Some rough price information for shipping from US to UK

I recently started to look at the cost and logistics of shipping the contents of my 2 bedroom home from the US to the UK. Requested information from :
Suddath
Humbolt
North American International.

All got back to me promptly by email, but the best response was from Suddath as it answered all my questions. They point out that they want to either pack everything themselves, or inspect the packing, which I assume is for insurance purposes and frankly I'm ok with that if it means less work for me. Anyway here are their door to door rough estimates. I hope this is helpful. Option 3 is good for a 2/3 bedroom house or apartment.

Option 1
LDN crate
Ships up to 550 pounds / 95 cubic feet
$1,800-$2,500

Option 2
Lift van
Ships up to 1,000 pounds / 206 cubic feet
$2,500-$4,500

Option 3   
20' container
Ships up to 7,000 pounds / 1,000 cubic feet
$6,500-$8,500

Option 4
40' container
Ships up to 13,500 pounds / 2,000 cubic feet
$9,000 and upwards

ALWAYS have them pack you if you can afford it.  So much stress GONE!

I recently started to look at the cost and logistics of shipping the contents of my 2 bedroom home from the US to the UK. Requested information from :
Suddath
Humbolt
North American International.

All got back to me promptly by email, but the best response was from Suddath as it answered all my questions. They point out that they want to either pack everything themselves, or inspect the packing, which I assume is for insurance purposes and frankly I'm ok with that if it means less work for me. Anyway here are their door to door rough estimates. I hope this is helpful. Option 3 is good for a 2/3 bedroom house or apartment.

Option 1
LDN crate
Ships up to 550 pounds / 95 cubic feet
$1,800-$2,500

Option 2
Lift van
Ships up to 1,000 pounds / 206 cubic feet
$2,500-$4,500

Option 3   
20' container
Ships up to 7,000 pounds / 1,000 cubic feet
$6,500-$8,500

Option 4
40' container
Ships up to 13,500 pounds / 2,000 cubic feet
$9,000 and upwards

I used Rainer for my move from Hawaii to Scotland and the price was $3500 for a 200 cubic feet container with no weight limit.  It was door to door....the price they quoted included all packing but I decided to pack all myself.   I couldn’t imagine anyone packing my stuff and did it myself because I had to figure out what I actually wanted to bring.

In your  option 2 you have a weight restriction of 1000 pounds.   It doesn’t take long to reach that weight limit.   Most of my boxes I packed each weighed 50 pounds.   By your quote....that would literally be 20 medium boxes weighing 50 pounds each.   I had 60 boxes in my lift van and some other things.   200 cubic feet measurement of my lift van was 7 feet long, 4 feet wide and 7 feet high.  I used painters tape to outline a rectangle on my carpet 7 feet long and 4 feet wide ( short 2 inches all around.) and filled it in and did a height of 7 feet ......everything I had in my outline fit in the lift van.
I believe the weight of my crate was around 2500 pounds.

Like I said , they wanted to pack my stuff but I wanted to do it myself.  I just wrote on the boxes what was in it.  I was told that they would open my boxes to check them before they put them in the lift van but none of my boxes were opened and checked.  The only real downfall to not having them pack it is the only insurance they can give you is for total loss if the load falls overboard or other some other catastrophe.  I wasn’t concerned about breakage of my things because there was no furniture and everything fit in a box and I could protect it properly with packing.  I think out of everything only one thing was broken that I packed..... and my boxes looked pretty beat up when they showed up at my door.....but I got caught in the Covid crisis as they took from December 30 to March 31 to go from Hawaii to England .....but took from March 31 to July 13 to get from England to Scotland and I have no idea how many times they had to shift my boxes around before they reached me....

We are doing a 40 ft container because I have nice furniture etc that I want to keep. Furnishing a house for a family of 5 from scratch would be way more expensive than shipping, plus if you’re gonna ship anything, might as well ship it all lol! Thanks for the prices. I came up with about $4500 but it was port to port plus fees. I can get my stuff to a port and put it on the container.

