Twelve questions, answered like a neighbor

Local moves: none, you pay at the door when the job's done. Long-distance moves: a $250 reservation that comes off your final invoice, refunded in full if you cancel seven or more days before load day. Anyone demanding a large cash deposit for a local move is showing you a red flag; that's not how reputable movers price.

Tell the crew chief or dispatch within 30 days and we make it right, repair first, replace when repair isn't reasonable. Every move includes the federal minimum released valuation of $0.60 per pound per item, which is genuinely thin (it values a 20-lb TV at $12). For long-distance moves we offer full-value protection at $14 per $1,000 of declared value, most customers declare $25,000–$60,000. We'll show you both numbers in the estimate; the choice is yours, in writing.

Never required, never expected on the invoice, always kept 100% by the crew that carried your couch. Customers who tip typically go $5–$10 per mover per hour, or 10–15% of the labor, or lunch on a long day. A specific review naming your crew chief is worth almost as much to them.

Because nobody honestly can. A 3-bedroom ranges from 5,500 to 11,000 lbs depending on how you live, and a phone guess that's wrong becomes your problem on moving day: that's where hostage-load horror stories come from. Twenty minutes of video survey turns a guess into a written not-to-exceed number. For interstate moves, federal rules (FMCSA) require estimates based on a physical or virtual survey anyway.

Long-distance: yes, binding not-to-exceed after the survey, so the number can go down but not up unless you add items or services. Local: hourly with a written ceiling; you pay actual hours, and if the job beats the estimate you keep the difference. Under federal rules a mover can only collect 110% of a non-binding estimate at delivery, our written ceiling is stricter than that.

It starts when the truck reaches your door and stops at the final walk-through, with a 3-hour minimum. The flat $95 truck fee covers our drive to you and from your destination: you never pay hourly for our commute. Crew breaks are off the clock.

Fuel, propane, aerosols, paint, ammunition, and anything alive: plants included on long-distance runs (they don't survive the trailer, and several states bar them). Jewelry, cash, documents, and hard drives should ride with you, not us; the crew chief will hand them back if they surface during packing.

No. Twenty-two W-2 movers, the same roster every week, background-checked, and trained on our own trucks. Long-distance loads are driven by our crew chiefs: your goods are never brokered out to a carrier you've never heard of.

We move in weather: Ohio would allow nothing else. The crew adds runners, ramp towels, and shrink wrap at no charge. If conditions are truly dangerous (ice storms, level-3 advisories), we reschedule together at zero cost, usually within 48 hours.

Yes: those dates book out first and carry our peak rate (about 15% over a mid-month weekday). If your dates can flex even a little, the calculator shows exactly what a 2–3 day window or a flexible week saves you. That discount is real capacity math, not a coupon.

Downtown and Short North high-rises usually require one. Tell dispatch the building name and we'll send the COI directly to your property manager within one business day: no charge, it's part of the job.

Local mid-month weekdays: 2–3 weeks is usually fine. Summer Saturdays and the last three days of any month: 6–8 weeks. Long-distance: 4–6 weeks so the survey, paperwork, and lane scheduling never feel rushed. If you're inside those windows anyway, call: cancellations happen weekly.