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5 Tips for Preventing Clothing Damage During the Moving Process

July 1, 2019

Clothing on Hanger — Redondo Beach, CA — Redondo Van & Storage

The most important step for preventing damage to any item in your home during the moving process is planning. While planning how you will move large home items, don't forget to plan how you will pack your family's clothing. You can just gather all clothing up, fold it, and place it in boxes. But by doing so, you risk damaging clothing and setting yourself up for hours of ironing once you reach your new home.

Read on to learn five tips for preventing clothing damage and wrinkles during the moving process by packing your family's clothing items properly.

1. Hang Your Most Prized Clothing Items in Wardrobe Boxes

If you frequently travel and transport clothing in garment bags, then you may wish you could invest in a dozen of them to help you keep your prized clothing items wrinkle- and damage-free during the move. Thankfully, you don't have to spend a fortune on reusable garment bags when you purchase just a few affordable wardrobe boxes.

Wardrobe boxes are tall cardboard boxes with a metal bar at the top. Not only do they protect your favorite clothing from wrinkles during the moving process, but they also make packing these items faster. All you have to do is transfer items hanging in your closet right onto the bar in the box.

However, plastic hangers can take up a lot of space on the metal bar, which limits the number of garments you can hang on it. For this reason, it is best to replace plastic hangers with metal ones before hanging items on the bar.

You should also cover each clothing item you hang in plastic to protect each item, such as with a dry cleaning bag. This protection will further limit wrinkling due to friction that can occur when garments rub against each other in the wardrobe box. It will also keep clothing adornments, such as rhinestones, metal zippers, and buttons, from damaging the clothing item next to them.

2. Roll Select Clothing Items to Be Packed in Traditional Boxes

You may have heard that it is better to roll items when packing— working to limit wrinkles that can occur due to folding. However, realize that rolling only helps limit clothing wrinkles when packing certain types of clothing. Some items can actually wrinkle more when rolled than when folded.

As a general guideline, roll only items made of synthetic fabrics and fold items made from natural materials, such as cotton. Although folded clothing items may still develop creases where they are folded, they will wrinkle much less than if they were rolled. Also, fold any clothing items that stretch to reduce the chance that the fabric will permanently stretch due to rolling them too tight.

3. Pack Dark- and Light-Colored Clothing in Separate Boxes

You likely know that dark clothing dyes can transfer onto light-colored clothing in the washing machine. However, you may not realize that dark dye can also transfer from one clothing item to another outside of a washing machine. This can occur when the clothing is subjected to even a bit of moisture, such as humidity in the air.

This makes it important to pack dark- and light-colored clothing items in separate boxes whenever possible, especially if the dark clothing has not yet been washed, and you’re moving on a hot, humid day.

4. Only Pack Clothing in Clothing Boxes

It is important to completely fill all moving boxes, including those containing clothing to keep items from moving around in the boxes during transport. However, if you have a box of clothing that is not filled completely to the top, don't be tempted to add non-clothing items into the box other than sheets, towels, and other fabric items.

Following this tip can prevent damage to your clothing that many other items can inflict. If you run out of fabric items to include in your clothing boxes, then simply fill the box up with crumpled up tissue paper to keep clothing packed snugly — without risking damage.

5. Seal Boxes Well

You don't want to meticulously pack all of your family's clothing items just to have the boxes break open during the truck loading or unloading process. Along with ensuring that you don't stuff boxes so tightly that the weight of the contents causes the box bottom to buckle, be sure to seal all boxes with packing tape.

Run packing tape along all seams on both the top and bottom of the box. Then, wrap some tape around the perimeter of the box near its top and base to add extra strength and limit the chances of it breaking open during transport.

Follow these tips to avoid damage to your clothing and keep clothing items as wrinkle-free as possible during the packing and moving process. Contact us at Redondo Van & Storage for all of your moving needs.

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