Almost nothing breaks in the truck. Things break because they were packed with room to move inside the carton, or because the carton was too heavy to carry safely and someone dropped it.
Get those two right and most of the rest follows.
The two principles
Nothing should move inside the box. If you can shake a carton and hear anything shift, it is not packed. Fill every gap with paper, bubble wrap or towels.
Nothing should be too heavy to carry comfortably. A carton that strains one person is a carton that gets dropped. Small boxes for heavy contents, always.
Crockery
Plates travel on edge, like records in a rack — not stacked flat. A stack of plates concentrates the whole weight on the bottom one; on edge, each plate carries only itself.
- Line the base of a small carton with two inches of crumpled paper.
- Wrap each plate individually, then wrap pairs together.
- Stand them vertically, packed tightly against each other.
- Fill every remaining gap and finish with paper on top.
Glasses and stemware
Each glass gets wrapped individually, and stems get extra padding — the stem is where a wine glass always breaks.
Stuff paper inside the bowl of each glass first. Glasses go upright, never on their sides, with the heaviest on the bottom layer and a sheet of card between layers.
Electronics
Photograph the back of everything before you unplug it. That photo will save you twenty minutes and a lot of guessing when you are reconnecting a television at eleven at night.
Original boxes are best if you kept them. If not, wrap the device in bubble wrap and use a carton with at least five centimetres of padding on every side.
Label each cable with the device it belongs to and bag them together. Screens travel upright, never flat — a flat panel with weight on it is a cracked panel.
Mirrors and framed pictures
Tape a large X across the glass with masking tape. This does not stop it breaking; it holds the pieces together if it does, which is the difference between a broken mirror and glass loose in a truck.
Wrap in bubble wrap, protect the corners with card, and use a purpose-made picture carton. They travel on edge, standing up, never flat under anything.
Artwork
Never let bubble wrap touch a painted surface directly — in Dubai heat it can mark the paint. Use acid-free paper or plain card against the surface, then bubble wrap over that.
Anything genuinely valuable needs a purpose-built crate, and that is a specialist job. We will say so rather than improvise.
Lamps and ceramics
Shades and bases travel separately, and shades should never have anything packed inside them. Bulbs come out.
Ceramics and figurines get wrapped individually with extra padding at the thinnest point — the handle, the spout, the neck. That is where they break.
Bottles and liquids
Anything liquid gets its cap taped, then goes into a sealed bag, then into a carton — upright, in a box of its own, never with anything absorbent. A leaked bottle of oil ruins everything it is packed with.
Nothing flammable or pressurised travels at all: paint, thinners, gas canisters, aerosols in quantity.
Label it so someone else knows
Mark fragile cartons on all four sides plus the top, add “THIS WAY UP” with an arrow, and note the contents. A box marked on one face that ends up turned around is a box nobody knows to be careful with.
What we do differently
Fragile items are packed last and unloaded first, so they spend the least time on the truck and are never underneath anything. Cartons are kept deliberately small.
If you are splitting the packing, this is the half worth handing over — see packing services. Take your clothes and books; give us the glass.
