Taking Furniture Delivery in a Nova Scotia Winter

A dining set is booked for a Thursday in February. Wednesday night brings freezing rain, the plows are out at four in the morning, and by nine the side streets in the North End are a sheet of ice under two inches of slush. The truck is running, but your walkway is not.

Winter delivery in this province works fine most of the time. The days it does not are predictable, and there are a few things that are on you rather than on the delivery crew.

The path is the customer's job

Delivery crews carry furniture. They do not shovel, and they will not risk a two-person carry across an unsalted walkway with a 200-pound sofa between them. If the path from the street to your door is not cleared and salted before the window opens, the delivery gets rescheduled and you lose the slot.

Clear a wider path than you think you need. Two people carrying a sectional walk side by side and need roughly three feet, not the single-file trench most people shovel for themselves. Clear the steps properly, including the edges, because a boot half on ice at the top of a step is where injuries happen.

Protect your floors before the crew arrives

Halifax uses a lot of road salt, and salt comes indoors on boots, gets ground into hardwood, and leaves a white haze in the finish that is genuinely difficult to remove. Put down a runner, an old sheet, or flattened cardboard along the route from the door to the room. Ask the crew to use it.

This is a five-minute job that prevents the most common winter complaint after a delivery, and the complaint is usually about the floor rather than the furniture.

Give cold furniture time before you judge it

Furniture that has been in a truck at minus twelve arrives at that temperature. Bring it into a heated room and moisture in the air condenses on the cold surfaces, exactly as it does on a glass of ice water. On a wood or lacquered finish that looks alarming and is not damage.

Let it sit for several hours before you make any judgement about the finish, and wipe standing moisture off rather than letting it pool at a joint or under a leg. Do not put a cold piece directly beside a radiator or a heat register to speed this up; rapid uneven heating is how a panel warps.

Leather is stiffer when cold and softens as it comes up to room temperature. Do not decide you dislike the feel on day one.

Scheduling around the weather

If a storm is forecast for your delivery day, call and move it rather than hoping. A rescheduled delivery in winter usually lands within a few days we usually get you back in within a few days. A delivery attempted in bad conditions risks damage to the item, your floors, and the people carrying it.

Book earlier in the day during winter if you can choose. Roads deteriorate as the day goes on, and an afternoon slot is the first to slip.

We deliver up to 120 km from Halifax and our crews work through these winters every year. Call us if the forecast turns and we will move the slot rather than risk the item or your floors.

delivery information. Related: what to check before you sign the delivery slip and seasonal temperature impact on mattress materials.