What Spokane households ask first
These come up most once someone is nearly ready to book — what our licensing covers, why a flat figure beats a spinning meter, how a baby grand comes down a basement stair, what a downtown building wants on its insurance certificate, and where your boxes wait when a closing slides.
- Owners & foundedDave & Greg Pettinger, 2010
- State permitWUTC HG-64217
- Interstate authorityUSDOT/MC operating authority
- Office2304 N Monroe St, Spokane, WA 99205
- Trucks & crewsCompany-titled trucks, W-2 movers, no brokering
Don’t see yours? Call the Monroe Street office. Sorting a snag out today beats running into it next to a packed truck on move day.
Are you the actual movers, or do you broker the job out?
Yes — Pettinger Family Movers is a licensed, insured, family-owned moving company in Spokane, WA, running our own trucks and crews. Dave and Greg own the trucks outright, the whole crew is paid on our W-2 payroll, and one company holds the WUTC permit, the federal DOT, and the MC authority. We never touch a load board, never auction your job to a subcontractor, and never park a broker in the middle. Book us, and the family and crew at your door collect their wages from this company.
Are your credentials current and active?
Yes, at both the state and federal level. Anything staying inside Washington answers to the Utilities and Transportation Commission, where we carry household-goods permit WUTC HG-64217. Once a state line is crossed, the job runs on USDOT and MC authority, both active. We keep paperwork on file for every credential named here, and the coverage holds without a gap across every phase of the work.
Flat rate or hourly?
Over the phone an hourly number can look like the better deal — then move day lands, the meter starts, and the stairs, the heavy pieces, and the time on the road push the total well past whatever you heard. We run it the other way: one flat figure that takes in the whole job, set before anybody pulls the first box off a shelf. If we misjudge the hours, eating that cost is ours, not yours. For scale, a 2-mover crew runs $120 an hour and a 3-mover crew $165 an hour with a 2-hour minimum, but your move is priced as one flat figure, not a running clock.
Can you store my things if a closing slips?
Of course — and up here it lands on us constantly, since Spokane closings and sale dates almost never click into place together. Your things go into a clean, dry, climate-controlled unit and wait as long as you need, billed by the month from $130 to $340 by unit size, and the moment the new place is set we run the whole load over.
How does valuation work?
There are two levels, and the choice is yours. On interstate work the free default is released-value coverage, paying out 60 cents per pound on any item — fine for sturdy furniture, thin for anything you'd hate to lose. Step up to full-value coverage and the usual cost lands in the one-to-three-percent range against the value you declare; we also carry $1 million in cargo coverage. Tell us what's riding on the truck and we'll steer you to the level that makes sense.
Can a piano come down a basement stair?
That's squarely our lane. The South Hill and the older blocks of Spokane are full of daylight-basement and Craftsman homes built around long, tight staircases, and working furniture down them has been routine for us for years. Brett Lawson takes the specialty work himself — uprights at $400 to $650, baby grands at $750 to $1,200, and gun safes quoted on weight come down a flight on padded boards and rollers under his hands, and across an icy porch without a scratch.
Do you handle gravel driveways, winter weather, and COIs?
We do, and that's exactly the part the cheap outfits leave on your shoulders. A lot of the acreage on Green Bluff, Mead, and Colbert sits at the end of a quarter-mile gravel driveway a 26-footer can't reach, so we run a smaller shuttle truck up and back and stage the load. The schedule bends around hard Inland Northwest winters when snow and ice glaze the driveways and close the Snoqualmie and Fourth of July passes. And in Kendall Yards and downtown, management won't sign off on a move until a Certificate of Insurance is filed — our office files it and reserves the elevator window ahead of time.
When do I pay?
The bill comes due once the last box is set down where it belongs — cash, a check, or a major card all work. Since the figure was put in writing before the truck ever rolled, there's no arithmetic to run while we're parked out front and no surprise total waiting to ambush anyone.
What if I need to cancel?
Closings slip and dates get shuffled all the time; after fifteen years in Spokane, none of it catches us off guard. Tell us as early as you can manage and we'll slide your date with no penalty and no fuss. All we ask in return is a little notice, so the slot you're vacating can go to the next family waiting on the calendar.
Do you own the trucks, and is the crew on your payroll?
Yes on both. The title to every truck parked at our Monroe Street yard reads Pettinger, and each mover wearing our shirt draws a W-2 check from us — we hired them, trained them, and we stand behind them. No one is rounded up off a street corner that morning, and we never slide your job over to some other outfit. Whoever wrote your quote is riding in the truck that rolls up to your door on move day.