How to Pack Books for Moving in Malaysia: The 40-Litre Line, Spines, and Why the Box Matters Less Than the Room
Books pack at about half a kilo per litre, so the box that holds them has to stop at roughly 40 litres — every catalogue box above that line is a 30 to 45 kg mistake. A Malaysian guide to packing a bookshelf: how many paperbacks fit in each small carton, the spine-down argument settled by book type, why a bookcase travels empty, what a full IKEA-size shelf weighs, and the humidity rule that matters more than any packing method.
Short answer: books go in small boxes only — nothing bigger than about 40 litres. Packed books run at roughly 0.5 kg per litre, so a 15-litre carton of paperbacks is a comfortable 7–8 kg, a 35-litre one is 17 kg, and the 90-litre “large” box everyone reaches for first is 45 kg of paper that no box bottom and no back should carry. Pack paperbacks standing upright the way they sit on a shelf, lay hardcovers and textbooks flat in stacks of three or four, and never pack any book spine-up. Then — the part no overseas guide mentions — pack the books last, from a room that has had the air-con on, and keep the boxes off the floor and away from the bathroom wall, because in a Malaysian house the thing that damages a boxed book is not the lorry. It’s the fortnight the box spends sealed at 75% humidity before you unpack it.
We’ve quoted the half-a-kilo-a-litre figure in four posts now without ever giving books a guide of their own. Here it is, using the boxes we actually stock in Balakong.
The one number: 0.5 kg per litre
A paperback novel weighs about 200–300 g; a hardcover 450 g to well over a kilo; a school or university textbook often more than a kilo on its own. Pack them edge to edge with no air between them and the load comes out near half a kilo per litre of box. That is a working figure, not a lab measurement — a box of Penguin paperbacks is lighter, a box of Form 5 textbooks and coffee-table books is heavier — but it is close enough to size boxes by.
In how heavy a moving box should be we set the rule: 15–20 kg per box, 25 kg as the ceiling, and the denser the contents, the smaller the box. Run 0.5 kg/L through every carton we sell, volumes computed from the listed dimensions:
| Box | Litres | Full of books (0.5 kg/L) | Roughly how many paperbacks | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bary, once-used, double wall (300 × 200 × 250) | 15 L | ~7.5 kg | 20–25 | Ideal — lift with one hand |
| A4, new (310 × 220 × 220) | 15 L | ~7.5 kg | 20–25 | Ideal |
| Menara, once-used, double wall (430 × 250 × 220) | 24 L | ~12 kg | 35–40 | Ideal |
| Hamee 12, once-used, single wall (340 × 280 × 260) | 25 L | ~12 kg | 35–40 | Good — single wall, so nothing stacked on it |
| A3, new (440 × 310 × 230) | 31 L | ~16 kg | 45–50 | Good |
| FGC, once-used, double wall (430 × 310 × 260) | 35 L | ~17 kg | 50–55 | Good — the best all-round book box |
| Q440, new (440 × 310 × 310) | 42 L | ~21 kg | 60–65 | The line. Fill to 80% and stop |
| Yellow, once-used, double wall (460 × 330 × 310) | 47 L | ~24 kg | 70+ | Over — only if half of it is something soft |
| MR (540 × 400 × 310) | 67 L | ~33 kg | — | No |
| PDC, once-used, double wall (590 × 390 × 390) | 90 L | ~45 kg | — | No |
The paperback counts assume a typical paperback of about 0.6–0.7 litres (roughly 20 × 13 × 2.5 cm); hardcovers are about twice that, so halve the count. The line is 40 litres. Below it, a full box is liftable; above it, you are relying on stopping early, and nobody stops early when there’s space left and a pile of books beside them.
Two other things the table says. First, the once-used double-wall small boxes — Bary, Menara, FGC — are the right build for books, because a dense, hard-edged load is exactly the case for double wall we set out in 3-ply vs 5-ply: the box sits at the bottom of the stack in the lorry and takes the weight of everything on it. Second, they are cheap. A Bary is RM 1.80, an FGC RM 3.00, and both are Grade-A once-used, so a bookshelf’s worth of boxes costs less than one of the books in it.
