Most pages about packing supplies are trying to sell you a kit. This one is trying to answer the questions the kit does not: what the stamp on the bottom of a box actually certifies, why a "medium" box is not the same size at every store, how heavy a box is allowed to be, and which of these things Halo by California Movers USA brings with the crew so you do not have to buy them at all.
A household move needs fewer distinct things than the shopping lists suggest. Everything below fits into six categories, and the first two account for most of the money.
If a Halo crew is doing the move, the last three are ours. What you buy, if you are packing yourself, is boxes, tape, and paper. The rest of this page is about buying those well.
Turn a corrugated box over and there is usually a circle of small print on one of the outside surfaces. That circle is the box maker's certificate, and it is the only piece of objective information a box carries. It is worth two minutes of your life to know how to read it.
The certificate is defined by freight classification rules — NMFC Item 222 for trucking and Uniform Freight Classification Rule 41 for rail — not by the shop selling the box. It carries three things:
One board-strength figure. Either a bursting (Mullen) test in pounds per square inch, or an edge crush test in pounds per inch. Not both — the maker picks which standard the box is certified under.
A size limit. The maximum sum of the box's outside dimensions — length plus width plus depth, in inches.
A gross weight limit. The maximum weight of the box and its contents together for that grade of board.
What it does not say is how much your box will hold. The certificate's own wording is a statement of conformance — that the box was built to the classification's minimum requirements. It is not a test result for the box in your hands with your books inside it.
Sources: National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Item 222 packaging rules; Uniform Freight Classification 6000-M, Rule 41. Confirmed September 2026.
Measured in pounds per inch. It is how much force the edge of the board takes before it crushes, and it is the better predictor of stacking strength — everything piled on top of your box in the back of a truck.
A standard moving box is 32 ECT.
Measured in pounds per square inch. It is the pressure needed to rupture the flat face of the board, so it reflects resistance to a blow, or to contents pushing outward from inside.
The equivalent grade is 200 lb test.
Both tests are run on the board, not on the finished box. Those two numbers — 200 lb test and 32 ECT — sit on the same line of the classification table, which is why an ordinary moving box is described either way depending on who printed it.
| Max weight of box and contents | Max length + width + depth | Min. bursting test | Min. edge crush |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35 lb | 50 in | 150 psi | 26 lb/in |
| 50 lb | 60 in | 175 psi | 29 lb/in |
| 65 lb | 75 in | 200 psi | 32 lb/in |
| 80 lb | 85 in | 250 psi | 40 lb/in |
| 95 lb | 95 in | 275 psi | 44 lb/in |
| 120 lb | 105 in | 350 psi | 55 lb/in |
Single-wall board, from the Rule 41 construction table. The bolded row is the ordinary moving box.
This is the useful takeaway, and it explains a puzzle: sellers rate a 1.5 cubic foot small box and a 6 cubic foot extra-large box at the same "up to 65 lbs," because 65 lb is the classification ceiling for that grade of board, not a measurement of either box. A used box that has already made one trip has lost strength that nothing on the stamp records.
No standards body defines a small, medium or large moving box. What has happened instead is that the big sellers converged on roughly the same four volumes — and then labeled them inconsistently. Published dimensions, checked in September 2026:
| U-Haul | Home Depot | Lowe's | Uline | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 16⅜ × 12⅝ × 12⅝ 1.5 cu ft | 16 × 12 × 12 sold as 1.5 cu ft | 16 × 12 × 12 | 16 × 12 × 12 sold as 1.5 cu ft |
| Medium | 18⅛ × 18 × 16 3.0 cu ft | 18 × 18 × 15 or 22 × 16 × 15 both sold as 3 cu ft | 18 × 16 × 18 3.0 cu ft | 18 × 18 × 16 3.0 cu ft |
| Large | 18 × 18 × 24 4.5 cu ft | 18 × 18 × 24 | 24 × 18 × 18 | 18 × 18 × 24 |
| Extra large | 24 × 18 × 24 6.0 cu ft | 22 × 22 × 21.5 6.0 cu ft | 22 × 21.5 × 22 | 24 × 24 × 18 6.0 cu ft |
Medium and large really are close to interchangeable. The small is where the label and the arithmetic part company: a 16 × 12 × 12 box is 2,304 cubic inches, which is 1.33 cubic feet, not the 1.5 it is sold as. Only U-Haul's slightly larger small is genuinely 1.5. If volume matters to your planning, multiply the dimensions yourself.
