How to pack dishes for moving

A plate is strong across its diameter and weak through its face. Stood on edge, a dropped box loads the plate the way a coin stands on a table, and the force runs around the rim. Stacked flat, the same drop puts the weight of every plate above onto the centre of the plate below, which is exactly where a plate breaks. The difference is not marginal: it is the single biggest factor in whether crockery survives.

A dish barrel is a double-walled box, usually around 18 by 18 by 28 inches, made for crockery and glassware. The second wall is the point: it absorbs a side impact that a single-wall box passes straight through. A liquor store box with its dividers is the best free substitute for glasses, but for plates a dish barrel is worth buying. One dish barrel holds the crockery of a typical four-person kitchen.

Paper, not bubble wrap, for plates. Lay a sheet of packing paper flat, put the plate in the centre, fold all four corners over the plate, then place the next plate on top and repeat until you have a bundle of three or four. Wrap the bundle. Bowls nest with paper between each one. Cups and mugs are wrapped individually with paper stuffed inside the cup, because an empty cup crushes and a filled one does not.

Two inches of crushed paper at the bottom, then plates on edge in a single row across the box, then paper between that row and the next. Heaviest at the bottom, lightest at the top, and every gap filled so that nothing moves when you tilt the box. Close it and shake it gently. If you hear anything shift, open it and add paper. A box that rattles will arrive broken.

Stemware goes upright, never on its side, in a box with cell dividers. Stuff each glass with a twist of paper before wrapping, since the bowl of a wine glass collapses inward without support. Wrap the stem separately with a second sheet before wrapping the whole glass, because the stem is where stemware breaks. A liquor store box with its dividers already in place does this job for nothing.

Three things. Boxes packed too heavy, because a dish barrel filled with crockery to the top is beyond what one person should lift and gets dropped. Newspaper instead of packing paper, which transfers ink onto glaze and takes an hour of washing at the other end. And unfilled gaps, which let the contents move, and movement is what breaks crockery rather than the initial impact.