Packing Services in San Jose, CA Belongings Packed for a Safer Move

The tariff prices packing per container or per packer

Item 340 of Maximum Rate Tariff 4 sets both methods. Per container in Territory A, a dish-pack or barrel is $55.55 with packing labor at $50.01, a three cubic foot carton is $20.69 with $18.20 of labor, a six cubic foot carton is $28.05 with $25.28, and a corrugated container built for mirrors, paintings, or a glass tabletop is $48.32 with $43.53. Unpacking is priced separately and runs lower. The alternative is hourly: $91.12 per packer per hour at straight time, $134.28 at time and a half, and $177.02 at double time (tariff). Which method applies has to be agreed before the work starts.

Two notes in that item are worth money

Note 6 says a container charge already includes the dividers, paper, tape, and labels used to pack and seal it, and that no additional charge may be made for those materials. So a separate materials line stacked on top of a per-carton rate deserves a question. Note 8 is better still: no charge is assessed for wardrobes on a shipment moving at the Item 320 hourly rates. Hanging clothes are one of the few things in a move the tariff hands you for free, and plenty of households pay for wardrobe cartons anyway.

A price for packing cannot come off the phone

State rules are strict about how an estimate is produced. A moving company may put an estimate in writing only after a visual inspection of what is being moved, and the bureau states plainly that verbal or internet estimates are illegal and may not be enforceable (BHGS). Where charges are weight-based, the estimator measures cubic feet from a published table and multiplies by seven pounds per cubic foot to reach an approximate weight. Kitchens, garages, and a wall of books are exactly where a sight-unseen guess goes wrong, so the inspection is in your interest more than the mover's.

Base liability is 60 cents a pound, and that is not insurance

Item 136 bases the tariff's transportation rates on a declared value of $0.60 per pound per article. The bureau's own booklet does the arithmetic: a twenty-pound article is worth $12.00 under that basis. Unless you write a different figure in your own handwriting on the agreement, maximum liability defaults to $20,000 of actual cash value for the shipment.

Two upgrades are priced in the same item. Actual Cash Value protection costs $1.09 for each $100 of declared value and pays depreciated value. Full Value protection costs $2.14 per $100 and obliges the mover to repair, replace, or pay the replacement cost. Deductibles cut the rate: accept the first $250 of a claim and it falls to $0.65 per $100, or $0.37 per $100 at a $500 deductible. Storage in transit carries its own lower valuation rates, and no deductible applies where a documented claim establishes that articles were lost or never delivered.

Photograph the contents, then keep the claim window in mind

Written claims for loss or damage have to be filed within nine months of delivery, and the bureau tells consumers to photograph or record their belongings before the move so a dispute has evidence behind it. Do that room by room, close in on anything valuable, and keep the images somewhere that is not in a carton. Marking a problem on the delivery paperwork while the crew is still present is worth more later than a phone call the following week.

What stays out of the cartons entirely

Passports, immigration documents, prescriptions, jewelry, house and car keys, backup drives, tax records, and cash belong in your own vehicle. So does anything the household needs on the first night. Aerosols, propane cylinders, fuel, paint, solvents, and pool chemicals do not ride with household goods at all, so plan their disposal before packing day rather than during it.

What packing costs in this market, and what changes it

Room count is a weak predictor. Density is the real driver: a two bedroom in the Rose Garden with a full china cabinet and a garage of tools can outrun a larger, emptier house. Fragile-only work on glass, art, lamps, and electronics costs a fraction of a full pack and removes most of the breakage risk. Whatever the scope, get the method, the container count, the labor basis, and the valuation election written on the agreement before the tape gun comes out.