FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Professional movers with a real commitment to their community and themselves owe it to everyone to pay their share. They are responsible for paying their employees employment insurance benefits, Canada pension plan benefits, and workers compensation coverage in case they are hurt on the job at an absolute minimum. 

1. Employment insurance premium 2.2% of gross wages
2. Workers compensation 3.98% of gross wages
3. Canada pension plan 5.25% of gross wages
   1. Government total Taxation on labour 11.43%
      1. Employer basically matches this contribution making it almost 23% but the employee portion is included in the wage (withheld from employee*)
4. Remember each person on payroll will pay Income tax after being paid as well. The average mover swamper makes between 36,000-48,000$ per year meaning their effective tax bracket will range somewhere between 15-25% of their actual income
   1. Income tax on movers wages an additional 15-25% 
5. Remember that most products sold in B.C. Canada are taxed GST and PST so those movers, after already paying 27-37% of what they were charged out at (40$/hr) in taxes, will spend an additional 12% of retained earnings on further government taxes. The total buying power a mover has from their gross earnings is reduced from the gross amount we charge for them  (40$/hr) down to 55-64% or about 22-26$ per hour. Bottom line, it costs about 40$/hr to pay our movers 17.60$ to 25.00$ per hour. With minimum wage approaching 14$/hr at the time of writing this, it will be very difficult to find competent movers for only a few dollars more.

• 2 movers are used at all times, at an average rate of $100 per hour because they take on cheap plentiful warehouse work mid month when it is slow to keep people working.
• All work is done in a ford box truck, a small one.
• The rate of pay is the average between $17.60 and $25.00/hr X 2 employees ($42.60 in wages per hour).
• 1200 hours are worked throughout the year because people only need movers in the last week of the month netting the company $120,000.

1. Power Movers supplies Full replacement value of your possessions up to $40,000 at no up front cost to you. Our insurance premium for this 1 Piece of insurance was close to $200 per month or $12 per day which averages with 1 truck, about $24 per move if that vehicle is only set to move someone every 2nd day. 
2. people generally only move at the beginning and end of each month so you cannot expect any moving trucks to generate revenue 100% of the time that they exist, you must acquire and schedule every single job with incredible amounts of detail in order to turn a profit and produce a good result. Since any respectable moving company needs 3rd party liability insurance for every vehicle and will employ up to 3 at a time the actual cost of this insurance will cost between $24-50 on any given move.

1. Our first truck was a 1996 Ford E459 super duty Box truck with a 7.3 litre Navistar powerstroke injection diesel engine. This is one of the most affordable moving trucks with legendary reliability.
2. We averaged 100 hours of service per month in our first year with this vehicle 
3. We averaged 686$ per month in fuel for this vehicle
4. The actual repairs required on this vehicle in that time ranged from 1000$ for new tires (amortized over 3 years = 333$/ year in tires) to a new high pressure fuel filter assembly that fed the injectors costing ~2000$ to replace. Actual repair costs for the year added up to 5856$ or about 5$/hr for every hour of service the vehicle was required for. These are repairs for a CHEAP, commercial 1 ton truck without a lease or massive payments. Fuel averaged by the hour was about 6.86$ as well.

We recorded mileage on this old truck for close to 20,000 kilometers ranging from downtown Vancouver B.C., all the way to Chilliwack B.C. Mileage was recorded via https://www.kenwood.com/usa/car/excelon/ddx595/ A double din garmin gps ready stereo head unit. The average speed of a moving truck over all these areas over 2019 was 31 kilometers per hour. Sometimes the truck will move faster, and other times it will move slower but over the course of hundreds of local moves this is the speed we expect to travel and the actual cost that will accrue to provide the service in labour, fuel, maintenance etc regardless of traffic conditions. To cover this cost we charge 1 hour of travel time at a median price of 119$ per hour. Since the average home is a 30 kilometer round trip it costs us about 1 hour of wages, maintenance, fuel, and administrative work just to supply a timely arrival for our valuable clients. We round the charge to 1 hour for everyone in the name of simplicity and no other reason.

