Most Published Moving Cube Sheets Are the Same Document

Every moving estimate starts from a cube number, and almost every mover gets that number from a cube sheet: a printed table that says a dining chair is 5 cubic feet and a washing machine is 25. The tables circulate as PDFs, get copied between companies, and end up inside software. Nobody publishes how far apart they are.

So the question was narrow: when two published cube sheets carry a line for the same household item, how often do they publish the same number, and where do the gaps come from?

We collected every moving cube sheet we could download free, transcribed each line by machine rather than by hand, and kept the source attached to every value. 635 readings across 13 sources, on 137 household items.

The rule was written before the results were read: a value counts as settled when three or more sheets agree, and a sheet with a current revision date outranks an undated one. That rule did not move afterwards.

Two lines are treated as the same item only when the sheets describe the same object. Where one sheet grades a line the others keep whole, a range by width or a refrigerator by capacity, each grade is its own item. Merging them would produce a wide disagreement between two different appliances, which is a number that cannot be defended.

The counts below use the 10 real US moving forms only, 552 readings. The other three sources stay in the table with their origin marked and out of the counts: a marketing aggregator whose list is longer than every trade form combined and which contradicts itself on the same page, a British self-storage form that answers a different market, and a single marketing page carrying two lines. Letting the aggregator vote would drown the 9 trade forms.

Every source here is a document on somebody else's website, and those move. Our transcription of each one is published alongside it, so if a source disappears the values stay checkable rather than becoming a claim you have to take on trust. What we publish is the transcription, not the form itself: the numbers are facts, the form belongs to whoever drew it.

Scope, stated plainly: this is what a mover can download free today. That now includes the California maximum-rate tariff, which the state sets and which movers working there answer to, and the weight estimator the US military publishes. The Atlas 400 series is not here: it publishes a conversion rule rather than a per-item table. Our own catalog is excluded too: some of our rows still carry cube from these same sheets with weight never checked against a scale ticket, and a half-checked number on a public page is worse than no number.

The first finding is about provenance, not arithmetic. 6 of the 10 trade forms are reprints of the same "Table of Measurements", carrying the same lines in the same order under different company names. Counted honestly there are 5 independent lineages here, not 9 independent opinions.

That changes what agreement means. Inside one lineage, 73% of shared lines are identical, which is what copying produces. Across lineages, only 64% of items have every source landing on the same number.

One lineage carries legal force. The California maximum-rate tariff sets the table movers in that state answer to, and it does not match the trade table: it runs higher on small portable articles, a bicycle at 10 cubic feet where the trade form prints 7, a tricycle at 5 where the trade form prints 3. The weight estimator the military publishes does the opposite, reprinting the trade table line for line, so it is counted inside that family rather than as a voice of its own.

So when a mover says "the standard cube sheet says 50", the standard is usually one document, reprinted. The apparent consensus in the trade is thinner than it looks.

Copies drift. Within that one family, The Moving Advantage prints a toy chest at 60 cubic feet where 4 of its siblings print 5, and a baby crib at 65 where they print 10. Those are the same form, with the same headings, disagreeing by a factor of 12 and more than 6.

We checked those two against the source page as an image before believing them, because a number that strange is usually a transcription error. It is not: the form really does print them.

The practical version: two movers can quote the same nursery off "the same" cube sheet and be a truckload apart, and neither of them is misusing the form.

Of the 130 items carried by two or more forms, 87 get the same number everywhere and 43 do not. 20 of the disagreements are twofold or worse. Worth separating from that headline: only 8 of those agreements clear the rule we set before looking, which asked for three or more sources and counts a lineage once however many times it has been reprinted. The rest agree, but on thinner evidence than the word settled implies.

That 8 is not a failure of the sheets, it is the lineage finding again: with only 5 independent lineages in circulation, needing three of them to agree is a bar few items can clear. Read the 87 as "nobody who carries this line disagrees" rather than as "the trade has settled it".

The agreements are still the lines that show up on every job, and they are worth trusting: a washing machine at 25 across 9 separate sheets, a dishwasher at 20, a dining chair at 5, a three cushion sofa at 50.

The disagreements cluster where the object is ambiguous. A wardrobe means a piece of bedroom furniture on one sheet and a hanging carton on another. A printer means a desktop machine on one and an office unit on another. The sheets disagree about what the item is before they disagree about the number.

The full item-by-item comparison, every value with the sheet it came from, is on the moving cubic feet chart.

Not one of the 13 carries a bathroom heading. The only bathroom-adjacent lines anywhere are a clothes hamper and a linen closet priced per shelf, and the second of those is closet contents rather than a cabinet.

This matters because a thin bathroom in a software inventory reads like a coverage gap in the software. It is not. The trade convention does not carry bathroom line items, and everything downstream inherits that.

5 publish no revision date. One still carries lines for a VCR and a satellite dish, which places it before the flat-screen era and means anything it says about a television describes a different object. The largest list in the set contradicts itself on the same page, putting a 21 to 41 inch television at 15 and a 50 inch television at 10.

