What's actually going on
Copier moves go wrong in predictable places: nobody told the leasing company, the new site has the wrong outlet, and no one wrote down the scan settings before the machine was unplugged.
Every one of those is preventable with a list.
What to do in the next 48 hours
- 1Four weeks out: written notice of the new address to the leasing company and the service provider. Confirm coverage at the new location.
- 2Three weeks out: book the professional deinstall and reinstall. Confirm building access, elevator reservations and loading dock times at both ends.
- 3Two weeks out: verify the electrical requirement for your model and confirm a dedicated circuit is available where the machine will stand.
- 4One week out: export or photograph the address book, scan destinations, SMTP settings and IP configuration. Print the configuration page and keep it.
- 5Move day: final meter reading, machine powered down properly, toner and drum secured by the technician.
- 6First morning: reinstall, new IP, scan destinations rebuilt, test print and test scan-to-email before anyone else needs it.
The honest tradeoffs
- The configuration page export takes ten minutes and saves a half-day of rebuilding scan destinations from memory.
- Booking the deinstall late is the single most common cause of a copier sitting unusable for a week after a move.
Your next step
Questions people ask next
- What should I do before moving a copier?
- Notify the leasing company in writing, book a professional deinstall, verify electrical and network readiness at the new site, print or export the configuration page with the address book and scan destinations, and record the final meter reading before powering down.
- How long does a copier relocation take?
- A single-device move within the same city is usually a half-day job for deinstall, transport and reinstall, plus an hour of network reconfiguration. Multi-device or multi-floor moves should be scheduled across a full day.
More on an office that's moving
- We're moving offices and I have a copier to deal with
- We're relocating and we have a copier. What do we do?
- Our copier stopped working after we changed networks
- Our scan-to-folder and scan-to-email broke
- Our copier's IP address changed and nothing prints
- My copier lease is ending and I don't know what to do
- My lease auto-renewed and I never agreed to it
- I have to return a copier and I don't know the rules