1. Just because everyone else parks in the firelane to move does not mean the city is obligated to allow your movers to break municipal bylaws for your convenience. This has added up to numerous tickets and a tow bill or two.
2. You just bought your first home on vancouver island, CONGRATULATIONS! Your driveway is a bit of a goat trail, after a long day of moving, our driver was a little uncomfortable backing a 33 ft 5 ton out of the driveway backwards…. He instead opted for a 3 point turn on the shoulder of the road not remembering that a 5 ton is a very heavy vehicle and it has become stuck…. Cue 600$ tow bill hours later into the night, 500$ in overtime waiting for the tow truck, and 226$ for the hotel that the movers will now stay in overnight. Total cost to company ~1500$. Cost to the client, 0$ because despite the conditions, we take full responsibility for our own driving abilities.
3. Wind and snow Shuts down the ferry service to vancouver island even though your move has been planned for months! You must now pay 4 hours of wages to the movers who showed up, waited in line patiently to get on the ferry, and were then sent home only to have the move take place a different day.
4. A fully assembled Ikea shelving unit shelf cracks under pressure inside the box of the moving truck en route to your new apartment likely while driving over speed bumps at 5 miles per hour. You are upset, Power movers reduce your bill by 137$ as a settlement because they did not explicitly state that they will not be responsible for items containing inherent vice such as particle board furniture designed to travel in pieces unassembled. We now explicitly state that we will not be responsible for inherent vice of goods. We are proficient at assembling or disassembling an incredible amount of different furniture however, this service takes time and must be agreed to prior to a move taking place if we are to be responsible for the service or condition of that furniture when it is moved.

1. Besides paying just your taxes, it costs money to have a payroll system in place such as quickbooks or Wave to the tune of about 20$/ month + 4$/ month per employee.
2. On top of actually owing the employer and employee payroll liability amounts someone must be employed to make these remittances on time as well as make sure your movers are paid on time and happy so that they continue to provide consistently good results while on the job. No one works for free. This role is generally overlapped with human resources in a smaller moving company since the revenue generated is not sufficient to hire both a full time accountant/ bookkeeper as well as an HR manager 
   1. HR manager base salary B.C. ~70,000$ https://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Human_Resources_(HR)_Manager/Salary
   2. Accountant Base Salary B.C.  ~50,000$ https://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Accountant/Salary

• This chart assumes your marketing, sales, and bookkeeping all does itself
• This chart also assumes you already have a website, a truck, reliable employees, and any other necessary things you may need such as an office space from which to run this company without paying rent.

We specialize in moving pianos as well as other specialty deliveries for print shops, routing equipment, building supplies, industrial kitchen appliances, statues, and other odd requests. We are always looking to add to this portfolio!

We ourselves can move long distance or act as an originating carrier for your shipment in the process of arranging a van line or overseas moving services anywhere in the world. If we can’t move it, we will find ‘someone’ free of charge!

A move starts when we receive your first phone call or email and ends when we wave goodbye. We can break the entire thing down into 6 stages

1. Initial phone call/ email
2. Inventory and information request
3. Initial estimate or binding quote in writing 
4. A deposit invoice followed by confirmation of particulars for move day.
5. Move day
6. Follow up email

Power Movers supplies a copy of our 3rd party liability insurance policy to all clients at the estimation/ quoting phase of the move. Generally, we as a carrier are responsible for standard household goods that do not contain inherent vice or constitute an extraordinary value. Used household furniture is worth about 1.32$ per kilogram per article and that is the basic default value that you agree to release your cargo at. If full replacement value is required it must be discussed prior to the move taking place. Full replacement value replaces the article or pays the cost of a used replacement unless that article is new i in which case it is replaced with a new article. Full replacement value basic amount is up to 40,000$ but can be extended with a special insurance rider in cases where the cargo is especially high in value.

Power Movers supplies a valid Worksafe B.C. clearance letter and 3rd party liability Certificate of insurance (COI) before commencing any work. With these documents in hand we work consistently with general contractors, commercial retail stores, and warehouse distribution centers throughout the lower mainland.

We realize that not all cases may justify the cost of a 4 hour moving service however, we have a commitment to our staff to make sure they can make a living which they cannot do working 1-2 hours a day. We do make specialty 1 off partial move or “delivery” agreements often. The actual cost of this service is flexible and will depend greatly on convenience. Please do not hesitate to ask one of our representatives if they can arrange something like this to better suit your needs.

1. Power movers accepts major credit or debit cards as well as cash and etransfer.
2. Power movers does not accept cheques.

We are a family owned and operated no nonsense company. We take the time to train our staff the way all Power Movers should perform on the job and why people pay good money to see it happen. By treating everyone like family, they receive due appreciation and respect which leads directly to retaining skilled staff and great moves