Books, records, tools, tinned food, anything dense. If it is heavy, it goes in a small box — that is the whole rule.
The workhorse. Kitchen contents, toys, small appliances, shoes, most of a bedroom.
Bedding, towels, cushions, lampshades. Light and bulky only.
Duvets and pillows. Almost anything else you put in one will make it too heavy to carry safely.
"One-bedroom kit", "three-bedroom kit". It reads like a calculation. It is not one. No standards body, no moving trade association and no state regulator publishes a figure for how many boxes a home of a given size needs — each kit is that retailer's own commercial judgment.
The spread is easy to see. Home Depot sells a 53-box kit for a one-to-two bedroom house. U-Haul's apartment kit is 21 boxes. Third-party five-room kits run to 50 boxes and six-room kits to 67. These are not different answers to the same question; they are different products.
Count by storage furniture, not by bedrooms. Walk the house and count what has to be emptied: bookshelves, wardrobes, kitchen cupboards, chests of drawers, the hall cupboard, the garage shelving. A shelf of books is roughly one small box. A kitchen cupboard is roughly one medium. A wardrobe shelf is roughly one medium.
Then add a third. Everyone under-counts, and running out of boxes at nine in the evening is how a careful pack turns into bin bags.
If you would rather not do any of this, ask for packing in the quote. The packing services page explains how full and partial packing are priced, and materials are a line on the estimate rather than a separate shopping trip.
Nothing makes it illegal to pack a box at 90 pounds. Two published numbers are worth knowing anyway, because between them they settle the question.
The revised NIOSH lifting equation sets a load constant of 23 kg, or 51 pounds — the most it recommends lifting under ideal conditions: the load at knuckle height, held close to the body, no twisting, a good grip, and not repeated.
Packing is never ideal. Reaching into a closet, lifting off the floor, turning on a stair — every one of those pulls the recommended figure down. Treat 51 lb as a ceiling you should be well under.
A standard 32 ECT / 200 lb test single-wall box is rated under the freight classification rules to a maximum gross weight of 65 pounds, box and contents together, with the sum of its outside dimensions no more than 75 inches.
That is a ceiling for the grade of board, not a measurement of your box — and a box that has already made one trip is weaker than the number suggests.
The lower of the two governs, and in practice that is your back. A useful working rule: if you cannot pick it up comfortably and carry it to the front door, it is too heavy, whatever the box is rated for.
There is one official American document that puts numbers on this, and it is California's. The Bureau of Household Goods and Services publishes Maximum Rate Tariff 4, the tariff California movers work under. For loss and damage claims it assigns a constructive weight to each container type — the weight a packed box is assumed to be when nobody weighed it.
| Container | Assumed weight |
|---|---|
| Carton under 1½ cu ft | 20 lb |
| 1½ to under 3 cu ft | 25 lb |
| 3 to under 4½ cu ft | 30 lb |
| 4½ to under 6 cu ft | 35 lb |
| 6 to under 6½ cu ft | 45 lb |
| 6½ cu ft and over | 50 lb |
| Wardrobe carton | 50 lb |
| Dish-pak drum | 60 lb |
| Mattress or box-spring carton, up to 54″ × 75″ | 60 lb |
| Mattress or box-spring carton, over 54″ × 75″ | 80 lb |
| Crib mattress carton | 22 lb |
Source: California Bureau of Household Goods and Services, Maximum Rate Tariff 4, Item 92, effective 1 January 2026. Books and records default to 50 lb; lampshades to 10 lb.
Read that table as the state's own sense of what a sensibly packed box weighs. A medium box at 30 pounds. A large at 35. Nothing above 50 except the specialty containers. If your medium boxes are coming out at 55 pounds, the problem is not the box.