Definitely be sure to figure in all the potential extra fees  - demurrage, ocean freight charges, fuel surcharges and UK Terminal fees, any custom clearances at destination, destination Terminal Handling Charges (THC), etc. (Demurrage on a container can be a killer!)

Will you need to get a lorry and go pick up your stuff at the docks? (So there's that fee to add in.). If not, if you have a professional removals company pick up your stuff, will they be bringing the entire container (you don't get to have it there for very long, if so) or will they offload to a lorry to bring it to you? Will either the container or the lorry actually fit down your street and is there space for it to unload? Will there be additional permits you have to obtain and pay for to do that?

You probably have already researched this thoroughly, but I thought i'd toss these out there just in case.

Sometimes, unless you have a small army to help you with the logistics, it's just easier to pay a professional to manage everything. 

We are doing a 40 ft container because I have nice furniture etc that I want to keep. Furnishing a house for a family of 5 from scratch would be way more expensive than shipping, plus if you’re gonna ship anything, might as well ship it all lol! Thanks for the prices. I came up with about $4500 but it was port to port plus fees. I can get my stuff to a port and put it on the container.

Are you confident it will all fit in the house on this side of the Atlantic? Things are much smaller here, definitely double check measurements.

Definitely be sure to figure in all the potential extra fees  - demurrage, ocean freight charges, fuel surcharges and UK Terminal fees, any custom clearances at destination, destination Terminal Handling Charges (THC), etc. (Demurrage on a container can be a killer!)

Will you need to get a lorry and go pick up your stuff at the docks? (So there's that fee to add in.). If not, if you have a professional removals company pick up your stuff, will they be bringing the entire container (you don't get to have it there for very long, if so) or will they offload to a lorry to bring it to you? Will either the container or the lorry actually fit down your street and is there space for it to unload? Will there be additional permits you have to obtain and pay for to do that?

You probably have already researched this thoroughly, but I thought i'd toss these out there just in case.

Sometimes, unless you have a small army to help you with the logistics, it's just easier to pay a professional to manage everything. 

I plan to hire a couple of vans and purchase a minivan and I kinda *do* have an army of helpers.  Niece, Nephew-in-law, Nephew, SIL and BIL all able bodied adults with driving liscences

We fit in a 26 ft moving truck to move into our current house, but then went back to get stuff we had stored.. 2 minivan loads, probably.  I’m going to find out if I can just unload the container into vans at the port.  That seem less logistically complicated that some of the other options.. I def don’t want the container delivered to my house. I can’t imagine lol. 

Are you confident it will all fit in the house on this side of the Atlantic? Things are much smaller here, definitely double check measurements.

I currently live in a 3 bedroom house with *tiny* bedrooms and the kitchen/living/dining/entryway are all one room.  My bedrooms are smaller than *most* of the rooms I’ve seen when browsing houses in the area we are moving to, and this house has ZERO STORAGE. Just some tiny closets smaller than most UK wardrobes.  5 of us are a bit squeezed, but we are making it work. Trust me, I measured.  I know what we can fit and what we can’t [we are leaving a sectional couch but keeping a nice leather loveseat and some armchairs].

I will mostly be focused on hanging onto the nice,, solid wood and heirloom quality pieces, and NOT the crappy ikea bookshelves

Honestly, I chose to rent the house I’m in to FORCE ourselves to purge when we sold our [much bigger] house.  When we get over there with [likely] a few more places to store things AND a 4th bedroom, it will feel like a mansion. I will probably further purge besides  the couch and bookshelves, but I plan on hanging onto the good stuff .

Thank you for the warning, though.  I know there are a lot of people who would make huge mistakes in this department.

I happen to be a bit of a spacial awareness savant, so I can ‘eyeball’ something once and tell you 10 years later if  something will fit there.  I have ‘guessed’ if a washing machine would fit in a tiny closet and was correct even though everyone was screaming it wouldn’t.  There was less than a 1/4 inch to spare. I hang shelves perfectly  straight without a level. I puzzled in our furniture from our big house [after some purging], including LOTS of outdoor furniture into a 26 ft moving truck and even fit our bicycles! Had to put the Grill in the minivan, but I knew I had the minivans to work with. It’s my special skill.