Upright, flat, or spine down — settled by book type
Every moving guide argues about this, and the answer depends on the book, not the guide.
Paperbacks: upright, spine against the box wall or box bottom. Stand them the way they stand on a shelf, spines all facing one way, packed snug so they hold each other up. This is the same load a shelf puts on them and it’s the position they were bound to live in. If the box is a little too short to stand them, spine down (paper edge up) is acceptable for paperbacks — gravity pushes the pages into the spine rather than away from it.
Hardcovers, textbooks and coffee-table books: flat, in stacks of three or four, largest at the bottom. A heavy book standing upright with a gap beside it slumps and cracks its own hinge; lying flat it is supported over its whole face. Alternate spine direction every book or two so the stack stays level instead of building a wedge. Keep stacks short — a column of eight art books crushes the one at the bottom.
Never spine up. Fore-edge down, spine to the sky, hangs the entire text block off the glue. It is the one position that damages a book quickly, and it is the one people default to because the spines are readable from above. Write the contents on the box instead.
Fill the gaps at the top and sides with something soft — a towel, a folded T-shirt, a strip of 2 mm PE foam — so nothing shifts, and put the flaps down flat. A box of books that can’t move inside itself survives a lorry deck over the Balakong road humps; one with a hand’s width of air at the top arrives with the corners of the top row folded.
Signed books, first editions, a Quran or Bible with a soft cover, anything with gilt edges: wrap it in a sheet of 2 mm foam first, then a flat layer of cardboard on each face if it’s large. That is the same cardboard-sandwich idea as a picture frame, scaled down.
The humidity rule, which matters more than any of the above
Everything so far is what an American or British guide would tell you. This part is not.
Malaysian air runs at 70–90% relative humidity outdoors and 60–70% in a closed room without air-con; higher after rain, higher near a bathroom or an exterior wall. Mould germinates on paper above about 60% sustained and gets aggressive above 70%. Silverfish become active above roughly 75%. Foxing — the rust-brown freckles on the pages of older books — is the residue of the same conditions. A cardboard box is not a barrier to any of this; it soaks up moisture and slows the air, which is the opposite of what you want. Books that are fine on an open shelf can pick up a musty smell inside three weeks in a sealed carton in a store room.
So the packing method matters less than where the box sits and for how long:
- Pack books last, from a room that has had the air-con running. A few hours of air-con pulls the surface moisture out of the paper. Books straight off a shelf on a humid afternoon go into the box damp and stay damp. This is the same reason we said to pack late rather than early: the international 6–8-week packing timeline assumes a dry garage.
- Off the floor, away from the bathroom and exterior walls, in the coolest room. Stage the boxes on a table, a pallet, or a row of the big empty cartons — the same rules as keeping any carton from going soft.
- Do not stretch-film the box shut. Film over a carton traps whatever humidity was inside; it’s the failure mode we described for furniture wrapped straight in film and it’s worse for paper. Tape the box and leave it breathing.
- Unpack the books within days, not months. If books are going into storage rather than a new house, that is a different problem — a plastic crate with a lid and a desiccant pack, in an air-conditioned unit — and cardboard is the wrong container for it.
- A silica-gel sachet per box helps only if the books went in dry. It can’t dry a wet box; it can hold a dry one.
None of this needs a special product. It needs the boxes packed late and left in the right corner.
The bookcase travels empty
A loaded bookcase does not move. Not a little — not at all. Most Malaysian bookshelves are veneered chipboard or MDF (the IKEA Billy and everything that copies it), which racks and splits at the joints the moment it’s tilted with weight in it, and even a solid-wood shelf carried with books on it drops them on the stairs. Empty it, and then:
- Lift out the loose shelves and stack them face to face with a layer of cardboard between; the shelf pins go in a zip bag taped to the inside of the carcass.
- Wrap the carcass the way we described for a wardrobe — pad first, film over the padding, feet left bare — and carry it upright with the back panel supported, because that thin hardboard back is the only thing keeping the box square.
- Glass doors come off and travel as a cardboard sandwich, upright.
