This section is a continuation of our online review...

... for overseas shippers, concerning: cubic footage volume.


We recommend to all of our new Sefco Export accounts, to familiarize yourself with some of the basics of international shipping; concepts and methodologies, packing and other requirements, advance preparation, and other aspects of our business.
We can be counted on to help look after your best interests.
Our online guidance and general advice, is provided so we can help our customers achieve their desired results.


Just getting started?
Check out this next page: Sefco Export online estimator

Further reading > Learn more about the art of moving: protection, preservation and conservation.

EXPORT OPERATIONS: PROFESSIONAL LABOR, CRAFTSMEN, MATERIALS AND PRODUCTION, SITE LOGISTICS

Place your order for: Custom Made Export Shipping Crates and Exhibition Cases



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Sefco Export Management Company, Inc. customer support resources:


HOW MUCH VOLUME OF HHG/PE HOUSEHOLD GOODS, DO YOU HAVE TO SHIP?

Come take a demonstration cyber-survey of our virtual household for further guidance and instruction.

From our URL library: www.sefco-export.com/cubesheet.htm

Use our Printable HOME SURVEY FORM, that you can use as you walk around your home and fill-in, and then fax it back to us for review: www.sefco-export.com/cubesheet2.pdf

We can help you get around and get going...
Sefco Export site map: www.sefco-export.com/sitemap.htm



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Export Packing



Furniture is often protected by using
rolls of corrugated cardboard wrapped around the unit and then cut to fit.






Typical carton sizes used for your packables:

• Smaller items can go into book cartons = @ 1.5 to 2-cuft each
  
  
  On average, these can hold @ 2 to 2.5 linear feet of books on a bookshelf. Used for dense heavy items.
  
  
• Medium sized - linen cartons = @ 4-cuft each
  
  
  
  Usually two linen closet shelves' worth of towels, clothes, etc. can fill one linen carton.
  These are also used for pots, pans and other misc. personal effects
  
  
• Flat-expandable picture cartons = 3 - 5-cuft each
  
  
  
  These are used for framed wall paintings and mirrors.
Premium Packing for Export: After the item is covered with special "soft padding" (which tends to be plasticized on one side and with very soft padding on the other side) items are futher protected with crumpled-up inkless newsprint paper and/or bubble wrapped & packed. The flat paintings and mirrors are then placed back to back flat against each other and slid into the carton. Depending on the situation, a carton is custom made from larger flat panels of hard corrugated cardboard - or from rolls of softer corrugated cardboard, constructed to fit around the item into a square shape, and then cut down to size. Wide rolls or plastic tape band the cartons together. Flat glass should transported vertically, not horizontally, to reduce risk. Some larger paintings, mirrors and delicate works of art may call for a custom made wooden case or crate to be made.

Exhibition Quality Shipping Crates are often made to order and they have to allow for the couple inches of packing to be placed around each item. Usually, in a premium service overseas move, our export packers will give the paintings their preliminary packaging first, and then they call the outside dimensions of the packaged item, into our carpentry-shop. Our craftsmen then cut the wood to a size appropriate for the pre-packaged cargo.

Crating an item can do what we call "blow out the cube" of that item's gross shipping size.

More about measurement issues:

After a delicate item is given preliminary export packaging, to give that item basic protection, the volume of that item is naturally going to be   l a r g e r   than before it was packaged.

If it is prudent to further pack that item into an export crate, then that "net packed volume" will grow even larger, after it is loaded into a pre-fabricated or custom made wooden crate ("gross crated volume").


• When you a shipping a LCL less than container load shipment, the ocean/air shipping cost is based on the total outside gross size of the export packed crate/case or other type of container being used.
  
  
• When you are shipping your goods in an "exclusive use" FCL full container load, basically as long as it can fit inside the container, it can go - and that tends to be the main concern. If you are shipping your goods in an exclusive-use FCL container, then the cost for basic transportation from port to port is going to be the same whether that ocean container is almost empty or totally full. This is in contrast to an "LCL" shipment where they measure the outside 3-dimensions of the cargo itself.

Sefco Export's professional guidance
When something is crated for export, as a rule of thumb...
...the net measurement (pre-crated) is increased to become a gross measurement (post-crating) of:


perhaps 30% larger: for small items of 5 to 30-cuft;
about 20% larger (net-before, to gross-after) for crates from 30-cuft to 120-cuft;
and then about 15% larger for crating over 200 cubic feet worth of goods.

This is what is known as the expansion factor in packing goods for export.
Further reading: http://www.sefco-export.com/lcltips.htm
LCL Facts: www.sefco-export.com/lclfactsheet.htm
FCL Facts: www.sefco-export.com/fclfactsheet.htm




• Medium-to-larger dish-pack cartons = @ 6-cuft each
  
  
  The above dish-pack image, is courtesy of: www.uline.com
  
  Dish-packs are used for fragile items, dishes, china, decorations.
  About 3-4 full dish-packs, also called china-barrels, would be used for a complete china service for 8 people.
  
  
  
• Some cartons have special cardboard cell-dividers within the carton to better protect the dishes within.
  
  
  
  
  Fragile items are often wrapped with inkless newsprint paper,
  before being placed upright into a carton.
  
  
  
  This is how a pro packs.
  
  
  
• Larger sized - utility cartons = @ 8-cuft each
  
• These large catch-all cartons are good for children's toys, large quilts, pillows, clothing
  Large wardrobe cartons = @ 10 - 12-cu each

  

• "Hanging" wardrobes stand upright and come with a plastic or metal bar within the top section so clothing normally on hangers can be sent as such. This sometimes leaves some "air space" toward the bottom of the carton, so boots and other footwear are often placed toward the bottom part of these special cartons. There are also "flat" wardrobes, where the clothing is laid flat rather than hung on a bar, which makes for greater efficiency in using the space available, without possibly wasted air space
  
  
  
• Super-large "industrial bins" = @ 15-20-cuft
  Not always available, these are heavy duty, very high pound-test cardboard cartons, equivalent to an oversized steamer truck. These cartons are so durable that a grown man can stand on top of an empty utility bin and it will hold up.

  To see more examples of heavy duty export cartons, containers and lift-vans,
  have a look at this next page: www.sefco-export.com/box-and-ship.htm
  

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"Do-it-yourself-ers", economy service clients, and students of export packing techniques...

...can find even more information on our Pallets and Packing page
which includes contacts for where to buy cartons and other shipping material.

Have a look at what furniture looks like after being export packed, in our photo gallery section:
www.sefco-export.com/pack.htm
www.sefco-export.com/gallery.htm
www.sefco-export.com/onlinefeatures.htm#resources

Surf our website and access SEFCO's growing array of
on-line resources for moving overseas

Find out how
to get from here,
to there...

with Sefco Export Management Company, Inc.




Click here to see our 2009
Origin Service rates



Custom Made Art Cases

Door to Door Overseas Moving Services
Premium Origin/Destination Services



OVERSEAS MOVING SPECIALISTS (Over 22+ years experience: from 1986...) CONSISTENCY THROUGH CHANGING TIMES. Sefco Export Management Company, Inc.