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About this tool
Estimate how many small, medium, large, dish and wardrobe cartons your home needs, plus tape, paper and bubble wrap.
This calculator estimates how many moving cartons of each standard size a home needs, converting rooms, occupants, shelved books and hanging clothes into a count of small (1.5 cu ft), medium (3 cu ft), large (4.5 cu ft), extra-large (6 cu ft), dish barrel (5.25 cu ft) and wardrobe (14 cu ft) boxes. It uses the packing allowances removal firms apply at a home survey, plus two measured capacities — one small carton per 2 linear feet of books, one wardrobe carton per 2 linear feet of hanging rail. It also returns the tape, packing paper and bubble wrap that quantity of cartons consumes, and the total packed volume in cubic feet and cubic metres.
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Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
Splits the total into the six standard sizes so books go in small boxes and duvets in extra-large ones.
Bookshelf feet and closet rail feet drive the small and wardrobe counts directly instead of a room average.
Returns tape rolls, packing paper in kg and bubble wrap in metres alongside the carton list.
Roughly 90 to 120 cartons for an average family home — this calculator returns about 107 for three bedrooms, two living rooms, four occupants, a standard kitchen, 20 feet of books and 12 feet of hanging clothes. The split matters more than the total: expect around a third small, a third medium, and the rest large, extra-large, dish barrels and wardrobes. A decluttered household lands closer to 75 and a heavily furnished one closer to 145.
Six sizes are standard. Small (16x12x12 in, 1.5 cu ft) is for books, tools and tinned food; medium (18x18x16 in, 3 cu ft) for pans, files and toys; large (18x18x24 in, 4.5 cu ft) for folded clothes and linen; extra-large (24x20x21.5 in, 6 cu ft) for duvets and pillows only; a double-wall dish barrel (18x18x28 in) for crockery and glass; and a wardrobe carton (24x21x48 in) with a rail for clothes that stay on their hangers.
About 2 linear feet of shelved books per small carton — roughly 25 to 30 average hardbacks. The limit is weight, not space: books run about 10 kg per linear foot, so a small carton packed with books already reaches 18 to 20 kg. Never put books in a medium or large carton; the base will fail or nobody will be able to lift it.
One 50 m roll of 48 mm tape seals about 18 cartons, because an H-seal on an 18-inch box uses roughly 2.7 m across both ends. For paper, allow about a 3 kg bundle of newsprint per dish barrel of crockery plus a little void-fill for everything else — around 25 kg for a typical 3-bedroom move. Buy 10% more of both than the estimate; running out mid-pack is the expensive outcome.
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