It helps to know what you’re emptying. A standard tall bookcase around 80 cm wide and 200 cm high with five shelves gives you roughly four metres of shelf. A metre of packed paperbacks is about 30 litres of actual book, so a full tall bookcase is in the region of 110–130 litres of books, or 55–65 kg — call it four FGC boxes, or seven or eight Bary boxes, per bookcase. A house with three full bookcases is moving close to 200 kg of books. Two things follow: it’s the heaviest single category most homes own after the fridge, and it’s the strongest argument for the next section.
Cull before you box — the Malaysian routes
Every kilo you don’t pack is a kilo nobody carries, and books are the one category where the cull has proper destinations here. At the time of writing the Klang Valley has a monthly KL Book Exchange (a one-for-one swap in Taman Desa), second-hand shops that take donations or buy stock — Books n Bobs in Taman Desa, Buku at KL Eco City — and charity routes like the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Industries stores. School and university textbooks find takers fast in Facebook and Carousell groups the month before term. Check each one’s current terms before you drive over; they change.
What’s left after the cull is what you pack, and it should be less than what was on the shelf.
What one bookcase costs to pack
Prices as listed on the day of writing:
| Item | Qty | Price |
|---|---|---|
| FGC once-used double-wall box, 430 × 310 × 260 | 4 | RM 12.00 |
| Bary once-used double-wall box, 300 × 200 × 250 (for the heavy hardcovers) | 2 | RM 3.60 |
| Clear OPP packing tape 48 mm × 80 m | 1 roll | RM 4.50 |
| Per bookcase | RM 20.10 | |
| Optional: PE foam 2 mm, 1 m × 10 m roll (for the books that matter — one roll does the whole house) | 1 roll | RM 20.00 |
One roll of tape does far more than one bookcase; it’s in the table because a book box needs the bottom taped properly — two strips along the seam and one across, since 17 kg on a single strip of tape is how a box opens on the stairs.
FAQ
What size box should I use for books when moving?
Small — nothing over about 40 litres. Packed books weigh roughly 0.5 kg per litre, so a 15-litre box is 7–8 kg, a 35-litre box is about 17 kg, and a large 90-litre carton would be 45 kg. Once-used double-wall small boxes (around 300 × 200 × 250 mm or 430 × 310 × 260 mm) are the right build for a dense, hard-edged load.
How many books fit in a moving box?
About 20–25 paperbacks in a 15-litre box, 35–40 in a 25-litre box, and 50–55 in a 35-litre box, assuming a typical paperback of around 20 × 13 × 2.5 cm. Halve those figures for hardcovers and textbooks, which are roughly twice the volume and weight.
Should books be packed spine down?
Spine down is acceptable for paperbacks when the box is too short to stand them upright. The best positions are upright like a shelf for paperbacks, and flat in stacks of three or four for hardcovers and heavy books. Never pack books spine up — fore-edge down, spine to the sky — because that hangs the whole text block off the binding glue.
Can I move a bookcase with the books still in it?
No. Chipboard and MDF bookcases — most of what’s sold in Malaysia — rack and split at the joints when tilted with weight in them, and even a solid shelf drops its books on the stairs. Empty it, lift out the loose shelves, bag the shelf pins, pad and film-wrap the carcass, and carry it upright with the back panel supported.
How do I stop books going mouldy in boxes in Malaysia?
Pack them last, from a room that has had the air-con on for a few hours so the paper goes in dry; keep the boxes off the floor, away from the bathroom and exterior walls; tape the box rather than sealing it in stretch film; and unpack within days. Mould on paper starts above about 60% relative humidity and silverfish above 75%, which is an ordinary Malaysian room, so time in the box is the real risk — not the lorry.
Getting the boxes
Every small box in the table — Bary, Menara, FGC, Hamee 12, A4, A3 — is in stock at our yard in Balakong, Selangor, with delivery across Peninsular Malaysia. If you’d rather not count litres, WhatsApp +60 16-891 6381 or use the contact page and tell us how many bookcases you’re emptying; we’ll tell you how many of which box. Delivery and ordering details are on the help page.
Browse carton boxes, PE foam and packing tape.