Those figures matter in one other way. Basic liability on a California move is 60 cents per pound per article, and the constructive weight is what a carton is treated as weighing when a claim is worked out. It is not a valuation of what is inside — which is exactly why it is worth reading before you decide how to cover the things that matter.
Four specialty containers earn their price. The rest are usually a normal box with a different label.
Not defined by any standard, but the trade has settled on one article: roughly 18 × 18 × 28 inches, about 5.2 cubic feet, double-walled — heavier board than an ordinary carton. U-Haul rates its version at 51 ECT and 120 pounds. The double wall is the point: it is the box you use when the contents are breakable and the stack above is heavy.
A dish pack is not a substitute for packing the dishes properly. Plates go on edge, not flat — a plate stacked flat takes the whole weight of the plate above it on one plane, and a plate on edge does not. Paper between every piece, two inches of crushed paper top and bottom, and no empty space anywhere.
These genuinely have no standard size. U-Haul sells them at about 18 × 21 × 46 and 24 × 21 × 48 inches; Home Depot's are 24 × 24 inches at 24, 34 and 44 inches tall. The number to ask for is the interior height, because that decides whether long coats and dresses hang without folding.
Halo brings three reusable wardrobe boxes with the crew at no charge. For a typical closet that is enough, and it takes the most expensive item on this page off your shopping list. Clothes go in on their hangers, straight from rail to rail, which is also the fastest packing you will do all day.
Flat telescoping boxes that adjust to the frame. Worth it for anything framed under glass, framed art of any value, and mirrors. Tape an X across the glass first — it does not stop a break, but it holds the pieces together if one happens.
Sized by bed. California's own tariff distinguishes cartons up to 54 × 75 inches from those above it, which is the practical line between a double and a queen or king. A mattress bag is cheaper and fine for a short local move; a carton is what you want if the mattress is going into storage or onto a long-distance load with things stacked around it.
| Material | What it is for | What it is not for |
|---|---|---|
| Packing tape | Sealing box seams. Two inches wide, on a dispenser. Three strips along the bottom seam of any box that will be heavy. | Masking tape and duct tape do not hold on corrugated board over time. Duct tape also lifts finish off furniture. |
| Packing paper | Wrapping individual items and filling void space. Clean newsprint, usually sold in 24 × 36 inch sheets. | Printed newspaper. The ink transfers, and it transfers worst onto exactly the white china you were protecting. |
| Bubble wrap | Cushioning fragile items. Bubbles face inward, against the item. | Filling a box. It is expensive per cubic foot and paper does the same job for less. |
| Stretch wrap | Holding drawers shut, keeping pads on furniture, bundling loose parts. It clings to itself, not to the item. | Long-term storage against leather or polished wood — it can trap moisture and mark the finish. |
| Moving pads | Wrapping furniture. Quilted, heavy, reusable. | Buying, if a crew is coming. They arrive with the truck. |
| Marker and labels | Room name and one line of contents, on the side of the box, not the top — you read the sides when they are stacked. | Being skipped. This is the item people regret. |
One line that saves an hour at the other end: write the room the box is going to, not the room it came from.
A good deal of what gets sold as "moving supplies" arrives on the truck already. Knowing which is which is worth more than any discount code.
If Halo packs, materials appear as a priced line on the estimate rather than being folded into the hourly clock — you can see what they cost and decide how much of the packing you want to keep. If you pack yourself, buy the boxes anywhere; the crew does not care whose name is on them, only that the bottoms are taped properly and the heavy ones are small.
The rate itself is $175 per hour for two movers and one truck, with larger crews and additional trucks confirmed in the written estimate. See the pricing page for how hourly and flat-rate work compare.
A box fails in one of three ways: the bottom drops out, the sides collapse under the stack, or the contents move. Each has an answer.
Two habits worth adding: keep a marker in your pocket so labeling happens as you go rather than at the end, and pack one clearly marked first-night box per person — bedding, chargers, medication, toiletries, a change of clothes — which travels with you rather than on the truck.
