Have 10 sheets of alu display panels (8″x4′) to transport 120 miles. Each sheet is 3mm thick.

A friend suggested MyHermes maybe doable/more economical as the fuel in his van would be about £60?

Anyone had experience/moved similar materials by courier?

8 inch by 4 foot ?

or 8 ft x 4 ft ?

If the former. then well packed I would imagine it would be alright and cheaper than £60.

If the latter, drive it yourself, then you know it’ll get there in one piece.

Mind you, at £60 for 120miles, that’s about 10mpg !!! What is the van? a tipper truck? My range rover petrol does better than that.

Anyone had experience/moved similar materials by courier?

Yes – but only direct from suppliers / stock holders, not from point to point between private individuals.

Are they particular / special panels (i.e. do they have something on them) or are they new / plain sheets? If its the latter why not just get some from closer to home?

Mind you, at £60 for 120miles, that’s about 10mpg !!!

Presumably its 120 miles there and 120 miles back

I get quite a lot of 8×4 sheet deliveries and they are usually direct from the supplier. It’s very rarely couriered despite being a pretty standard size.

There are specialist man with van couriers who are good with odd or big things. Used them a couple of times to move sculptures. I doubt you’ll be able to use Hermes style companies.

Shipley for a quote maybe

*Edit sorry typo 8′ x 4′

Presumably its 120 miles there and 120 miles back

Yep. Was a rushed post 😳

They are used and cheap. Not usually found locally in any number.

10 aluminium sheets are going to weigh around 230kg so think a regular courier will be a bit pricy…..

General road freight is pretty cheap – we use DB Schenker at work and they take credit card payment over the phone. Would probably need to be strapped to a pallet so might give loading / unloading problems.

http://www.redhead-int.com

Reckon he means ACM which is a lot lighter. Any cheapo courier will make a real mess of it though as it’s quite fragile, doubt they’d take it though due to size/weight.

might be worth a search around on ebay for Man and Van type operations. I used a guy a few years ago after a late night, beer fuel auction sniping exercise lead to me winning half a ton of 3m long wood working equipment before I realised it was in Dorset and I needed to get it to Glasgow.

Found a guy who moves machinery around advertising on ebay. Trick is to be in no hurry – the way they work is they save up jobs until theres a few pick ups / drop offs on a route making it cheaper to do. You get guys doing machinery and some doing furniture and I guess either could do it. That flexible approach depends on your vendor being able to accommodate that flexibility too though.

I sent some s/h solar panels via palletways, using my local couriers. I had to put them on a pallet and they picked up using a 18ton truck and tail-lift. it was £160 ‘cos the edges stuck out beyond 1200*1000..! they all seem to have a fixed uk-anywhere price per pallet. Those sheets are 3 pallets worth. try http://www.anyvan.com instead