Moving in the fall in Iowa: September to November
The guide to the best time of year to move covers how to pick a month and why the summer peak and the deep winter are the two ends to avoid. This one assumes the date is already in the fall, or that you are deciding between a fall date and waiting for spring, and works through what each part of the season actually asks of you.
The short version is that fall is the shoulder season for a reason. Demand is off its August peak, the ground is dry and firm for most of it, and the weather that causes real problems has not arrived. The catch is that the season changes character three times, and the last stretch shares more with winter than with September.
Early September is still summer, and the calendar has just cleared
The first two weeks of September in Des Moines regularly run into the high eighties and sometimes above ninety. A crew carrying a sofa down a stairwell in that is doing summer work, and the preparation is the same as August: water in the house, air conditioning left on until the last load, nothing that melts or spoils left in a closed truck, and the heaviest carrying scheduled for the morning.
What has changed is the demand. The Ames move-in is over, the August lease turnover has happened, and the families who wanted to be settled before school started are settled. Dates that would have been contested three weeks earlier open up, including Saturdays, and the same booking that needed six weeks of notice in July can often be placed on shorter notice now.
October is the best month in the year to move here
Highs in the fifties and sixties, dry ground, long enough days, and no competition for the calendar. If you have any freedom at all to choose a date in the fall, choose one in October.
The one thing that changes is the ground under the truck. Fall rain in Iowa arrives in long soaking days rather than the summer's short storms, and a lawn that has been rained on for two days will not hold a loaded truck. If the only way to get close to the door is across grass, plan for the truck to stay on the driveway and for a longer carry, and tell the estimator that so the hours reflect it.
The first freeze usually arrives somewhere in October, and it matters less for the move than people expect. A frost on the morning of the move is a slippery front step and nothing more; it does not stop a crew. It does mean the houseplants and anything else that cannot sit in a cold truck need to ride in the car from this point in the season on.
- Wet leaves on steps and walkways are as slippery as ice; sweep them the morning of
- A soaked lawn will not take a truck; plan the parking for pavement
- Gutters, downspouts and a driveway that drains toward the door all decide where a crew can stand
- Plants, candles, aerosols, medicine and anything else that dislikes a cold or hot truck travel in the car
November is a short-day winter move with better roads
Daylight saving time ends on the first Sunday of November, and from that weekend on the working day gets short fast. By the second half of the month the sun is down before five in Des Moines. A crew unloading in the dark works slower and finds fewer things, so a November move wants an early start and a realistic end time, and if the job runs to a second day that is better decided in advance than at four in the afternoon.
The weather is the wild card. November can be a dry, calm month in the forties and it can also deliver the first real snow. Either way the ground is cold, the days are damp, and the preparation is the winter one: walkways cleared, salt on hand, a path of runners or cardboard through the house, and moisture-sensitive things wrapped. The winter moving guide covers that in detail and it applies from mid-November onward.
What November still has over January is the roads. Snow that falls in November rarely stays, and the plows are not yet working a backlog. A November date is a winter date with most of the winter risk removed.
The dates the fall calendar takes away
Fall has fewer contested dates than summer but it is not empty. The last weekend of September and the last weekend of October are lease turnover dates in the metro and they book like any month end. Thanksgiving week is quiet for moving in theory and awkward in practice, because half the people you need, from the building manager to the utility company, are away. The Saturday of a home game weekend in Ames is worth avoiding for an Ames move.
Halloween is the one date families forget. A move on the thirty-first with children in the house is a move nobody in the house is thinking about.
Whether to move in the fall or wait for spring
If the choice is between October and April, take October. April is wetter, the ground is softer, and the spring demand has already started. If the choice is between late November and April, it is closer, and it comes down to how much the short days and the possibility of snow bother you against what waiting four months costs in rent, in a house sitting empty or in a lease overlap.
For most households the answer is to move when the reason for moving says to, and to prepare for the month it lands in. Fall is a good month to have it land in.