No matter how you look at it, property damage when switching homes is bad. Besides adding to your existing stress, it can affect your moving budget and time management. While the best method for preventing that is hiring professional movers in North San Antonio, TX, there are certain tips you can follow to prevent harming your former home’s vulnerable areas.
Doors and frames can be especially prone to accidents, especially if they are small. Luckily, with proper planning and by following these top five tips, you can protect these sectors and prevent unwanted repair costs that could affect your budget.
5 Ways to Protect Your Doors and Door Frames During a Move
1. Cover Up Your Doors
During a move, your doors and door frames can sustain scratches, nicks, dents, gouges, scuffs, scrapes, and breakage. However, most of the time, simply covering and padding the surface can be enough to keep property damage at bay.
There’s no need to purchase specialized door protection—you can use materials such as moving blankets, cardboard sheets, and bubble wrap to drape it over the upper part of the door. Secure it with painter’s or masking tape. Avoid using standard packing tape directly over the door’s finish as it will damage their finish by leaving hard-to-remove residue.
If you think the first layer of cushioning is not enough, add an additional one. We recommend doing this when moving large furniture or really expensive doors. Furthermore, only pad the doors that lead to the waiting moving vehicle along the designated exit path.
2. Keep the Doors Still
To prevent damage to your doors and doorframes and even prevent injuries, it’s important to keep the door still. Winds, the movements of people coming and going, and even pets and children can create a constant flow of traffic that may become dangerous if the doors aren’t set in place.
For instance, throwing doors open can damage the walls if the doorknob hits the wall with force and puts a hole in it. Additionally, if someone is passing and another person tries to come in from the other side, an accident could happen. To prevent that, hold the door open with rubber or wood stops.
Double-folded cardboard under the door works well, too. This will keep the door still and allow people to pass through easily.
3. Remove the Doors
Removing a door is sometimes the best way to keep it safe. This is a good choice if the door is fairly costly, and any damage could cost you a lot of money, and if the doorway and your items’ measurements indicate that it will be a very close call.
Taking the door directly off its hinges and placing it carefully a safe distance away lets you know it won’t sustain any damage. We recommend setting a bed sheet on the floor where you’re going to place your door and getting a helper to move it, as wooden doors can be very heavy and hard to move.
Do not attempt to remove a door if you are unsure of how to do so safely. Use the other door protection techniques instead.
4. Prevent Damage by Disassembling Furniture
Another indirect method of protecting your doors is ensuring that heavy objects you plan to move through them will not harm the doors and their frames.
For example, you can disassemble all large, heavy furniture pieces to move them as smaller components that comfortably fit through all of your home’s doorways. Use bubble wrap and moving blankets to properly pad any large, heavy household items to prevent bumps against doors or door frames.
Large furniture pieces and other heavy items that could harm your doors and door frames should also be wheeled out using a moving dolly, as this makes navigating around tight corners and smaller doorways much easier.
5. Find the Best Movers in Movers in North San Antonio, TX
Any type of property damage on moving day will create additional problems—the last thing you probably want during a stressful move. Besides these tips, hiring professional movers is the best way to really prevent damage to door frames, as well as floors, walls, ceilings, stairs, and banisters.
Here at Pink Zebra Moving, we have the knowledge and experience to help you experience a seamless move. Contact us to learn all the ways we can make these hectic times easier for you!