What Makes an Apartment Move Expensive in Salt Lake City

People are regularly surprised that a one-bedroom apartment costs more to move than a friend's three-bedroom house. The reason is that apartment moves are priced by the obstacles, and there are more of them.

Just-In-Time Moving handles apartment moves across Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County.

Where the hours go

Vertical distance. Every item makes the same trip. A third floor without a lift means every box, every drawer and every piece of furniture travels three flights, twice, and there is no efficiency to be found in it.

The lift, if there is one. Faster than stairs and slower than a driveway. If it is shared with the rest of the building, or has to be booked in a window, the move is planned around that window rather than around the work.

The carry from the truck. Frequently the biggest single factor and the one residents least appreciate, because nobody walks that route carrying a dresser except on moving day. In downtown buildings the legal stopping point can be a long way from the door.

Waiting. A gate code that does not work, a lift being used by somebody else, a building manager who has to let the crew in. All billed.

What actually reduces it

Book the lift and confirm it. Find out how long you get and tell us, so the crew is sized to fit the window.

Sort the building requirements early. Booking slot, permitted hours, certificate of insurance. The certificate is the one that takes longest on their side.

Be completely packed. More important here than anywhere, because a crew waiting in a corridor is expensive.

Move everything small yourself, in advance. If the move is local, carloads of boxes over the preceding week genuinely reduce the day. It is the one place where your own effort converts directly.

Reserve the parking if the building allows it, or at least find out where a truck can legally sit.

The estimate is free, in writing, and follows questions about floors, lifts, parking and the carry.

One thing to be realistic about: some of this is not within anyone's control. If your building has one small lift shared by every resident, and it cannot be booked, the move will take longer than the same volume in a house and no company can change that. What a good one can do is size the crew so that the lift is running constantly rather than waiting on people, and tell you honestly beforehand what the day will look like rather than quoting as though the lift were a driveway.

Call (435) 862-3080 or email office@movingjustintime.com.