You might not know it, but every time you use a shipping service, it can be a little challenging to know what’s going on in the back end. We’re here to help! Please read this post for some simple ways to ensure your cargo gets where it needs to go safely and reliably.

It’s always hard when you need something shipped cross-country. Even if you’re not sending your life savings or anything precious, plenty of things can be broken or damaged in transit. This is especially true if you’re shipping a delicate item, like artwork, or something more fragile.

You can do several things to ensure your International Cargo Express makes it where it needs to go in one piece and that you have some recourse if something gets damaged in transit. Consider the following tips for choosing a trustworthy shipping service.

Ask around for recommendations. Who has shipped large items before? It would be best to start with people you know personally and are trusted by the group. You can then branch out from there to find more reputable companies that aren’t being recommended by friends but will do a great job nonetheless.

Ask your friends, family, and coworkers who chose to ship large items before. What did they like and dislike? Were they happy with their experience with the company? Do they have any bad stories to tell you?

Find a local shipper that is recommended by people you know personally. You may have to shop around a bit, but you must do so. There are many shippers, and some may be doing an excellent job for people out of town or even in other states.

Find out how long the shipper has been in business. It’s usually better to go with someone who has been around for a while. When you find someone who has been in business for a long time, it’s usually a good sign that they are getting things done right. This is especially true of shipping services as they will have had plenty of experience with their customers. Thus, they should have enough experience to ensure your cargo is handled correctly.

Find out what kind of insurance the shipper offers. You may want your cargo insured if it can’t be replaced if it gets damaged during the trip. If insurance isn’t provided, you should ask about buying extra coverage.

Find out who will work on packaging your cargo for transport. Will it be a professional packaging company? Or will you be responsible for getting it packaged up before the shipper comes to get it?

Find out what sort of cargo insurance is being offered by the shipping service. Cargo insurance is essential, especially if you are sending something valuable. Ask how much coverage they provide and how much it will cost to insure your cargo.

Find out your options if damage or loss occurs while the cargo is in transit. Some shippers may have a policy covering this, but others may have yet to have one.

Ask how long you’ll have to wait for your cargo to arrive. Some shippers can deliver within a day, but others can take up to a week. This is important because you may be waiting for the time it takes for your cargo to arrive before you know if it got damaged in transit or not.

Check out their customer service policies. Sometimes business owners will try to make one thing seem like something else, so research this service.

This quick and inexpensive drainage solution may help you rid yourself of a flooded basement. If you have water coming from behind your wall, put a hose on the ground outside your house and run it along the top of your walls. About six feet from the wall, stick some PVC pipe into the ground to create a water outlet. This will create a drain that prevents that water from entering your home again, at least until the snow melts in springtime.

The snow this past winter was so deep that only about three feet of my wall’s top were above ground level, but even that part was standing in about two feet of snow. If you run the hose too high, too low, or outside the wall’s top, you won’t be able to direct water from behind your house. If you can find a suitable location on your home’s top, that spot is where you need to have the PVC pipe outlet.

The water source behind my wall was a small drain beneath my sump pump. So I had to put PVC pipe alongside my upper-floor ceiling and then run the hose along that edge of the ceiling. The hose was about 6 feet away from the wall for this short distance (about 10 inches), so I needed a length of pipe about 28 inches long.

You removed a section of 24-inch PVC pipe and a section of threaded PVC adapter from an old irrigation system I had lying around. The end of the pipe that fits inside the hose attaches to the threaded PVC adapter. I ran about five feet of hose from the threaded adapter, then cut the hose with a hacksaw.

Place these PVC parts inside the wall to locate them at one end of your installation, then shove them all up into your ceiling along one side, not just sticking them up into your ceiling so much as going in about halfway and turning them 90 degrees, so that they are laying flat on top of your ceiling joists. You ran my pipe alongside my bathroom’s upper-floor edge. How do you know which way to go? If your bathroom is on one side of the house, run your hose along that side’s upper-floor ceiling’s edge, and you’ll have the hose run outside your wall for about six feet.

Conclusion

You’ll have to be creative with PVC pipe and fittings. If you want to do a job right, then you need materials made for the job. Padman Water Solutions is one job that requires custom-made materials. Still, you can do the job if you have a big enough area. And if you time it right, you’ll be able to do the job before it gets too cold. You need to consider your wood flooring and bathrooms when doing a job like this. My upstairs bathroom is about 30 feet from where I installed my PVC pipe outlet and drain hose. The PVC pipe came up just under my bathroom’s upper-floor ceiling edge, so I could easily connect the two without any problems from that distance.