An undated sheet is not a neutral source. It is a snapshot of what households held whenever it was written, and household goods have changed shape since most of these tables were set.

13 sources is what is freely downloadable, not a sample of the trade, and only 10 of them are moving forms. One of those is a single completed inventory rather than a blank form, so its coverage is only what that shipment happened to hold.

83 of the 137 items are carried by four or more sources. 5 have a single published source and carry no agreement claim at all.

The British self-storage form is kept because it is a useful check on whether a number is a trade convention or a physical fact. It reads higher than the US forms on the appliances, a washing machine at 30 against 25, which is the kind of gap that says convention rather than physics.

Numbered cartons are excluded on purpose. A 3.0 carton is 3 cubic feet by definition, so those lines can only ever agree and measure nothing.

This study compares published tables to each other. It weighs nothing, and it says nothing about which sheet is closest to a real truck. That needs scale tickets and it is separate work.

We were sourcing our own item catalog and needed to know which published values were safe to adopt. The three-or-more-agreeing rule came out of that work. Publishing it costs nothing and saves the next estimator the same week of PDF hunting.

The results that went against us are here too. The rule settled fewer items than expected, and a good share of the catalog work turned out to be recording where a number came from rather than changing the number.

Every value in this study is traceable to one of these sources. Each is linked, so the numbers can be checked against the source rather than taken on trust.

1. S1 · Revised 2024-02-14
   State of Alaska DPS Household Goods Move Cube Sheet

   A government form, and the most granular in the set: it grades televisions and refrigerators by size.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

2. S2 · Undated
   Moving and Storage Cube Sheet (formsbank)

   Still carries dead lines (VCR, satellite dish), so it predates flat-screen-era households.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

3. S3 · 2014-07-25
   Olympia Moving / Wheaton World Wide, completed inventory

   A real filled-in inventory rather than a blank form, so its coverage is only what that shipment held.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

4. S4 · Updated 2026-08-12
   trunk.lorea.ai cubic footage guide

   The largest list in the set and the least consistent: it publishes a 21 to 41 inch television at 15 and a 50 inch television at 10.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

5. S5 · 2026
   Safebound room-by-room method

   Two lines overlap anything else in this set.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

6. S6 · Undated, modern
   Guy With a Truck, "The Glove Box" estimating guide

   No dead lines, so it is recent, but it publishes no revision date.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

7. S7 · 2019-07-23
   The Moving Advantage, Table of Measurements

   Carries the nursery, porch and carton sections most published sheets leave out.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

8. S8 · Undated
   Strom Moving, Table of Measurements

   A reprint of the same trade form, with its own office and electronics lines added.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

9. S9 · Undated
   Avatar Relocation, Table of Measurements

   Another reprint of the same form.

   Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

10. S10 · 2016-08
    Stratford Self Store estimating form (United Kingdom)

    A British self-storage form, not a US moving sheet. Included because it is a genuinely independent lineage, and excluded from the headline counts.

    Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

11. S11 · Effective 2023-01-01
    California Maximum Rate Tariff 4, Item 410, Table of Measurement and Estimate

    Set by the California Bureau of Household Goods and Services, and the only source here a mover is legally answerable to. It runs higher than the trade table on small portable articles.

    Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

12. S12 · Undated, current
    US TRANSCOM Defense Personal Property Program weight estimator

    A federal reprint of the trade Table of Measurements, not a separate lineage: it matches that form line for line. Its printed numbers are cubic feet, which the form then multiplies by seven to construct a weight.

    Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

13. S13 · Workbook last saved 2007-08-30
    Golden North Van Lines cube sheet

    A working mover's own spreadsheet, and another reprint of the trade table: it matches the other reprints on 89 to 94% of shared lines. Its drift is its own, printing a floor lamp at 10 where they print 3 and a baby carriage at 3 where they print 4.

    Our capture of this sheet as transcribed, so the values stay checkable if the original moves.

The comparison table lists all 137 items, including the 5 that only one sheet carries. Nothing is averaged. Where two sheets disagree, both numbers are shown, because an average of two tables that describe different objects is not a measurement of anything.

Open the full moving cubic feet chart

• 2026-08-15. Sheets collected and transcribed. 264 values across 10 sheets.
• 2026-08-15. First published.
• 2026-08-25. Three sources added and the counts re-derived: the California maximum-rate tariff, which is an independent lineage, and two reprints of the trade table counted inside that family, the weight estimator the US military publishes and a working mover’s own spreadsheet from Golden North Van Lines. Six state regulator tariffs were read and rejected in the same pass, because they set rates without publishing what an article measures. Two items were also corrected, where a wardrobe carton had been compared against a bedroom wardrobe and a flat-screen carton against a television.

The study will be re-run when a sheet in the set publishes a revision, or when another published sheet turns up. The same date will be shown here and in the page’s structured data.