Four fields, a quiet inbox, then Bobby’s countersigned figure waiting before the kettle finishes whistling

Wallet untouched · broker pools untouched · the dial stays still unless you tell us to lift it

Whatever you type rolls off the brass-trim thermal beside Ellie at the front desk. Out the side door of that printout it goes — ten feet to Doug, who reads it against the I-91 wall slate (in-town Tuesday and Thursday, long-haul Friday), then to Maggie for a pad-and-anchor count off the climate bay, and finally to Bobby for the wet-ink countersign on Woodland letterhead. Nothing gets dialed. Nothing gets resold. Stop writing back and we stop writing back; the line closes politely.

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The Brainard Road binding flat figure is the single document everyone in the Woodland office and on the trucks works from. Doug Fairbanks writes it. Bobby Whitcomb counter-signs it. The number on the page is the number on move-day — no late add-ons at the back of the driveway, no surprise fuel surcharge, no “the stair turned out harder than we thought.” If Doug didn’t catch it on the walkthrough, that is on Doug, not on you.

What goes into the binding figure

Doug walks every room with a tape, a phone camera, and a question list that runs about thirty items long — doorway widths, stair geometry, casement-window dimensions for upright pianos, building-access constraints, COI requirements at the destination property-management office, parking-permit windows the City of Hartford pulls for narrow West End streets, and the specific antique-furniture pieces that need custom wood crates. The figure includes the truck, the W-2 crew, the fuel and mileage, all tolls on the Northeast corridor route, the pads, the shrink-wrap, the dollies, the e-track straps, the walk-boards, and the binding total on Brainard Road letterhead.

Two ways the walkthrough happens

In-home

Doug drives out to the origin address, walks every room with you, measures the doorways and the stairs, photographs the pieces that need wood crates, and writes the figure on Brainard Road letterhead at the kitchen table or the front parlor. Greater Hartford in-home walkthroughs take forty-five minutes for a one-bedroom and ninety minutes for a five-bedroom Federal estate.

Recorded video

For corporate-transfer clients on the road, for out-of-state heirs handling an Old Wethersfield probate, or for a closing-week schedule that won’t hold an in-home appointment, Doug runs a recorded video walkthrough over the standard videoconference tool of your choice. He talks you through which rooms to show, which doorways to measure, and which pieces to zoom in on. The figure lands by email the same evening.

What you actually need before Doug arrives

A target move-week (a single date is even better). The origin and destination addresses. The largest furniture pieces by approximate name (e.g. “1820s federal-era hutch,” “baby grand,” “1970s upright safe”). Building-access constraints at the destination if known (HOA COI requirements, freight-elevator hours, loading-dock cutoffs). The rest Doug pulls out of you during the walkthrough.

How the deposit works

A $235 deposit holds the truck and the crew slot on the dispatch board. It applies against the binding flat figure, not on top of it. Refundable up to seventy-two hours before the booked move-day. Inside seventy-two hours it holds the slot regardless — because Joey can no longer rebook the dispatch board on that little notice.

The price guide, with no surprises

  • Greater Hartford hourly: $205 per hour for a three-mover Woodland crew with a 26-foot truck.
  • Small flat-rate jobs: from $585 (studio walk-ups and labor-only loads inside the I-291 belt).
  • Northeast corridor long-hauls: from $2,890 (Hartford to Boston, NYC, Providence, Albany, Philadelphia or Washington DC).
  • Piano, safe and heirloom specialty: from $475 (uprights, baby grands, antique gun safes, federal-era hutches).
  • Labor-only U-Haul / PODS loading: $130 per hour for a two-mover Woodland crew.
  • Climate-controlled warehouse: $150 to $330 per month, depending on cubic footage and access frequency.
  • Deposit: $235, applied against the binding total.

Call the Brainard Road desk and Ellie books Doug for the walkthrough — in-home or recorded video, your call. The figure on Brainard Road letterhead is the figure on move-day.

Your slip goes on the Brainard board the minute Ellie pins it, and from that moment Bobby is the voice on your return call — cellar to second-floor bedroom, room by room, before a single digit is signed.

Over the phone, Bobby walks the whole inventory with you — the Steinway B in the parlor, the gun safe under the basement stair, the workshop band saw, the highboy Charles Whitcomb himself built off the dairy-barn lumber in 1947 — and prices the load against the I-91 wall slate. The binding figure is emailed back on Woodland letterhead before Doug locks the office door at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. One desk owns your move from first call through final invoice; nothing is bounced to a broker, a national overflow queue or an after-hours answering service. If a Tuesday goes by with no reply from you, the thread closes there — Ellie picks the phone back up only when you do.

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