A contents pack-out in New Jersey costs about $695 for a single room and $4,000 to $12,000 for a whole house in 2026, plus roughly $150 to $500 a month for climate-controlled storage. When a water, fire or mold job means opening walls and floors, everything you own is either in the way or in danger. We box it, photograph it, number it, store it dry, and bring it back after the paint is cured and the house is clean — not before.
A real person answers 24/7 · photo inventory your adjuster will accept · storage billed monthly, itemized
Licensed & insured · 2,000+ NJ projects · 7 years · a real person answers 24/7
A contents pack-out in New Jersey costs about $695 for a single room and $4,000 to $12,000 for a whole house in 2026, plus roughly $150 to $500 a month for climate-controlled storage. Typical price: $695 – $12K. Licensed & insured, written itemized price before work starts, no deposit, one dedicated crew. Serving all 21 New Jersey counties from Paramus. Call (201) 676-3099 or book a free estimate.
Passports, birth certificates, the deed, the title, insurance papers, medication, laptops and hard drives, jewelry, cash, and the photo albums you'd grab in a fire. Chargers, a few days of clothes, and whatever the pets need. Don't leave those for a pack-out crew, no matter how good the crew is — those things travel with you.
Walk the house with your phone, talking as you go. Open closets, open drawers, open the china cabinet, get the model numbers on the TV and the appliances. Slow pans, good light. That five-minute video is the single most useful thing you can do for your contents claim, and once the boxes are taped you can never make it again.
A real person answers, day or night. Tell us which rooms are affected and whether there's active water, smoke or sewage. We'll tell you what has to come out tonight, what can wait until morning, what should just be thrown out, and whether you need a pack-out at all — sometimes the honest answer is that we move it ten feet and cover it.
A pack-out is taking your belongings out of a house that's about to be torn into. On a water or mold job, the walls come out two feet up and the flooring goes; on a fire job, everything porous has to be cleaned or replaced and the air has to be scrubbed. Furniture pushed to the middle of a room under a drop cloth doesn't survive that, and it makes the crew work around it, which slows the rebuild and raises the price.
The crew wraps furniture, pads the corners, disassembles what needs it, boxes the small things room by room, and loads it. Appliances and electronics get disconnected properly — our plumber pulls the washer and the gas dryer, our electrician handles hardwired pieces. Everything leaves with a number on it and a photo attached to that number.
What doesn't leave: anything contaminated past saving, anything the insurer has agreed to write off, and anything you tell us goes. We photograph and log those too, because a documented disposal is worth money on a contents claim and an undocumented one is worth nothing.
Hard goods — furniture, dishes, tools, metal, glass, sealed wood — clean up well and go to storage. Soft goods after a fire are a different story: clothing, drapes and bedding need specialty textile cleaning with ozone or hydroxyl treatment to get the smoke out, and that goes to a cleaner who does it for a living. It's on its own line and you can decline it item by item.
Some things aren't worth the money to save and we'll say so. Particleboard and laminate furniture that got wet has already swelled and won't come back. Mattresses, pillows and upholstered furniture that sat in Category 3 water are out — no exceptions. Food, opened cosmetics, and medicine that was in a fire or a flood go in the trash. Water-damaged mattresses and pads can grow mold inside the core where nothing reaches.
And sometimes the honest answer is no pack-out at all. One wet ceiling in a den doesn't need your whole house in a warehouse. We'll move it, cover it, and put a plastic wall up — and charge you for an afternoon instead of three months of storage.
Your things come home when the house is ready for them, and that means finished, not almost finished. Framing dry on a meter, drywall done, paint cured, floors in and cleaned, and on a fire job no smell left in the air — because cardboard and fabric will pull that smell right back out of a room and hold it for another year. We'd rather store one more week than pack back into a house that isn't done.
Pack-back is the reverse of the pack-out with the same numbered list: cartons to the rooms they came from, furniture reassembled, beds made up, TVs remounted, appliances reconnected and tested. We walk the inventory with you at the end and you sign off item by item. Anything missing or damaged in our care is on us — that's what the inventory is for.
