Strafford County lies just to the north and west of Portsmouth, an easy push up the Spaulding Turnpike or NH-108 from the Heritage Avenue shop. There is rarely a week we are not somewhere in it, hauling furniture out of an old Dover mill loft, emptying a Durham apartment as UNH flips its leases, or dropping a family into a Rochester street. Before founding Smart Move in 2014, Cole Bennett spent years routing trucks all over the Seacoast, so his W-2 team can tell a freight-elevator mill conversion from a packed Durham triple-decker near campus without thinking twice. Pricing is flat: the number lands on your contract, then the date is yours. One crew handles loading and unloading start to finish, never two.
The county hands us a genuine mix. Dover and Somersworth deliver converted mill lofts, downtown apartments, and single-family homes lining their old brick blocks; Durham runs on UNH, with student and faculty turnover bunching at the open and close of each term, dorms and leases alike; Rochester sends family relocations and downsizing seniors; and the smaller turnpike towns add condos and starter houses. Local rates are $135 hourly with two movers, $175 with three, $225 with four. On a flat quote, a studio comes to $420 to $680 and a two-bedroom to $1,140 to $1,950, packing built into the number. Anything long-distance leaves under our own US DOT and MC authority with $1M in cargo coverage, and when a lease gap or a slipped closing strands you between addresses, climate-controlled storage runs $110 to $280 a month. Winter jobs get extra floor protection and salt-and-slush runners, and we count on a plowed, shoveled path before the truck pulls in.
Crossing town in Dover, clearing a Durham lease at term’s end, or moving into a Rochester house? Request a free estimate. Our trucks, our people, one fair flat figure, and a move that earns the smart-move name.