Ever wonder what all those moving related terms mean? Below is a review of a few of the more common terms or phrases that you may find confusing and that will help you in understanding the language of moving:

SCALING YOUR SHIPMENT - Means to weigh the goods you are shipping. Typically the truck  that is loading your goods is weighed at a government certified truck scale before loading your goods. This gives the Tare or light weight of the truck. Your goods are then loaded onto the truck and the truck returns to the scale to get the heavy or Gross weight of the truck. The light weight (Tare) is substracted from the heavy weight (Gross) to give the Net weight , or  weight of your shipment.

WEIGHT VERUS CUBIC FOOT DIMENSIONS - You may have heard your sales person discussing the term cubic feet and weight of your shipment. You now know how the weight is determined from the scaling process, but how did we arrive at the estimated weight versus the actual scaled weight? When you submit a list of goods to your mover via the internet, or if a list of goods is aquired during an in-house estimate, the estimator converts the cubic foot dimensions of the load you are shipping into weight thru a simple conversion factor of seven. This factor of 7 pounds per cubic feet is a standard in the moving industry. Each of the items you are shipping has a dimension, known as cubic feet. We take the cubic feet dimensions of the item(s) you are shipping and multply it by the conversion factor of 7 pounds per cubic feet, and presto we have the standard weight of any item. When we combine the cubic foot dimensions of a list of average items from the average home  and convert these dimensions by a conversion factor of 7 lbs (pounds) per cubic feet, we determine the weight of the goods you are shipping; and we can give you a price for moving based on the weight of the goods you are shipping.

PER HUNDRED WIEGHT (CWT) -Many of the charges you will incurr for your moving services are based on the per hundred weight (CWT) of your shipment. What this means is that your charges are based on every hundred pounds of weight you are shipping. For example if your shipment weighs 5000 pounds and you have also requested a full packing service, you may have been quoted a per hundred weight (CWT) charge for packing. Let’s say you were charged $25.00 / cwt for packing. Your extended charges for your 5000 lb shipment would look like this $50.00 / cwt x $25.00 / cwt = $1250.00 for your packing service. Five thousand pounds is 50 x 100 lbs (5000 lbs) at a rate of $25.00 for every 100 lbs (CWT) per hundred weight.

Thank you for reading our first installment of “moving jargon”.