No amount of good packing makes these go on a truck. Deal with them before moving day rather than on it.
The first column is a safety and legal matter — it is the same list on every mover's page because the rules are the same. The second is different: those things can travel on a truck, and should not. Put them in a bag that stays with you.
Empty a fuel-powered mower or trimmer of gasoline and oil before moving day, drain and dry a fish tank, and run down what is in the freezer during the last week rather than trying to transport it. For a full list of what needs preparing, the appliance moving page covers the machines and the packing services page covers the rest.
Yes. Boxes, paper, tape and specialty containers can be supplied with a move, and they appear as a priced line on the estimate rather than folded into the hourly rate. Three reusable wardrobe boxes come with the crew at no charge.
There is no standard answer, and the retail kits that claim one disagree with each other by more than double. Count your storage furniture instead — a shelf of books is about one small box, a kitchen cupboard about one medium — then add a third for the things you forgot.
It is the box maker's certificate, defined by freight classification rules. It gives one board-strength figure — either a bursting test in pounds per square inch or an edge crush value in pounds per inch — plus the maximum sum of the box's outside dimensions and the maximum gross weight of box and contents for that grade of board. It certifies how the box was built, not what your box will hold.
They are two ways of grading the same ordinary single-wall board. The bursting test measures the pressure needed to rupture the face of the board; the edge crush test measures how much force its edge takes before crushing, and it is the better predictor of stacking strength. Both appear on the same line of the classification table, so a standard moving box may be marked either way.
Lighter than the box allows. A standard 32 ECT box is rated to 65 pounds gross, but NIOSH's lifting equation puts 51 pounds as the most it recommends lifting under ideal conditions, and packing conditions are never ideal. California's own mover tariff assumes a medium carton weighs 30 pounds and a large one 35. If you cannot carry it comfortably to the door, it is too heavy.
Close enough at medium and large — U-Haul, Home Depot, Lowe's and Uline all sell roughly 18 × 18 × 16 and 18 × 18 × 24. The small is where they part company: the common 16 × 12 × 12 box is 1.33 cubic feet even though it is usually advertised as 1.5.
For light, non-fragile things, yes. Two cautions: a used box has lost strength that nothing printed on it records, and grocery boxes have often carried produce, so check for damp and for anything that attracts insects. Do not put books or dishes in a second-hand box.
A dish pack is worth it. It is double-walled — roughly 18 × 18 × 28 inches and about 5.2 cubic feet — so it takes the stack above it without deforming. Pack plates on edge with paper between every piece and no empty space anywhere.
There is no standard. U-Haul sells them at about 18 × 21 × 46 and 24 × 21 × 48 inches; Home Depot's are 24 × 24 inches at three different heights. Ask for the interior height — that decides whether long coats hang without folding.
Packing paper. Newsprint ink transfers, and it transfers worst onto the white china you were trying to protect. Clean unprinted paper costs very little and is also better for filling voids.
Two-inch packing tape on a dispenser. Masking tape does not hold on corrugated board over time, and duct tape lifts finish off furniture. Run three strips along the bottom seam of anything that will be heavy.
Yes, they come with the crew, along with hand trucks, dollies, straps and floor protection. You do not need to buy any of it for a crewed move.
Flammables, corrosives, pressurized cylinders, ammunition, paint, propane and perishables do not go on the truck. Documents, medication, keys, cash, jewelry and anything irreplaceable should travel with you.
Packing yourself saves money and costs time; packing on moving day costs money, because it is billable time with a crew standing in the room. The middle path is the one most people should take — pack the books, linen and clothes over a few evenings, and ask the crew to pack the kitchen and anything fragile. Decide it at quote stage so the labor and materials are priced properly rather than absorbed into the clock.
Tell us what is moving, how much of it you would like to pack yourself, and the date. You will get the crew size, the included work and any materials as their own priced line, in writing, before you book.
Get My Moving PriceA starting figure is not the written estimate. Once the scope is confirmed, the deposit and payment options explain how the date is reserved and how the balance can be paid. Related pages: packing services, local moving, storage and residential moving.