How to Pack a Moving Truck: A Step-by-Step Guide for a Smooth Move

Moving to a new home can be an exciting but challenging endeavor.

If you’re paying professional movers for a full-service move, they’ll load, drive, and unload the truck for you. But since you’re here reading this article, we assume you’re scoring a van rental or moving truck from a rental company and need some moving hacks.

If you’re choosing a DIY move, one of the most critical aspects of making your move successful is properly packing your rental truck. The truck rental companies might give you some driving advice, especially when it comes to returning the truck on a full tank.

But when it comes to how to load and organize your belongings into the truck, they tend to skim over the details fast.

Our helpful guide provides moving truck packing tips. We’ll start with forming your game plan and gathering your supplies, and move into how to pack the back of your rental van or truck.

We’ll also cover how a storage unit can help make the trip less chaotic, and how SelfStorage.com can help you find the ideal unit for your particular belongings.

Get a Moving Game Plan

The first on our list of moving hacks is to start with a well-thought-out packing plan, which includes learning the art of packing a moving truck.

We suggest checking in with several rental companies, big and small, to see if you can come up with a professionally-recommended order of operations for loading a moving truck.

Another of our favorite tips to share is renting an affordable storage unit from a facility that also sells packing supplies and rents moving trucks. The unit comes in handy for packing and staging items ahead of time for a more stress-free moving day. Plus, the facility often offers rental truck discounts to tenants.

Whether or not you decide to rent a storage unit as your first step, here’s what a typical plan looks like:

• Heavy and Large Furniture: First on; heavy and bulky furniture items such as sofas and dressers. Place them against the truck’s walls to distribute weight evenly.
• Mattresses and Box Springs: Stand mattresses and box springs on their sides along the walls to save space.
• Mirrors and Flat Items: After wrapping and covering the item, stand delicate mirrors, glass tabletops, and other flat items on their edges and secure them between any mattresses or padded items.
• Longer Items: If you have long items like curtain rods or carpets, place them on top of the other items, securing them to prevent sliding.
• Major Appliances: Load refrigerators, washing machines, and other large appliances near the front of the truck, securing them to prevent movement.
• Disassembled Furniture: If you’ve taken apart any furniture, load these parts after the larger pieces.
• Boxes and Small Items: After the big items are in place, these smaller items can fill the remaining space. Group similar items together, and make sure to distribute the weight evenly throughout the truck.
• Fragile and Valuable Items: Load delicate and valuable items like electronics, glassware, and artwork, using plenty of padding and securing them to prevent shifting during transit.
• Fill Gaps: Fill any remaining gaps with soft items like blankets, pillows, or cushions to prevent items from moving around.
• Essentials Box: Pack a box with essential items you’ll need immediately upon arrival at your new home, such as toiletries, a change of clothes, and important documents. Keep this box easily accessible.

Keeping this in mind, here’s a how-to guide that breaks it all down into 10 manageable steps to help you navigate the intricacies with the precision and expertise of a pro, so that you’ll maximize your space, ensure the safety of your belongings, and prevent shifting during transit.

Choose The Right Moving Truck or Van Rental

Packing a moving truck starts with asking the most basic question: “What Size Moving Truck Do I need?”  Are you moving out of a studio apartment that you can pack into a cargo van rental? Or do you need a 26-foot box-truck beast to hold a four-bedroom house’s worth of stuff?

Most major truck rental companies offer similar-sized truck rentals. Their sites can tell you how much stuff each size truck holds. If you’re lugging heavy stuff into your rental van or truck, be sure the rental comes with a loading ramp.

• Confirm ahead of time whether they offer moving insurance or if you need to have your own insurance company’s information on deck.
• Depending on how far you’re moving, you may need to rent a car carrier or car trailer to pull your vehicle behind the truck. Be sure you’ve got all the towing equipment you need, such as ball hitches and safety chains.

Step One: Have What You Need, When You Need It

Well before you’re ready to methodically load it all on, you’ll need to gather the necessary packing materials and moving supplies. Here’s a quick list to get you started:

• cardboard boxes
• strong packing tape
• bubble wrap/plastic wrap
• plastic stretch wrap/shrink wrap
• packing paper/protective paper padding
• moving blankets
• furniture pads
• mattress bags or mattress covers
• furniture sliders
• a dolly or hand truck

Buy high-quality packing materials and moving supplies from a specialized supplier or moving company well ahead of schedule to ensure you have just what you need, and to avoid last-minute rushes and potential shortages.

Pro tip: Uniformly sized boxes or plastic containers with interlocking lids are easier to stack and strap in the truck and more stable during the drive. Uniformly sized boxes also take up less space when you’re staging them ahead of time, as they can stack in a closet or against the wall of your storage unit. 

Step Two: How Much Space Do You Need in Your Moving Truck?

To pack your moving truck efficiently, you’ll have to get hands-on, measuring the dimensions of the truck’s cargo area and calculating the cubic footage. Once you understand the specific capacity, you can plan accordingly.

Step Three: Keep, Donate, Toss

All moves present the unique opportunity to assess your stuff! Our next moving hack is to take the opportunity to embark on a downsizing adventure and tackle the challenge by creating a weekly decluttering ritual. Here’s how my wife and I do it:

• An hour or two a day, we stationed ourselves in a specific area of the house, and used the ol’ three-pile system to quickly separate our possessions into things that would definitely be coming with us, items that could be useful for others, and those destined for the trash.
• By moving day, we had successfully and significantly lightened our load, ensuring that only items we need and love would be making the journey with us. 

Step Four: Labeling and Inventory

Labeling moving boxes with their contents and their designated rooms is crucial. This simplifies the unloading and loading process and makes finding what you need quick and easy. 

