A house move gives fragile cartons a short, straight walk to a truck parked at the door. A condo move gives them a hallway, a lift, a lobby, a second hallway and a loading bay — with a dolly under them the whole way and a booked window running down.
The packing method is the same everywhere. What changes in a tower is the handling in between, and that is where the breakages actually happen.
The box does most of the work
The single most useful material for fragile contents is the dish-pack: heavy-wall corrugated carton, often double-walled, with cardboard cell dividers that keep every piece from touching its neighbours.
The protocol inside it:
- Each piece wrapped individually in unprinted packing paper. Not newspaper — the ink transfers, and getting it off glazed china afterwards is a miserable afternoon.
- One piece per cell. The dividers are the whole reason the box exists. Filling two cells with three glasses defeats it.
- Plates on edge, not stacked flat. A plate standing vertically survives a jolt that would crack the same plate lying down under four others.
- Every gap filled with crumpled paper, so nothing can shift when the box tilts on a dolly.
- A paper layer on top before the flaps close, and a hand pressed on the contents to check nothing moves.
- Filled firm, not overfilled. Straining the dividers apart is as bad as leaving them empty.
- Marked on at least two sides — "fragile" and "this side up" — because the side you wrote on will be the side facing the wall.
Dish-packs cost more than a plain carton. They also account for most of the difference between arriving with a dinner service and arriving with a story about one.
What belongs in a dish-pack, and what does not
Good candidates:
- Dinnerware, cups and saucers
- Crystal and stemware
- Ceramics, figurines and small decorative pieces
- Glass serving platters, bowls and decanters
- Vases and candle holders
- Small framed photographs
Not dish-pack items — these want their own treatment:
- Large vases and oversized ceramics — individually wrapped and boxed on their own, or crated.
- Framed art and mirrors — mirror boxes or crates, and they ride vertically. See moving large framed artwork.
- Lamps — shade and base separately, always.
- Televisions — the original carton if you kept it, a purpose-made TV box if not, and vertical in the truck.
- Marble, stone and glass tabletops — crated and vertical, never flat.
Paper first, bubble wrap second
People reach for bubble wrap first because it feels like the more protective material. For most fragile items it is the wrong first layer.
Paper goes against the object because it conforms to the shape, fills the awkward hollows in a stemmed glass or a handled cup, and can be wound tight enough that the piece is genuinely immobilised. Bubble wrap slides, holds its own shape rather than the object's, and can trap moisture against a surface over a long transit.
So: paper against the item, then bubble wrap over the top for the pieces that warrant a second layer. An item still in its original moulded retail packaging is already solved — leave it in there.
The lift is the real chokepoint
Everything above applies in any home. This part is specific to a tower, and it is where condo moves go wrong.
- Fragile cartons travel low and separate. One or two dish-packs on a dolly, not a stack of five. A tall stack shifts every time a lift starts and stops, and it will do that a dozen times on a move.
- Never under general cargo. A dish-pack at the bottom of a mixed load is carrying the weight of everything above it through every bump in the ride.
- Carry the highest-value pieces by hand. Not everything needs a dolly. A single box of crystal in two hands, walked, is the safest journey available.
- Work inside the booked window. Most buildings hold the service lift for a fixed period and require the mover's insurance document before they will release it. Losing the window mid-move means the rest of the load waits, and rushing a fragile carton because the lift is about to go back into service is exactly the wrong pressure.
Our strata and access requirements are worth confirming with your building weeks ahead — the lift booking and the insurance certificate are usually the two things that decide whether the day starts on time.
Where fragile cargo rides in the truck
Last on, first off, and on top.
Fragile cartons belong at the top of the load, against the truck wall, ideally strapped in rather than free-standing. That gives them the shortest time in the truck, the least weight above them, and the least distance to travel at the far end.
It also means the crew has to know which cartons those are. Marking two sides is not decoration.
Measure the route before the day
Every condo has one dimension that surprises somebody. Confirm these in advance:
- Lift interior, including the diagonal — that is the number that decides whether a mirror box fits.
- Whether there is a service lift or whether the move shares the passenger lift with residents.
- Unit doorway width, and any turn immediately outside it. Some buildings have a right angle within a metre of the door.
- Hallway width at its tightest point, not its average.
- Distance from the lift lobby to where a truck can legally sit — that carry is where fragile cargo spends most of its time in motion.
- The window itself: when it starts, when it ends, and what happens if it runs over.
The short version
Dish-packs with the cells actually used, paper before bubble wrap, everything filled so nothing shifts — then treat the lift as the fragile part of the journey rather than the truck. Fragile boxes ride low, separate, last on and first off.
If you would rather hand the kitchen and the fragile rooms over and keep the easy ones, that is a normal scope. See packing services, or send your move details and we will write the scope around exactly the rooms you name.