How to pack a TV for moving

Because the panel is a thin laminate held flat by its frame, not a rigid board. Standing upright, the frame carries the load along its edges, which is what it was designed to do. Laid flat, the centre of the panel flexes downward with every bump in the road, and the failure that follows shows as a spreading dark patch or a line of dead pixels rather than a crack.

A purpose-made television box, which is two telescoping cardboard halves with foam corner blocks, adjusts to the diagonal of most sets. Failing that, cut flat cardboard to the exact face and back of the screen, tape those two panels together around the set, and pad the corners. A television needs a rigid face on both sides and free corners, and a loose blanket alone gives it neither.

A microfibre cloth or a clean soft sheet goes directly against the screen face, then padding over that. Nothing adhesive touches the front, and no packing tape is ever run across the panel, because the anti-glare coating lifts with the adhesive. Bubble wrap goes over the cloth rather than against the screen, since the bubbles press a pattern into a warm coated surface.

Take the stand off or unbolt the wall mount, and bag the bolts with the bracket they came from. Photograph the back of the set before you unplug anything, so the inputs go back the same way. Cables coil separately and travel in their own box, because a coiled cable pressed against a panel in transit leaves an impression through the padding.

Upright, against a flat wall of the load, strapped so it cannot tip, and with nothing stacked on it at any point. A television is one of the last things into a truck and one of the first things out. If it has been in a cold truck, let it reach room temperature before switching it on, since condensation inside the panel is a separate way to lose a set.

Two failures account for most losses. The first is a set laid face down on a bed or a sofa during the move and then loaded with something on top, which is the same flexing failure as travelling flat. The second is a set carried by its top edge or its stand rather than by the frame at both sides, which twists a chassis that was never designed to be picked up that way.