Transformers (not the toys)

[audette]

For those who have moved overseas and lived with 220V electric...

Have you had any issues running electrical things with transformers? We're working on figuring out what would be worth taking (assuming I get cleared for the overseas move). DH is allowed 50% of his weight allowance for the move, if I'm with him... There is no base housing available, so we'd be looking at places near the base to rent, and that means we'll have 220V supply.

[basilosaurus]

Some locations have transformers available through FMO. And of course if you go during PCS season people are looking to ditch their stuff. You can also order from Amazon once you get there.

I think with 50% though, you can probably still take anything you want. We only had about 30% for Japan, and we were easily within that by only taking some minimal furniture. We took everything else we owned, though.

[meltoine]

Transformers do burn out and when they do, it can wreck whatever is plugged into them. We never plugged in anything really expensive with our transformers, coffee maker, hair dryer, and the like. We got adapters for our laptops because the power cords already had transformers and we bought everything else there.

Ditto Sibil about the weight allowance. We were allowed 50% and didn't even reach half of that because we brought no furniture.

[audette]

I'm trying to decide if I want to try to live for two years without my (small) deepfreeze, hence the question. I really like having a deep freeze, and it's only 7 cu. ft.

Then again, it might be better to get one designed for 220V while we're there. Cheaper, possibly, too, as transformers can chew up electricity...

The landlords in the area typically include x number of transformers in with your rental (x to be negotiated), so we should have some available, even without having to borrow them.

Tech stuff (laptops, etc) we won't fuss too much about, as they just need adaptors.

It's weird. Part of me is wondering if it's really worth storing much of our furniture. 2+ years in non-climate controlled storage, in the PNW, can't be good for it... A lot of our furniture is kinda dated, too. But, then the thought of having to replace it when we return kinda sucks, too, if we were to drastically reduce the amount of furniture we keep...


As for weight allowance, we'll probably be fine once furniture is taken out of the mix, but I'm still pushing to make this move be a bit of a "cleaning out" move, so we can get rid of stuff that has been accumulating over time that we just don't need... I think going over the books alone might noticably drop the weight, to be honest.


DH is pondering if we're stuck with the 50% weight restriction for the move home. I think he's toying with buying some furniture while we are overseas...

[basilosaurus]

We thought about buying furniture. There's a great shop toward the end of Itaewon, absolutely beautiful stuff. We didn't do it in the end, so we didn't look too hard at the rules, but I think the move back is a total weight from all your shipments. We actually had 4 due to 2 non temp storage and us moving from 2 separate places. Even then we didn't come anywhere near max weight.

It may not be stored in PNW. Our stuff after leaving Omaha was stored in CO Springs.

In Japan, it's 100v but 50hz, so everything pretty much works, but clocks are off. So, I didn't bother with a transformer except on our computer. 3 years later, it was still working fine. We also had to get a transformer, provided by fmo, for our stove, also fmo provided. Without it, the stove never came to proper temp.

My Korean rental came completely furnished, and it was within OHA. However, the stove was a 2 burner gas thing with crazy high heat capabilities. No oven. It might be completely different if you're in an area used to renting to Americans.

Moving is the best time to purge. Have fun! We donated boxes and boxes and boxes of books to the library for their fundraising sales.

[audette]

The places we'd be looking at will be used to renting to Americans, thankfully. Most of the listings I've seen so far include an oven (although bets are being placed on the _size_ of those ovens...).

And we'll be able to borrow all our furniture from the base. Apparently this is normal where we are going, and the furniture they loan out is all quite new, as most of their stock was destroyed in flooding a year or two ago. They recommend we bring our own mattresses, but otherwise, we'll be good to go.


I hadn't thought about our stuff being stored somewhere else. I guess it might be cheaper for the army to store this stuff somewhere central, possibly in a LCOL area than here. Interesting.

[basilosaurus]

JPPSO is headquarter in the Springs, so I assume that's why it was sent there. But, you're not AF, so it would be different I assume.

Our loaner furniture was completely serviceable. Everyone's houses may have looked the same, but that was ok. We had art work to make it better

A bed, a couple desks, and a love seat was all we took. We did take all our electronics, which was basically just my stereo components (I don't really count an old 20 in tv as valuable . I didn't want those sitting for who knows how long in who knows what conditions.

If FMO provides the stove and oven like they did in Japan (they provided all appliances), you might get apt sized. Out of all our friends, we were the only ones with a full size. And it was just pure luck that it was available when we arrived.

My dog laid claim to this chair, to give you some idea of what it looked like. I have pics of bedroom and dining furniture, too, somewhere. Boring yet serviceable. Even if it's all new, I'm guessing it's similar.

[audette]

"boring but servicable" Sounds like a decent description. I can deal with that, because, frankly, that's a pretty good description of the furniture we already have...


I think I'm just freaking out about the whole decluttering process that we're trying to initiate prior to this move... It's starting to hit home now that I'm working thru the overseas screening steps (physical this morning, made appt with EFMP folks so they can eyeball me for the day after I get back from my next work trip).


So many things to think about - what to do with DH's truck (we'll be shipping my car), what all is worth storing for two years (because really, if it's not furniture, and we're OK with storing it for two years, is it really worth keeping?), and just a whole lot of little things. A friend of mine calls this type of spastic thinking "gerbiling". It's pretty apt...

[basilosaurus]

There were a lot of things that could keep for 2 years (4 in our case, from back to back overseas tours) that we didn't want to ditch. Boxes with yearbooks and other childhood memories. Some decorations. Apparently a ton of baseball cards that I didn't know we had until I unpacked them in Hawaii... (still mad at how much he has and how they're stored everywhere). Some of our entertaining kitchen stuff which it turned out we could have used.

But, yes, it's mostly furniture that you store. And the stuff that I thought was getting donated but still showed up in Hawaii b/c H let them pack the sectioned off part of the garage.

Oh, and if it freaks you out to do all the decluttering, procrastinate. You'll probably be in a better frame of mind to ditch stuff after you've lived without it for 2 years.

[audette]

I think the hard part about decluttering is that we so rarely have the time together to do it, and each of us is afraid of tossing something the other one wants...

Like the books. Or all the random stuff in the office. Or in the craft room.

Thankfully, for DH, I got rid of all my sportscards before we met. He still has some comic books, but few enough that we might just bring them with us (I can't really say much about the space considering the volume of yarn I'm going to insist comes along with us).

DH is in the field this week. Maybe (around all the other things I need to do this week), I'll try to make some serious headway...

[kpol]

We brought almost everything and still came about 1000lbs under the allowance. I'm happy to have our furniture because it's definitely more comfortable and helps make our place feel homey. We still use some of the loaner furniture, like their bedroom set but we brought our mattress. The loaner ones are pretty hard.

We live on post and even though our place is smaller than previous places, it's very large compared to Korean rentals. I wouldn't bring your deep freeze and I'm not even sure if they will allow it.