Two to four days door to door on most household moves out of Surrey.
A household move from Surrey to Calgary or Edmonton usually runs two to four days door to door on a truck carrying only your load. One day to load, one long legal driving day, one day to unload, plus a buffer. Driving-distance planners put Surrey to Calgary at about 943 km and 10 hours 41 minutes behind the wheel, and Surrey to Edmonton at about 1,131 km and 13 hours 13 minutes. Load size, mountain weather and the federal driving-hours cap move your date.
Here’s the timeline day by day, the law that decides when the truck stops, and what pushes your date.
The highway is the predictable part of a BC to Alberta move. The load and the unload are where your calendar goes.
Driving-distance planners put the direct run at about 943 km and roughly 10 hours 41 minutes behind the wheel. That’s Trans-Canada Highway 1 east out of Surrey, through Kamloops, over Rogers Pass between Revelstoke and Golden, then past Lake Louise.
The same planner puts Surrey to Edmonton at about 1,131 km and 13 hours 13 minutes of driving. Most mover pages measure from Vancouver instead, which isn’t where your load sits. Route guides running Highway 5 north through Kamloops, then Highway 16, the Yellowhead, through Jasper, put that version at about 1,263 km and closer to 14 hours.
That 13 hours 13 minutes sits right on the federal daily driving cap before a single fuel stop or chain-up. That’s why Edmonton is a two-day drive and Calgary isn’t. A loaded truck on the Coquihalla grades is slower than a car, so treat those numbers as the floor, not the plan.
Canada’s Commercial Vehicle Drivers Hours of Service Regulations, SOR/2005-313, set the clock for every truck on this run. Section 12 says no driver shall drive after accumulating “13 hours of driving time in a day,” or after “14 hours of on-duty time in a day.” Section 13 requires 8 consecutive hours off duty before that driver drives again, section 18 stops the driving clock 16 hours after the driver comes on duty, and section 26 caps a driver at 70 on-duty hours in any 7 days.
The law decides when the truck stops. Not the crew’s mood, not your possession date.
Calgary at roughly 10 hours 40 minutes fits one legal shift with nothing to spare. Edmonton at 12 to 14 hours doesn’t, once you add fuel, a scale and a slowdown in the passes.
Search this question and you’ll get answers between 3 days and 15 days for the same route. Both are honest. They describe two different services.
A dedicated truck carries your load and nothing else. Industry delivery-window guides put those windows at two to five days.
A shared or consolidated load rides with other customers’ cargo while the truck works a stop sequence. The same guides put those windows at seven to fourteen days, some BC movers publish 10 to 15 days on this route, and consolidated dates are rarely guaranteed. One BC company that states plainly it doesn’t consolidate lists one to two days of transit to Calgary.
We run the first one. Our crew drives your load the whole way and unloads it, no subcontractors. That’s why our long distance moving crews in Surrey quote you days and not weeks.
Per the Province of BC, drivers obey winter tire and chain signs from October 1 to April 30, ending March 31 on select highways outside the passes. Commercial vehicles at 11,794 kg LGVWR and above must carry steel link chains on most major highways. The chain-up stretches on this run are Highway 5 over the Coquihalla and Highway 1 from Sicamous to Golden, Rogers Pass included.
Rogers Pass rewrites schedules. Parks Canada runs avalanche control there with the Canadian Armed Forces over a 40 km stretch of Highway 1 holding 135 avalanche paths. Closures “can last from 2 to 8 hours or longer,” per Parks Canada, and traffic gets held in Revelstoke and Golden on the long ones. In March 2026 a closure slated for two days ran four.
So a winter Alberta move gets the buffer written in up front, and the crew checks DriveBC before departure.
We bill on the actual hours worked, in 30-minute increments after the minimum charge, and we break the whole thing down before we start. On an Alberta run the load time, the drive time and the unload time are laid out up front, time and distance both. We don’t quote a flat rate and then find reasons to move it.
Your total is load hours plus drive time plus unload hours, and the drive time barely changes. That’s why we ask about stairs, elevators and parking first.
Two to three days door to door is normal. About 943 km and roughly 10 hours 41 minutes of driving on Highway 1 through Kamloops, Revelstoke and Golden, plus the load and unload days. A loaded truck runs slower than the calculator says.
Usually a day longer than Calgary. Drive planners put Surrey to Edmonton at about 1,131 km and 13 hours 13 minutes, and the Highway 5 to Yellowhead 16 route through Jasper runs closer to 14 hours. That’s already at the 13-hour federal cap, so it becomes two driving days.
No, and no honest mover will promise it. Section 12 of the federal Commercial Vehicle Drivers Hours of Service Regulations caps a driver at 13 hours of driving and 14 hours on duty in a day. Load your place, then drive 10 to 14 hours, and you’re over the limit before the unload starts.
Because the hours at each end are the variable, not the highway. Elevator slots, stairs and long carries add time at a stop, and the driver’s legal hours cap what’s left of the day. We give you a window we can hit, then the crew calls from the road.
Yes. BC winter tire and chain signs are in force October 1 to April 30, and commercial trucks at 11,794 kg and up must carry steel chains on the mountain routes. Chain-ups on the Coquihalla and through Rogers Pass slow a loaded truck, so a winter move gets a buffer day.
Parks Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces run avalanche control over a 40 km stretch of Highway 1 with 135 avalanche paths, and closures can run 2 to 8 hours or longer. In March 2026 one ran four days. We call you the same day and re-plan the unload.
Two dates set your window: the day we load in Surrey, and your possession date in Alberta. Send both and we’ll map the load, the drive and a window you can plan around. Six years running our own crews, rated 5.0 by 370+ Google reviewers.
We answer 24/7 · Local Movers Ltd · 8567 164 St, Surrey, BC V4N 3K4 · (778) 242-2877 · Open Mon-Sun