Based in Paramus, serving all 21 New Jersey counties — 219+ towns. Emergency pack-outs often start the same day in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Essex and Morris; same-day dispatch with an honest arrival window everywhere else. The crew that packs your house is working for the same foreman who's running your rebuild, which is why nothing sits in storage waiting on a phone call.
typical fixed-price range — your exact number goes in writing after a free visit
A single room packed, inventoried and moved out starts at $695 and usually runs $695 – $1.8K. A floor of a house — a finished basement, or three or four rooms — is $2K – $5K. A whole single-family house is $4K – $12K depending on how much is in it and how far it has to travel. Climate-controlled storage runs about $150 to $500 a month depending on volume. Pack-back — bringing it home, unwrapping, placing, reassembling beds and remounting TVs — is typically 50% to 70% of the pack-out price and is quoted at the same time so there's no surprise at the end. Specialty cleaning of smoke-damaged clothing, rugs or electronics goes to a specialist and appears as its own line.
How we beat the big chains: Restoration franchises pack out more than they need to and bill storage by the month until the rebuild they're not doing finally finishes. No franchise fees, no commissioned salesmen, no rented subcontractors — that's typically 15–30% under national-brand quotes for the same or better spec. Bring us any written quote and we'll match the scope line by line.
“One bedroom had a leak and they packed out the entire house. The storage bill ran for nine months.”
“The inventory was a list of forty boxes marked 'misc. household'. My adjuster wouldn't pay a dime on it.”
“They brought everything back before the smell was gone and now my clothes smell like the fire all over again.”
You found a crew that is actually near you. First Call Contracting is based in Paramus, in Bergen County, and our own licensed techs handle pack-out & storage in all 21 New Jersey counties — no call center, no subcontractor sent from two states away. Most of Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex is 15 to 30 minutes from our shop, and emergencies go to the nearest crew, 24/7.
Closest to us: Bergen CountyPassaic CountyHudson CountyEssex CountyMorris CountyUnion CountyAll 21 counties & 219+ towns →
Call (201) 676-3099, text us a photo, or book a free in-home estimate — you get a written price before any work starts.
A single room starts at $695. A finished basement or three or four rooms runs $2,000 to $5,000. A whole single-family house is $4,000 to $12,000. Climate-controlled storage adds about $150 to $500 a month, and pack-back is usually 50% to 70% of the pack-out price. All of it is quoted together up front.
On a covered loss, usually yes — pack-out, storage and pack-back are normal line items on a water or fire claim, and most adjusters expect to see them. Storage is paid while the rebuild is underway, up to your policy limits. The reason pack-outs get denied is almost always a weak inventory, which is why ours is photographed and numbered.
Yes. Call the foreman, tell him the room and roughly what it is, and we pull the carton from the numbered inventory and get it to you — usually within a business day. That's the practical reason for numbering everything instead of taping up generic boxes.
Anything porous that sat in sewage or Category 3 water: mattresses, pillows, upholstered furniture, carpet pad. Particleboard and laminate furniture that swelled. Food, opened cosmetics and medicine from a fire or flood. Smoke-damaged clothing and drapes can usually be saved with specialty textile cleaning — we'll price it so you can decide item by item.
We are. That's the point of photographing condition before anything is wrapped — we know what was already scratched and what wasn't. We're licensed and insured, and anything damaged in our care gets repaired or settled. Irreplaceable items we'd rather you keep with you, and we'll tell you that on day one.
It tracks the rebuild, not the pack-out. A single room after a leak is two to four weeks. A finished basement is four to eight. A fire rebuild can be three to six months. You get a written timeline with the price, a photo update text every workday, and we hold the pack-back until the house is genuinely ready.
If you're anywhere in New Jersey, yes. First Call Contracting is based in Paramus and handles pack-out & storage across all 21 counties with our own licensed crew. Most of Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex is 15 to 30 minutes from our shop, and emergencies are dispatched to the nearest crew 24/7. Call (201) 676-3099 or book a free in-home estimate.
Numbered and photographed · stored dry and billed monthly · packed back into a finished house
Or call Alex direct: (201) 676-3099