Furniture Transportation

Furniture transportation comes with a unique set of challenges. Furniture can be heavy and fragile. While all freight should be treated with care, furniture can be especially susceptible to damage while in transport. 

Size, Weight, and Shape 

Some furniture items, such as bookcases and desks, can be shipped in multiple pieces, inside standard boxes, and assembled upon delivery to the final customer. However, furniture freight such as couches, beds, wardrobes, and any solid wood pieces are heavy, bulky, and oddly shaped. Anyone who has ever tried to move a couch up a staircase into an apartment will understand. The size, weight, and shape of furniture create challenges with handling, loading, and packing. Fitting odd-shaped items into any type of truck is a challenge as well. Furniture shipping requires careful consideration of weight limits on all modes of transportation. 

Fragility and Damage Prevention 

Some types of freight are more easily damaged than others. Furniture freight is one of those items. Carriers need to take special care when loading and transporting furniture. Glass components and sensitive finishes need to be properly padded and wrapped throughout every step of the transport process.  

Furniture can also be sensitive to extreme heat and humidity. Ensuring cargo containers are delivered in a timely manner, and have the proper environmental controls, is crucial to ensuring customer satisfaction. 

Delivery Challenges 

One component of furniture shipping that is not to be overlooked is ensuring there are enough hands available when loading and unloading. While lighter freight can easily be loaded and unloaded from a cargo container by hand or with a conveyor, furniture requires extra hands and extra assistance. 

The supply chain, no matter what goods or materials, is more of an interconnected web of raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, retailers, and the final customers. However, logistics and transportation are involved in every step. Transportation companies rely on cargo ships, trucks, trains, and planes to connect the supply chain and deliver the final goods. Furniture shipping may involve shipping containers arriving at an oceanside port, drayage from a port to a distribution center, long-haul trucking, and regional delivery. Understanding the weight and cargo restrictions on different types of transport and across state lines is vital to ensuring your furniture freight is delivered efficiently. 

Heavy Weight Transport fills in the gaps between the oceanside ports, highways, and the final destinations, especially with overweight cargo, such as furniture.  

Intermodal Furniture Transportation 

Intermodal containers, sometimes referred to as “shipping containers,” can be used to transport and ship furniture. Intermodal services involve the movement of freight without handling any of the actual freight itself. In basic terms, the cargo is never moved, but the container is. A container full of bookcases, couches, beds, and chairs can arrive from a cargo ship, be lifted onto a truck, be transported to a railyard, and arrive at a distribution point without ever touching hands. Intermodal transport improves the security of the goods being transported and leaves less room for error through the shipping process. 

Furniture Freight Drayage 

Drayage refers to the movement of goods across short distances, generally from one mode of intermodal transport to the next. Drayage helps remove time gaps in the supply chain and keeps products moving efficiently. When it comes to furniture transportation, a cargo container loaded with furniture might arrive on a cargo ship to an oceanside port and need to get to a railyard for the next leg of its journey. Drayage services, such as Heavy Weight Transport, fill that gap.

As we already mentioned, furniture is heavy. Containers that may be suitable for ocean transport or rail transport may be overweight for highway transport – or overweight for certain types of trucks. Heavy Weight Transport understands the weight and size regulations for different modes of transport and the varying weight requirements for different states. Our fleet of multi-axle chassis is specially created to haul sealed ocean container loads weighing up to 64,000 pounds. Our team carries the necessary overweight permits for all of our locations and complies with all cargo regulations. 

Heavy Weight Transport has domestic and international partnerships with ocean freight, consolidation, expedited, LTL, truckload, specialized, and intermodal services. Our strategically situated facilities help with intermodal furniture and other freight transportation methods. 

We specialize in heavy and oversized drayage while maintaining the legal size and weight limits. Heavy Weight Transport is an ideal partner for your furniture shipping needs.