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.