need

One of the many obstacles of moving everything yourself is that you need to pick out a moving truck to rent. Getting too big or too small of a truck are both annoying errors that can cost you a lot extra. There is no magic formula to figure out what size you need, but we'v written this article to help you figure out it out. 

Pack Everything into Boxes First 

Packing everything before you rent the truck is a great way to figure out exactly how much space you will need from moving truck. This requires you pack everything that you can in boxes. For stuff you can't pack yet you can't guesstimate how many more boxes it will take to pack this stuff. For furniture and appliances you can just measure the cubic footage of those items. If you can't start packing before renting the moving van, you will need to guess to the best of your ability how many boxes you will be using. 

Calculate The Cubic Footage of Your Items

This step is a lot easier if you pre-buy boxes, so that you know the exact size of them. To get the cubic feet you will need to measure the width x length x height of each size box. If you know the sizes of the boxes already you can calculate the cubic footage of each individual box by how many boxes of that size you used. 

Remember Length x Width x Height = Cubic Footage

For example, if one of the sizes boxes you used was 5 x 4 x 5. You would calculate that out to equal 100 cubic feet. If you used 10 of those boxes, those boxes would take up 1,000 cubic feet.  

Alternatively you can measure around all the items. You will need to gather them in all in one area. You will measure the width, height and length of the area that the boxes take up then calculate the cubic footage of that area.

Knowing the exact cubic footage you'll be able to determine exactly what size moving van that you need.  

Go Out and See and Measure the Different Trucks 

You will need to measure the space inside of the moving truck to see exactly how much space that it offers. Some companies will offer a measurement, but it usually does not account for rubber lined wall guards or where the lining of the truck goes up to make space for the tires. This is especially an important step if you are going to have a tight fit. 

Compare the cubic footage of the truck to the size of your items. Then you will know which truck you will need come moving day. 

Make Sure that You have Plenty of Room 

I really can't imagine anything worse than realizing your moving truck is too small after you have filled it with all the items you can fit. If it is going to be a very tight squeeze, I would err on the size of caution and get a bigger truck. Even if it costs you a little extra money now, it will be better than the alternative of loading, unloading, getting a different truck then reloading. This has never happened to me personally, but I'm pretty sure my head would explode if it did! 

Happy moving!