Elmwood Movers for South Berkeley's Shingle Streets

The Elmwood is the residential district of south Berkeley centered on College Avenue where it crosses Ashby Avenue. The shopping strip has a neighborhood movie theater, bookstores, bakeries and cafes, and the side streets, Russell, Webster, Derby, Woolsey, Stuart and their neighbors, are lined with old trees and older houses. The UC Berkeley campus is a short walk north, the Claremont hills rise to the east, and Rockridge begins where College Avenue crosses into Oakland.

The neighborhood draws faculty, families and long-time owners. When the move is from one older house to another, you get narrow stairs and wood floors at both ends, and the care has to be the same on the way in as on the way out.

Elmwood is known for its early 1900s houses: brown-shingle homes in the Berkeley tradition, Craftsman bungalows, and two-story Colonial Revival and Tudor-style houses, with a scattering of small apartment buildings and converted flats. Many have a raised porch with a set of front steps, a steep interior staircase and bedrooms tucked under the roof, where knee walls and sloped ceilings limit what fits through the door.

Wood paneling, built-in bookcases and original floors are part of the appeal, and they need protecting. Runners go down on every path the crew walks, and furniture is padded before it passes a door frame.

Curbs on the side streets are lined with residents' cars, and many blocks near campus and College Avenue have permit parking for residents. Planning where the truck will stand matters more here than the distance. It needs about 40 feet of curb for itself and the ramp. Check with Berkeley whether your block needs a temporary no-parking permit; we help you plan it. For tight blocks, David looks at the address ahead of time and tells you whether a shuttle is needed.

ZIP 94705 had too few requests this year to break out. For Berkeley as a whole, 7 quote requests came in between mid-July and late October 2026, all local moves, and 2 of them booked or completed. One- and two-bedroom homes were the sizes listed.

A two-bedroom bungalow or a flat is usually 3 movers at $175 an hour. A three-bedroom over 1,800 square feet, or a four-bedroom shingle house, calls for 4 movers at $235. Two movers at $145 make sense only for a very small move. Every job has a 3-hour minimum, then 15-minute increments, and the hourly price stays the same on weekends. Blankets, tape and wardrobe boxes are included, and packing materials are billed only as used.

How long an Elmwood move takes, and what it costs

To help you budget, we sorted our latest local moves by home size, read off the hours and priced each range at the rate for that size of crew. Your own bill comes from the time on your job, billed by the hour.

Source: final invoices on our own local moves for direct customers, July to October 2026, middle half of each size group, not counting account or partner-billed jobs or jobs where we packed the whole home. Materials are billed as used; minimum 3 hours, then 15-minute increments.

In a brown-shingle house, the porch steps and the attic stairs are where the time goes. Books packed in small boxes and beds already stripped help keep you near the low end.

Elmwood is about 41 miles northwest of downtown San Jose, our home base. East Bay mornings carry a 9-11 AM arrival window, and the crew calls 30 minutes before reaching you. There is no charge for driving to your home. If your destination is more than 10 minutes from the Elmwood, the drive between the two addresses is doubled under California rules.

• Measure the attic-bedroom door and the turn at the top of the stairs.
• Find out whether your block has residents-only permit parking and plan a spot.
• Pack the built-in bookcases early; book collections are heavy and slow.
• Use small boxes for books so each one is safe to carry down porch steps.
• If your landlord or HOA needs a certificate of insurance, ask us; it is free.

• Claremont: larger homes in the hills to the east.
• Rockridge: College Avenue continued into Oakland.
• North Berkeley: shingle homes north of campus.
• Temescal: bungalows and duplexes to the southwest.

See packing services.