As you make your way through the packing process, maintain an inventory list to keep track of your items. We suggest writing the name of the box on a piece of paper. The name of the box should match the label you stick on the side and top of the box (Examples: Kitchen # 2 or Pots and Pans). 

Then, underneath the box title, list everything you pack inside the box as you go. This list will become your go-to reference when unloading and making sure that everything has arrived at your new home.

Step Five: Disassembling Furniture

This is another truck packing technique that may seem like it adds extra time, but it definitely saves space, time, and energy in the long run.

Rather than trying to load three-piece dining room tables and king or queen-size bed frames as they are, take apart any large furniture pieces to save space and make them easier to load.

Keep all screws and hardware in labeled bags attached to the furniture itself when possible. Wrap the wooden pieces in furniture pads and secure them with shrink wrap to prevent dings during transport.

Disassembling furniture ahead of time allows you to break down any pieces you don’t use regularly and stage them out of the way or in your storage unit until moving day.

This step is the perfect time to use a labeling pro tip. If you have multiple mattress/box spring sets, on the move out, label each mattress, box spring, and disassembled bed frame with the owner’s name right on the item (not just the inventory sheet) so you know exactly which room they’ll be moving into.

Step Six: Handle with care

Fragile items, like glassware, dishware, electronics, and heirlooms, deserve special care and attention. If you’ve saved the original packaging, pull it out and stabilize your valuables in their perfectly sized styrofoam packs. Otherwise, individually wrap these items in paper padding and bubble wrap. 

Place these bubble wrap items in sturdy moving boxes and fill any gaps with cushioning materials, like packing peanuts. 

Step Seven: Load It In

Using the aforementioned best way to load a moving truck order of operations, here are a few extra considerations worth mentioning.

Take care of your back!

The last thing you want is to wrench your back and put yourself down and out at any time during the loading, lifting, and carrying process, so it’s essential that you use proper lifting techniques.

There’s no shame in giving yourself a refresher on good lifting posture or asking friends to help with a team lift when the weight or size of the item demands it. 

Make sure you’re hauling an even load.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when considering how to pack a moving truck is distributing weight evenly from front to back and side to side to maintain the truck’s stability.

You’ll want to load longer items like coaches, table tops, mattresses, and box springs, and against the longest walls of the truck, or as far toward the cab up front as you can. This balances the weight and helps with stability.

Ratchet straps and furniture sliders can help with the loading. High-quality ratchet straps or tie-down rope that crisscross and attach to the truck’s anchor points can add further security and prevent any shifting.

Furniture pads and moving blankets can provide extra protection to avoid any dings, scratches, or exterior damage. 

Boxes, boxes, and more boxes.

I know that for me personally, by the end of every move, I’ve felt a little bit like a box monkey. But, despite the repetition of it all, there are some strategies to employ for loading all those moving boxes. 

Put your heavy boxes on the bottom, and lighter or more fragile items up top. Utilize your vertical space to your benefit, while creating stable layers by packing boxes snugly against one another to minimize gaps and movement. Secure your stable stacks with tie-downs and ratchet straps, and fill any existing gaps with soft materials, like pillows, cushions, or blankets. This optimizes space and prevents shifting.

Miscellaneous or awkward items.

Bikes, ceiling fans, and mirrors; we’re looking at you! Now is the time to employ previous tactics. Disassemble what you can, use any mattresses as protection for large and awkward items, and if your budget allows, consider investing in specialized racks to transport these items as safely and securely as possible.

Step Eight: Give It a Final Safety Check

Before taking off, do a thorough sweep of your home to make sure nothing has been left behind, and conduct a top-to-bottom safety check of the loaded truck to ensure that everything is secure.

Double-check the ratchet straps or tie-down straps to make sure they’re tight and reliable. Put your essentials bags with you, or in an easily accessible space, so you have your necessities at hand when you arrive.

Step Nine: Stay within Your Limits

Remember, the truck has weight limits. You’re going to want to make sure you haven’t overloaded and gone beyond these limits, as this can affect its handling and safety on the street.

Since you might not be familiar with how the truck handles and drives, and you’re hauling some precious cargo, drive cautiously. Remember, this isn’t a speed run. The goal is to have you and all your belongings arrive safe and sound.

Step Ten: Unloading

The question of how to unload a moving truck should be handled in much the same way as the question of how to load a moving truck. When unloading, follow your initial plan to expedite the process. Put your inventory list and labels to use so that everything gets into the correct room, making the unpacking process as easy as possible.

Packing a moving truck efficiently requires careful planning, organization, and the right techniques. By following the 10-step process outlined above, you can ensure a smooth and stress-free moving experience.

How To Pack a Moving Truck: SelfStorage.com Can Help

Now that you’ve mastered our truck packing and moving guide, you understand that it all starts with breaking down furniture and packing your boxes properly beforehand. 

Our final moving hack is simple, yet you’d be surprised by how many seasoned movers and moving industry experts skip this helpful storage tip.

The first step is to use our signature Self-Storage.com Unit Locator Tool to find a cheap storage unit near you. Our tool searches the cream of the crop in your area, all of which are vetted by our storage experts and moving service partners. And then we tailor the results even further based on the detailed search parameters that you set. 

Next, pack as much as you can ahead of time, and then stage boxes and broken-down, bubble-wrapped furniture in a storage unit. A head start lets you organize and stabilize your boxes ahead of time, with plenty of time to tweak and re-pack as needed. 

And the benefits of this hack don’t stop there – once you rent the truck, you just cross-load our packed stuff from storage to the truck, and it’s on to your new home! 

And if you’re moving long-distance, use our tool to find a second storage unit near the new place. You can unload the rental truck into your new storage unit and return it, moving your stuff into your new house at your own pace.